Eastern European Holidays!!!!

Since we moved to Ireland we kind of realized deep down that we probably wouldn't be able to afford the money or the time it takes to get home to Alaska for the holidays. When I used my miles to go home in September it took me 24 hours and 4 planes and that is a LOT of time just in traveling ONE WAY and it is so boring!!! :) So since this will be our first year that we won't get to go home for Christmas EVER since we moved away from Alaska over 10 years ago, we decided to take advantage of all the paid holiday days around Christmas and New Years and have an Eastern European Adventure!!!

We are really excited and it's the only thing that makes it a little easier to be away from the Fam and Alaska for the Holidays. Ok a LOT easier, not that we don't love you to pieces of course Fam!!! :) So we just bought the tickets last night and booked our hotels. The itinerary is as follows:

Leave for Hungary on the 24th and spend Christmas in Budapest. We will spend 4 days there touring around and soaking up all the sights. Then we will ride the train to Austria and go to Vienna. I am also very excited about this since I have been to Austria 3 before times and yet never made it to Vienna or Eastern Austria as my family is from Bavaria in Germany, so we always stay on the western side of Austria in the mountains at the German border. So I am very excited and hoping for snow :) Though as a PS they are threatening snow here this weekend in Dublin. Its been chilly here and I would prefer snow to rain and 30's. And in all actuality when we are in Spain on holiday the week before and the weather is threatening upper 60's, maybe I won't be ready for snow :)

Back to the itinerary, we will be in Vienna for 4 days as well as visit Melk which is about an hour away from Vienna. Then we will ride the train to the Czech Republic and be in Prague starting for four days and be there to ring in the New Year!! :) We are so excited and I have always wanted to go to Prague and I am SO SO excited to visit the Mucha museum who I LOVE!!! Plus they will still have their world famous Christmas Market still up for a day or so which should be very festive and fun :)

So that is the the agenda and we are really excited for all the travel in December. Here is a couple of pictures from the last time we were in Austria in September/October 2008. Keep you posted on the Eastern European Holiday adventure!! :)

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Hallstatt, Austria

Hallstatt, Austria

Hallstatt, Austria

Espana!!! Wow, two post in one day you say?? :)

So it looks like I am off to a rigorous start here again with the ol' blog!! :) Let's hope I don't get lost again. :) Well Matty and I are off to Spain on Friday. Yes that's tomorrow afternoon!!! It's come so fast as I only just bought the tickets the day before yesterday!! So I am frantically, ok not TOO frantically since I have written two blog posts today :), but either way trying to plan the trip so that we can see as MUCH as possible in our 10 days without me killing Matthew with my "aggressive" itinerary trips in the process. :) Ok, so I like to experience and see as much as I can while I am places, and I admit it can be a bit exhausting at times, but whats the not-so-charming saying, "you can sleep when you're dead." I just like to make the most of my opportunities be it in life, career, or travel what can I say. I'm an over achiever in that way I guess :)

So far the itinerary looks fab, and we are looking forward to the warmer weather!! Dublin has been a bit windy, cold, and dark reminding us a lot of back home in Alaska so that's kind of fun. But that said, upper 60's sounds really great right about now since that's 30 degrees warmer than it is here :)

So far we are scheduled to fly into Madrid tomorrow the 4th, and fly out of Malaga which is on the south eastern coast of Spain late the 13th back to Dublin. We are planning to see Madrid, Segovia, Toledo, Sevilla, and Cordoba. Then we are up in the air if we will break down and rent a car which we hate driving so we prefer not too, but it will make it easier to see the white-washed hill villages of Ronda, Arcos, Zahara, Grazalema, and one other. And also up for debate. Do we go to Gibraltar to climb the "rock", then on to Tarifa and then so that we can take the boat across the Gibraltar Straight to Tangier, Morocco? And then what about going further north to Granada to see the Alhambra and which ones do we make work? We shall see :) Being that we love to travel I am sure that Hubby and I will be excited on which ever ones we choose :)

On another note, it has been 4 years almost exactly to the day since I was last in Spain when I went over from Milan where I was working at that time. Here is a couple random pics from that last trip when I took a solo trip to Barcelona. Ok guess we will talk to you soon!!! Espana here we cooooommme!!!!!!!! :)

Gaudi's Casa Mila, Barcelona


Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Barcelona, Spain

Gaudi's Casa Batllo, Barcelona

The view from Parc Guell, Barcelona

Oh my.... That didn't take very well did it? :)

So looking back it seems that my last post was in MARCH!!! (So bad) And after a mere 2 posts, I seemed to have been kind of, ok PRETTY, unsuccessful at the blog thing. But I am a dedicated lady and so this is take two. Let's hope it sticks this time :) So it's the first week of December 2009 already and where has this year gone!?! I guess one my new years goal will be get better at updating the Blog so as to keep better in touch with the fam and friends.

So what have we been up to since last March? Well we went on some AMAZING vacations and weekend trips while we lived in Tokyo. Met Matthews Japanese relatives and saw where his grandma grew up in Kobe. (I will try to create some posts to show some snapshots from those adventures soon, there is a link that has a couple of photos Matty put up quickly to his Picasa album.)

Then while we were on vacation in the Yaeyama Islands (Okinawan Prefecture) in Japan for our last vacay week chillin' on deserted beaches on Ishigaki and doing some jungle exploration and hiking through mangrove forests on Iriomote, we found out that Goog offered Matty another manager position in Dublin, Ireland and that we would be moving! :) I still remember when Matty got the call that he was going to Tokyo. We were on a walk in Berchtesgaden, Germany visiting with my Oma and Grandad the fall before and Matty got a call from his boss on his blackberry. So many adventures and amazing memories with my wonderful partner. Love that guy! :)

Well so long story short, in 3 VERY fast action packed weeks we packed up our apartment in Tokyo, flew back to San Francisco where Matty feverishly wrapped up his work projects for San Fran and Tokyo and I feverishly packed up and cleaned our apartment we'd kept there. Then we also tried to fit in friends, restaurants, and favorite places from over the past 10 plus years of living there. So after 3 all nighters of deliriously last-minute packing, sorting, culling, and cleaning, we started our drive up to Alaska stopping briefly along the way to visit friends in Seattle and Portland before riding the ferry 4 days up to Haines, Alaska to then drive another 2 days on to Anchorage, all the while camping on the ferry deck and along the way to Anchorage. Whew! So from SF to Anchorage, 6 long but amazing days. :) Nothing like being in the middle of no where Alaska/Canada with just my boo, our ipod, and GORGEOUS scenery and random moose/animals to keep you company. Bliss really and we loved every minute of it. I would recommend that drive to anyone. Alaska is such an amazingly stunning place.

So then once we got to Anchorage we got matters in order to leave the country again and left our car and our sweet Mr. Amos there, miss him SO much! :( , and flew to our new home in Dublin, Ireland to find an apartment and settle into our new "home". So in 3 weeks, we'd moved essentially 3 times across 3 countries and spent time in 4 countries. Pretty exhausting but an adventure I will never forget with so many wonderful memories. :)

So that puts us to here. Since we have been in Ireland we have been doing a lot of traveling of course and it's so fun to live in Europe again. And this time it's great to have Matty here full time too unlike last time where Matty was working in India and I was working in Milan and he would stop over on his way back from India for 3 weeks and stay with me in my apartment there and work out of the Milan office for a week and then we could travel for 2 weeks together. Also fun, but MUCH more enjoyable for us to be living in the same place together yay!! And we are taking advantage of the travel opportunