Merry Christmas!

Everyone says that Christmas is for the kids, so if that's true, maybe Joe and I should start skipping Christmas. My niece and nephews are all grown, so Christmas for the Knight family isn't the same anymore. In fact, we aren't even getting together to celebrate until Saturday - 2 days after Christmas is over. Joe's nieces and nephews are 1,000 miles away in the frozen tundra that is central Illinois right now, and with only one day off (for Joe anyway), it's not feasible to make that trek - or risk getting stuck. Joe and I - long ago - made a pact not to buy Christmas presents for each other. Our gift is that of travel - a gift that we give each other all year around. (I enjoy it each time we take a fabulous vacation, and then curse it when I have no gift to open on Christmas.)

I believe that in reality, Santa Claus is for kids. Big presents and bows and trees and lights. As an adult, I admittedly enjoy that too, but it's not the same as the wide-eyed expression on a child's face. But Christmas is for everyone because Christmas is about hope, joy, and the birth of Jesus. Christmas is about generosity and love. Christmas is about sharing and family. And all of those things are for the adults, too.

Merry Christmas!!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I got this poem in an e-mail from a Yahoo! group that I'm a member of. It's a group of women who used to crop at Recollections before it, sadly, closed last year. I thought it was so funny, I sent it to my scrapbooking friends, but I guess everyone is too busy with Christmas plans and work. So I'm posting it now along with a picture of why I think it's so funny!!!

Twas the night before Christmas, I'm glued to the tree.
I'm wondering what Santa brought just for me.
Could it be cardstock or chipboard or lace?
Or a Cricut, I said, with a smile on my face.
And that's when I heard him,
"Hi Santa, " I said
"You know....good little girls
Should be in their beds."
"I know I should Santa,
And now I've got caught.
But I was just so excited
To see what you brought."
"Well, let's take a look
In this room where you work. "
He shook his head quickly,
And left with a jerk.
I heard him exclaim
As he put it in gear.
"You've got enough crap,
I'll see you next year!"



Yeah - that really IS my scrapbook area. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Ooohhh...I was good out of the gate...

I lost some momentum quick with my daily travel journal, didn't I? Well...sorry about that! Here's the rest of our Dublin experience:

Day 2:

Did I mention how tough the time change is to Europe? Well…more on that later. For now, I will say that we watched a movie that 2nd night – Armageddon, but I had trouble staying awake and then Joe had trouble staying awake. I got the gist of it and I think Joe decided that he liked it much better 15 years ago, but we managed to mostly stay awake until 8:00 or 8:30. Then we went to sleep and although we both woke up a few times, it was only for a few moments at a time and we slept all the way until 8:45 the next morning!!! This victory, however, would be short-lived.

The sun does shine sometimes in Dublin and it was shining today. So we decided to take advantage and go to the Guinness Storehouse because we knew they had an incredible bar at the top that overlooked the city. We bought a Dublin Pass when we arrived at the airport. The Dublin Pass gets you into lots of attractions for the one price you pay. The bad thing about it is that you have to use it on consecutive days, which would end up kind of biting us later.

The Guinness Storehouse was our 4^th brewery in the beers of the world tour. It was preceded by Heineken, Miller, and Coors. I actually thought it was quite well done – especially the actual brewing part. This one was a self-guided tour. They had a big “bin” of barley so you could see what it looked like and a cool display of hops and then a huge very cool waterfall because, yes, there is water in beer. There was lots of good information about the history of the brewery, too. The highlight of this brewery tour, though, is the Skybar. Up on the 7th floor, you get a 360 degree view of Dublin. We could see all the way to the ocean. We got our free beers and Joe drank his and I drank about 1/3 of mine, because let’s be honest – I don’t care for Guinness. Great story and all, but dark beer is bitter and just not good to me.

Guess which beer is Joe's and which beer is mine:

From the Guinness Storehouse, we headed to Kilmainham Gaol. Gaol is the Gaelic word for jail, and this is an old jail that is no longer in use. This was actually one of our favorite stops of our visit. We got a look at prison conditions before prison reform came around and it was pretty gruesome. We learned more about the potato famine as well. In fact, we learned that the prison population exploded from 700-900 to over 9,000 in 1850. This was due to 2 things – 1) a vagrancy act was passed by Britain that called for the arrest of any person found begging in the streets; but 2) (and more fascinating) people were so hungry during the potato famine that they would commit a crime just to be thrown in jail. Because no matter how bad jail was, at least you were guaranteed 2 meals a day – 2 more than you were getting at home and / or on the streets. The prison housed many political prisoners before it was shut down. Before Ireland gained its freedom from Britain, anyone who protested against Britain was thrown in jail. We actually saw the jail cell of a man who helped lead the revolution – a man that would later become the President and would lead the country for many years, Eamon de Valera. The jail has been used in 3 movies that we plan to add to our Netflix list – Michael Collins, The Italian Job (the original one), and In the Name of the Father.

And now to the sad, sad story of adjusting to the time change. After our day out and about we returned back to our hotel and spent a couple of hours planning our next day and looking a few things up on the free internet. A little before 10:00PM, we turned in. We both fell sound asleep immediately. Only to wake up at midnight. Wide awake – both of us. We talked and commiserated about being awake for 2 hours until Joe fell back asleep. I, however, was not so lucky. I laid there praying for sleep for another 2 hours. At 4:00AM, I turned on the light to read because I thought I might lose my mind just laying there. I thought Joe was asleep enough it wouldn’t bother him – and it didn’t for about 15 seconds. But then he jumped up, squinting at the light. So, I turned the light back off. At 4:15, I took my duvet and pillow into the bathroom and made a pallet on the floor. From there, I read my book for 45 minutes, but the floor was too hard and too cold, so I gave up and went back to bed at 5:00. And then I finally fell asleep. Sigh.

Day 3:

This is kind of where the Dublin Pass burned us. Another sunny day in Dublin and we might have enjoyed a stroll through St. Stephens Green and Merrion Square, but we couldn’t pass up seeing the rest of the places covered by our pass. The parks are free, so today we concentrated on the sights with admission costs, covered by our pass.

Our first stop for the day was Dublin Castle. Dublin Castle was built on the spot of the first Viking fortress. For 700 years the castle was occupied by the British viceroy – who implemented the will of the British royalty in Ireland when Ireland was still part of Great Britain. Today it is used for state functions, including the inauguration of the Irish president every 7 years. This is the room where the ceremony is held:

Our second stop was Christ Church Cathedral. Neither this, nor St. Patrick’s Cathedral was actually recommended by our official "tour guide," Rick Steves. They are both Church of Ireland and he felt that in “Catholic Ireland” the sights felt hollow. However, as they were covered by the Dublin Pass, we checked them out anyway. The Christ Church was particularly interesting because of its underground crypt. It is very extensive and kind of spooky. Christ Church Cathedral is the oldest structure still standing in Dublin.

Not far from Christ Church was St. Patrick’s Cathedral. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and he is celebrated around the world every year on March 17^th – St. Patrick’s Day. St. Patrick’s is the national cathedral of Ireland. It was built in 1192, but the site has always been religious. On his journey through Ireland, St. Patrick is said to have passed through Dublin and baptized converts to Christianity at a holy well on the cathedral grounds. St. Patrick’s was home to one of Dublin’s most famous authors – Jonathan Swift – and he is, in fact buried here.

We decided to make the most of our Dublin Pass by sprinting over to the Dublin Writer’s Museum. This was really just an effort to maximize the Dublin Pass by going to a museum that charged admission. I’m going to have to quote Rick Steves on this one because he had it right on: “No other country so small has produced such a wealth of literature. As interesting to fans of Irish literature as it is boring to those who aren’t, this three-room museum features the lives and works of Dublin’s great writers.” Well…I didn’t know most of them, so I guess boring would be an adequate description.

After all that, we lost 0.55 Euro on the Dublin Pass – I really should have done better research on that one!!!

We walked back down O’Connell Street to the bus stop. O’Connell Street is the main street through the city centre. They had a pretty cool Christmas tree in the middle, which I wanted to photograph. We also checked out the General Post Office building. This one is not just any post office – it was from here that the Proclamation of Irish Independence was read in 1916 and kicked off the Easter Rising. The G.P.O. building itself – kind of an Irish Alamo – was the rebel headquarters and scene of a five-day bloody siege that followed the proclamation. Its pillars remain pockmarked with bullet holes.

With the help of Tylenol PM, I managed to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow would be our last day in the city.

Day 4:

The clouds moved back in and we were greeted with a dreary, misty day. Should I reiterate that buying the Dublin Pass, though great in theory, was probably not our best decision?

We spent today checking out the free museums that the Dublin Pass claimed to cover (I guess it covers special exhibits that cost extra). First, I wanted to head back to the end of O’Connell Street to get some pictures that I missed yesterday. The days are short here – the sun doesn’t rise until almost 9:00AM and sets about 4:30PM. Therefore, I didn’t get a picture of the Dublin Writer’s Museum. But, more than that, I wanted to visit the Garden of Remembrance, which is right across the street, and they were closing it as we arrived yesterday (the parks – including St. Stephen Green – all close at dusk). The Garden of Remembrance honors the victims of the 1916 Rising. It was dedicated in 1966, the 50 year anniversary of the revolt that ultimately led to Irish independence. The Irish flag flies above the park: green for Catholics, orange for Protestants, and white for the hope that they can live together in peace.

We passed through St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral on the way to our next museum. Mass was just getting over as we arrived. This is Dublin’s leading Catholic Church, although it is not a Cathedral like Christ Church and St. Patrick’s are. It was very pretty and very busy and the good Catholic in Joe forbade me from taking photographs or even walking around much because we weren’t appropriately dressed for church in Ireland. So I guess I’ll just note that we were there.

Our next stop was the Chester Beatty Library. Chester Beatty was a rich American mining engineer who retired to Ireland in 1950 and later became Ireland’s first honorary citizen. It’s a small collection with one floor dedicated to the world’s great religions. The other floor is all about the written word, with topics including etching, medieval book binding, and fine old manuscripts. The oldest surviving copy of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is part of the collection. I was skeptical of this museum, but it was highly recommended and we both enjoyed it immensely.

Our final stop was the National Museum: Archaeology and History. I learned here that I’m not that interested in archaeology. I’m interested in what we LEARN from archaeology, but not the artifacts so much themselves. There was a wing dedicated to Viking Dublin, which was the most interesting.

As I walked around Dublin for the last 4 days I thought to myself, Paris has the Mona Lisa; Rome has the Sistine Chapel. Dublin isn’t a city as rich in art or history as a lot of other European cities, but it has a great character. And the people are so fantastically friendly. It made the visit such a great pleasure.

We had another unfortunate sleep night on this last night before our journey was concluded. I did not take Tylenol PM because I was afraid that I wouldn’t make the 6:00AM alarm for our trip to the airport. So, instead, I lay awake for hours. I tried to read, but I woke up Joe again and this time he had trouble going back to sleep. I believe that I finally managed to go to sleep about 3:00AM. At 3:39AM, the fire alarm in our room went off. OMG!!! My heart was POUNDING!!! It only sounded for a few seconds, so I figured it was probably a false alarm, but to be sure I called the front desk. They did confirm that, so we managed to get back to sleep for the couple of hours we had before it was time to get ready for our journey home.

Our flight home was fairly uneventful. We did, fortunately, get business class again on the way home, but we didn’t get to sit together. By the time we reached our house at 9:00PM, we were pretty exhausted, but it was worth it. Another fabulous trip in the books.

Aye...brother...

Take a guess where we are:



Let's see...cloudy, dreary, river through town...I guess that could be a million places, so I'll just say it - DUBLIN!!! It was almost Paris this time...so close, but between the bazillion things I had at work and the millions of things I had at home, I didn't get it planned and researched. And the thing is...I don't do very well without a plan. Dublin was already planned, the flights were WAY more open, and I already knew where to stay, so voila! Here we are.


First I have to say that our flight was quite enjoyable. Other than getting freaked out about the Chicago weather (had to connect through Chicago), it was one of the smoothest vacation experiences we've had non-reving!! We got business class, which is as good as it gets on a 767 and that was fine with us. We left Dallas at 1:00PM on Sunday and arrived here at 9:00AM-ish on Monday. We had quite a long layover, but that was our choice to get to Chicago while the getting was good.


Europe is a tough first day. It's 4:45 in the afternoon and I can't keep Joe awake. And, in fact, I'm blogging to stay awake myself. But, I have found it's the best way for me to operate - try to stay awake as long as possible on that first day to adjust to the time change.


So...we arrived today, made our way into the city to our hotel and started checking things out. Nothing serious - just walking around and getting our bearings. The bridges in the picture above are the Millennium Bridge and the Ha' Penny Bridge (named for the halfpence toll people used to pay to cross it) which cross the River Liffey. We also checked out Henry and Grafton Streets - both shopping meccas and busy, busy, busy right now.


This is Trinity College. It was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I to establish Protestant thinking about God. Today, it is the most prestigious college in Ireland. Originally the student-body was limited to rich, Protestant males. Women were admitted in 1903 and Catholics were given formal permission to attend in the 1970s (although the school actually allowed them much earlier). Today, 50% of the student body are women and 70% are Catholic. Trinity College is also home to the Book of Kells, which was written on vellum (at that time baby calf skin) in the late 8th century by Irish monks. It is an enthusiastically decorated copy of the four gospels written in Latin and is the finest piece of art still in existence from the Dark Ages. Unfortunately, it was not on display today. Sigh. We will try again in a couple of days.


Along central Dublin is a street named O'Connell Street. This street is named after Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator of the Irish Catholics. We learned about him and visited his home when we were in Ireland in April. The statue below is of O'Connell, is in the median of O'Connell street, and was designed by Daniel Foley. I'm sure he must be a long-lost relative.

The spire behind Mr. O'Connell's statue is the Millennium Spire, which was completed in 2003. Taken from Rick Steves, Ireland: "While it trumpets rejuvenation on that side of the river, it's a memorial to nothing and has no real meaning." We've heard that Dubliners call it the tallest waste of 5 million euro in all of Europe. Here are it's nicknames: Stiletto in the Ghetto, the Stiffy on the Liffey, and the Pole in the Hole.

Our quick tour ended in the Temple Bar area which is the town's hot spot - especially (we've heard) in the evenings. We had a late lunch at Gallagher's, a place known for it's boxty. Boxty is a traditional Irish dish (obviously) that we thought we needed to try. It's like a pancake with meat and gravy inside. Very tasty. I had the chicken boxty and Joe had the Gaelic boxty (which is meat with mushrooms). A side of mashed potatoes - and let me tell you no one does potatoes like the Irish - and a couple of beers and we are set! I think the beers may be adding to our inability to stay awake, however.

Not sure which sightseeing adventure we will take on tomorrow, but hopefully we'll be good and rested and ready to go!!!

Oh, and as far as the title...Joe and I are both aware that Desmond (from Lost) is really Scottish, but his trademark "Aye...brother..." has become our motto when in Ireland and our response to every affirmative question!

Are you hungry?: Aye...brother

Do you want to go back to the hotel?: Aye...brother

Are we silly?: Aye...brother...but we're in Dublin, so who cares!!!???!!!

Lots to be thankful for...

Joe and I know that we have a lot to be thankful for.

At the end of October, we flew to Southern California to visit our very good friends, the Zadra's. Since it was Halloween when we arrived, we got to see Kennedy and Brooke in their costumes and the next day, we got to see Disneyland - all decked out for Halloween.

Kennedy is a Candy Corn Witch:


Brooke is a Pink Punk Pirate:


Halloween Disney:


For Thanksgiving, Joe's parents joined us for a little vacation. We've done lots of eating (as usual), but we also saw a few things around town.

Here we are at Ranchman's in Ponder, TX having a Thanksgiving Dinner with my parents.


On Friday we checked out a very cool ice sculpture exhibit at the Gaylord Texan here in Grapevine.



Yesterday we went to the C. R. Smith Musuem. Now, I and Joe have both been to the museum several times as airline employees, but it's always been to work events or some social gathering (once a wedding reception and I went once to see Rick Steves). But, we've never been just to see the museum and that's what we did. We even watched both movies - one of which Joe received a Special Thanks for driving the film crew around on a Friday and Saturday and assisting in the making of the movie.

Today we went to see The Boy in the Striped Pajamas at the movie theatre. This is a movie that was made of a book that Joe, Barb, and I all read. I thought the movie was pretty well done, but I don't know that we would have seen it if we hadn't read the book. Very sad story related to the holocaust.

It's the conclusion of the Thanksgiving weekend and we realize that we have tons to be thankful for...each other, family, friends. We both have jobs, we have a roof over our heads, and we have way too much to eat. We may not be rich in money, but we are rich in blessings and for that, I am especially thankful.

Glacier National Park

When Joe and I got married, we bought tickets on United Airlines. There were a couple of reasons - 1) I wasn't working at American at the time and it was actually cheaper and 2) the routing was better because we got married in Lake Tahoe and honeymooned in Hawaii. (To travel on American, we would have had to come all the way back to Dallas from Reno to get to Hawaii.) So, since we were traveling over 10,000 miles, we both signed up for their frequent flyer program. Joe would have been content to let the miles expire, but I decided we should each get a Chase credit card, earn some free miles and take a free - confirmed - trip. So we did!! And for our free, confirmed trip we picked Kalispell, MT because AA doesn't fly close to there and neither Joe nor I had ever been to Glacier National Park.

We moved around the park during the week and even took a side-trip up to the Canada side of the park - Waterton Lakes. It was a really beautiful week of exploring, boat trips, and hiking.

Our first stop was at the historic Lake McDonald Lodge. We would make this our home for a couple of nights. Unfortunately, I was not able to secure us a room IN the lodge, but instead, we stayed in an extension. I was mildly disappointed, but I must say that the room was clean and comfortable, and we don't spend that much time in our room anyway! It was Lake McDonald where we took our first boat tour - AND we saw a bald Eagle!!! He was quite beautiful!! It was also here we saw evidence of the 2003 Robert Fire and learned a little about the natural cycle of the forest and the eventual benefits of fire.

This is actually the back of Lake McDonald Lodge - the front faces the lake because that's how visitors arrived before they built the road:


Bald Eagle in the tree:


We did a couple of hikes from the Lake McDonald area including the John's Lake Loop Trail and the Avalanche Lake Trail. I was a little nervous when I saw all the signs posted concerning the Bear warnings. I'm not the least bit interested in happening across a bear on a hike!!! We did happen across a deer, which was okay, but scary in a way because we never saw - or heard - him coming. He just appeared!!


At Avalanche Lake:


From Lake McDonald, we headed over to Many Glacier Lodge, which was my favorite lodge during our visit. It was on our way there that we had our first bear sighting - a momma and her 3 cubs. Also during our stay at Many Glacier, we did our favorite excursion - the Red Bus Tour. They picked us up in the morning and we spent all day touring across the Going-to-the-Sun road back to Lake McDonald. It was really fun!!! The day was nice, so we had the top down and Joe was able to enjoy the Going-to-the-Sun Road since he wasn't driving!!!

Many Glacier Lodge:


Momma and her babies:


Red Bus Tour:


At St. Mary's Lake:


From Many Glacier, we headed north to Canada to Waterton Lakes National Park and the Prince of Wales Hotel. We were on the 6th Floor here. Unfortunately, the elevator only went part of the way and was often hard to catch, so we took many, many stairs during our visit!! Still, I enjoyed our little room in the attic - and, in general, liked this hotel although I thought the staff was least friendly here.


We took another boat ride while at Waterton Lakes - of Waterton Lake. The tour actually docks on the other side of the lake, which is in the US at Goat Haunt. And, we did a few hikes in Canada - the Blakiston Falls Trail, the Cameron Lake Trail, Akimina Lake Trail, and Bear's Hump. Bear's Hump was really hard for me, but the reward at the top was spectacular!!!

Cameron Lake from the hiking trail:


From the top of Bear's Hump:


Back to the US, we stopped back at Many Glacier and took our final boat tour - Swiftcurrent Lake and Josephine Lake (2 for the price of 1). You take the boat to the far side of Swiftcurrent Lake, get out, and walk a short trail over to Josephine Lake. At the far side of Josephine Lake, you can get out and hike to Grinnell Lake. This was probably my favorite hike of the week. Grinnell Lake is so beautiful!!! We opted to hike all the way back to Many Glacier instead of taking the boats - it was a nice hike, as well.

Grinnell Lake:


Our last stop was at Two Medicine, but we didn't hike here. It was late in the afternoon and we were on our way to the last of our historic lodges - Glacier Park Lodge.


Overall, we really enjoyed our trip and our week in nature. We saw a lot of different wildlife while we were gone - bears, elk, mountain goat, and big horn sheep - and we thought that was pretty cool. The mountains are absolutely beautiful and we saw a couple of the glaciers that are still left. We have a full week of stuff left on our to-do list and we have, more than happily, added Glacier National Park back to our vacation destination wish list.

Bear:


Elk:


Mountain Goat:


Bighorn Sheep:


Sperry Glacier:


Jackson Glacier:


In the end, we didn't regret our free trip (or rather, free airfare) - AT ALL!!!! We loved every minute of it!!

Endeavour

We made it!!! I consider all shuttle launches historic, but this one could have been particularly historic because it was the last scheduled night launch (the shuttle program is scheduled to end in the year 2010). And it was WAY COOL!!!

The space shuttle Endeavour lifted off at 7:55 PM on Friday, November 14th. We were on a causeway bridge looking toward Kennedy Space Center during the count-down. A few seconds before liftoff, the engines ignited and it looked like an explosion!!! Then it lifted up and away. We saw the rocket launchers fall away and then in just a few seconds, it was off, flying at 17,000 miles an hour toward the international space station.

Part of any trip to Florida is a visit to Joe's aunt Rita. She and Uncle Bob were great hosts and we had a wonderful, relaxing, LONG weekend before coming back to reality. We rounded out our weekend with a trip to the Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday and then the Navy Seal Museum on Sunday.

Chicago and Austin

Joe and I love big travels, but we also like small travels. And during my hiatus from the blog we've taken a couple.

Chicago is easily one of our favorite cities. Of course, we met in Chicago, so there is a lot of sentimental value to it. But, it's also home to Joe's sports teams - the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Bears. He also loves the Bulls and Blackhawks, but the Cubs and the Bears are definitely the tops. Since I moved back to Texas in 2002, we've tried to return at least once a year for a weekend in the Windy City.

This year we returned the first weekend of April for a Cubs game. I couldn't take a day off work for this weekend because I'm an accountant and the beginning of each month means BUSY!!! But after the game we walked around town and took a Lake Michigan boat tour (one it turns out we've done before!). And best of all, we got to return to my old neighborhood and have our favorite pizza while we were there, too! We (I) still have a pretty extensive list of "to-do's" for Chicago, so you can expect to see Chi-town turn up on the blog and the photo site in the future!

A couple of weekends later, we headed down to the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas. Joe had never really been to Austin and since it's my favorite Texas town, I decided it was about time. We started out our weekend in Barton Springs, a natural spring that is about 70 degrees, but feels MUCH cooler. This was the biggest reason we opted to go in August - I mean if you've ever been in Texas in August, you would know how nice it would feel to plunge into COLD water. After Barton Springs, we tried out some Texas BBQ at the County Line, a restaurant that consistently makes the Top 10 of best BBQ restaurants in Texas Highways Magazine.

Sunday morning we woke up and headed to the LBJ Library. Joe and I have another list - all the Presidential Libraries to vist. LBJ is our 3rd, we've previously been to the JFK Library in Boston (2002) and the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA (2007). We're not exactly blazing a trail through these libraries are we?? After the library, we took a tour of the Texas State Capitol. It was quite informative, lots of fun, and FREE.


Other things we marked off the Austin list: (1) Visiting the bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge (unfortunately, this didn't go very well because the weather was a bit dark and dreary and by the time they flew, we couldn't see them!); (2) Lunch at Hut's Hamburgers (again, a restaurant that is consistently on the Top 10 list of best hamburgers in Texas in the Texas Highways Magazine).


So, like Chicago we left many "to-do's" on the Austin list. We'll be visiting this beautiful city again!

WTF

So...I've been noticing a lot of new license plates around town. 3 numbers and then the letters "WTF." Seriously??? Doesn't someone monitor these things? And yet, in the great state of Texas, WTF made it through the sensors. HA!!! It makes me laugh every time.

Tomorrow we are heading to Florida to watch the Space Shuttle launch. Hopefully. There is always the chance of postponement due to weather, but we have 3 days, so hopefully it'll make it during one of those days. Joe has seen it many times throughout the years because his aunt lives close by. So now it's my turn to see a launch. Wish us luck!!

Lists and Tahiti

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love a list. I have lists of lists...what I need to do at home, what I need to do at work, what I need to do this weekend, where I want to travel to, weekend trips I want to take, what books I want to read, what layouts I need to complete. It goes on and on and on. Last weekend I had a quite extensive "to do" list. Sometimes it just feels like I haven't gotten anything done in months and so a new list comes out and that's how I've been feeling lately and that's what I did to compensate. So, now I am accomplishing something on my list - "catch up blog." It's such a satisfying feeling to mark something off!!! Joe was sweet enough to mark something off my list for me - grocery shopping. But, that's a topic for another day.

Now to the good stuff!!! There was a lot of anticipation leading up to our trip to Tahiti, so now I want to talk about that. I didn't take the laptop with me (and I'm way behind), so I will recap:

Adventures in French Polynesia:

Although we debated, we ended up non-reving into JFK for our flight to Papeete. Not wanting to take any chances, we flew up the night before and stayed overnight close to the airport. It was fairly heavenly to sleep late and relax while we waited to catch our flight instead of getting up early and stressing out about whether or not we would make it!!

Our Air Tahiti Nui flight was fairly uneventful, albeit L-O-N-G!!! We were greeted with little "tiare Tahiti" flowers, the national flower of Tahiti, which was a great touch. We left a little late, but other than my usual impatience, that was a non-factor. The food on the flight was AWFUL, just for the record and the seats were pretty uncomfortable. BUT...we were on our way to paradise, so I'll leave my complaints there. Ha!

We spent our first day (2 nights) in Papeete on the island of Tahiti. We stayed at a hotel on the hill across the street from the airport - for convenience (we arrived at midnight) and because we were spending lots of money on resorts on Moorea and Bora Bora, we wanted to save a little money.

Here's our hotel on the hill:

We rented a car to do a circle tour of the island:

We started out our day in Papeete by having lunch at a restaurant called "3 Brasseurs." It's a microbrewery (I believe that "brassuers" means beer instead of bras in French). The guidebook recommended the pizza and it was a very good start.

The island looks a lot like Hawaii. Tahiti is by far the largest island we stayed on all week, but it still only took us a couple of hours to drive all the way around. The waves on the north side crash into the beach like they do in Hawaii, but on the south side there is a barrier reef, so we could see the waves crashing in the distance. Most of the beaches here were black sand, which we found interesting, but overall I would say that if my friends asked my advice, I would recommend hopping on over to the smaller islands and skip Tahiti.

The next day we headed to the island of Moorea where we stayed at the Sheraton Resort in a garden bungalow, and boy was that an upgrade from the Tahiti Airport Motel!!! It turned out to be my favorite resort of the week. We arrived to find this cat on our patio, which I thought was really funny because as we walked by the first time, I wondered if the cat belonged to the people who were staying there.

We spent our first full day at the resort - sunbathing, reading, and doing a little snorkeling:

For dinner we went into town to the Te Hono Ito restaurant. The draw to this restaurant is that it is right on Cook's Bay and they have some resident stingrays that swim around while you eat your dinner. We had the mahi mahi in vanilla sauce. It was very good, but our favorite part of the dinner was dessert (surprise, surprise!!). We had apple pie and ice cream, but it wasn't like traditional American apple pie, it was like an apple frittata. Light and flaky and DELICIOUS!!!

Our second day, we took a 4 x 4 tour. It was good and bad. Our first stop was up this incredible mountain they call “Magic Mountain” for a spectacular view down on the Sheraton (our hotel!) and the Bungalows Resort. It was a bit of a scary ride. Some of the hills were incredibly steep, although most of the road was paved. We were in a small truck – in the back – and our guide, Tom, told us to stand up for an easier ride. He was a great driver, but I almost peed my pants when he had to turn around and go up the last little bit backwards! A short climb and we were on the very top. Excellent views. From that viewpoint, we drove into the center of the island to Belvedere – a lookout point from where you can look down on Cook’s Bay on one side of the mountain and Opunohu Bay on the other. Another beautiful lookout. From there, Joe and I would have been happy to return to our hotel, but our tour had a few more stops. First we stopped at a “temple” where human sacrifices were made. Tom explained how the men were killed outside the area and then taken in through a “door” which was just a low place in the rock. The head was cut off and displayed for respect and then the body was cooked and eaten – yes, the Tahitians were cannibals!!! Only men were sacrificed – never women or children. Next, we went to the agriculture area where we were treated to some jam samples and Joe and I had some pineapple and vanilla bean ice cream. It was so incredibly hot at this point, we both thought we might evaporate, but we took our ice cream to the shade and sucked it up. From there we took a short tour through the pineapple fields and fruit orchards, before making another stop for some fresh fruit and photo ops in the flower fields. Again – HOT!!! Our last stop was a place that makes fruit drinks and alcohol from fruit. We had about 3 samples. The last one was vanilla rum and it was pretty hideous. As usual, Joe and I bought nothing at any of the stops!!!

Here's our 4x4 "tourmobile:"

Joe shows you where the Sheraton is from Magic Moutain:

Here we are at Belvedere:

And now for the "climax" of the trip - Bora Bora. I'm pretty sure that Bora Bora is the favorite of most people who visit French Polynesia - at least the 2 people that I know that have been and myself!!! We stayed at 2 different resorts on Bora Bora - another costs savings initiative - but this time both in overwater bungalows. Our first stop was the Intercontinental Le Moana. They let us check in early, so this time instead of spending the afternoon on the beach, we spent it on the patio of our bungalow!!! It was so awesome!!! It did get really windy while we were at Le Moana and sometimes we could feel our bungalow swaying, which kind of freaked me out. I kept looking at the poles that the bungalow was sitting on to make sure the water level wasn't rising. Ha!!!

Our first night in Bora Bora we had dinner at Le Villa Mahana. This place was frankly a little out of our league, but came highly recommended so we decided to splurge. I had the Mahi Mahi this time in banana curry with mango (or something like that) and Joe had the Catch of the Day, which was snapper. Our dinner came with a salad with that marscapone cheese, which was excellent, and bread. For dessert, we had the chocolate cake, which had a fudge center and ice cream. Yum-my. We really enjoyed the dinner – at least I did. Damien is the chef there and he comes out and personally takes your order. The service was good – especially for the islands.

Our second day started out with us doing nothing. Seemed great, but was admittedly a little difficult for me. I guess I’m used to being on the go, but I tried to relax – I DID!!! We hung out in our bungalow until about 11:30ish, booked an excursion for Saturday, had some lunch, and headed into town for souvenirs and to send postcards. Town was small. We found some souvenir shops, but in all honesty, it wasn't cheaper there like we thought it would be.

The second half of our stay on Bora Bora was spent at the Intercontinental Thalasso. This resort is only a couple of years old and is definitely one of the nicest places we'ver ever stayed.

The bungalows here are called "villas." Here is ours:

The view from our BED!!!:

Mt. Otemanu and the infinity pool at the Intercontinental Thalasso Resort:

One of my favorite shots - from the patio of our villa:

Unfortunately, we had a little bad luck with the weather while at Thalasso. Believe it or not, this is Bora Bora in July 2008:

The day of our anniversary we sucked it up, bad weather and all, and went on the shark / ray feeding tour. Fortunately, the rain held out until we were done – so I guess we were lucky there. The tour was actually good and I was really glad we went. The sharks are black-tipped reef sharks. Not huge, but sharks nonetheless. The guide gets in there and feeds them, then after they are done eating, you are allowed to swim around with them. It was kind of cool, but the weather was creating such chop, it was hard to stay in one place. Our 2nd stop was the Coral Garden, where we were actually given fish to feed the fish. There was a huge moray eel hiding in the coral, but the guides drug it out so we could see it. It was huge. My comment to Joe was that this was the best and the worst snorkeling ever. The best because since we were feeding the fish, they were everywhere. This, of course, would never be allowed in the states because the fish would come to depend on feeding from the tours and would lose their instincts to hunt. The worst because the huge waves made it difficult to concentrate on anything but staying close to the group. Our last stop was the ray feeding. This is in very shallow water. I was a bit nervous at first, but ended up warming up to them in the end. I even gave a couple of them a “kissy, kissy” as requested by our guides. They are somewhat intimidating, with their long, pointy tales, but overall it was a fun excursion.

The shark feeding:

Joe feeding the fish:

The eel looks much smaller in this quick shot I got as I was trying to back away!!!:

For our anniversary dinner, we made reservations at Bloody Mary’s, a fairly famous place in town. To get there, you have to take the shuttle boat over to Le Moana and then be picked up by the van there. Our ride over was a bit terrifying for me (Joe said he was never worried!). The rain was POURING and the waves were crashing over the bow of the boat. The driver had to use his cell phone to light up the compass to make sure he was going in the right direction!!! I was pretty relieved to get to land.

Dinner was fun. You pick it out when you walk in the door. We had an hour and a half until the shuttle back, but the time passed really quickly between drinks, appetizers, dinner, and dessert. The ride on the boat was much more uneventful!!!

So while I was a little disappointed with the weather on our last couple of days in paradise, I was just as disappointed to have to leave. As we walked out of our glorious villa, the sun began to peep through the clouds. Sigh. Back to reality.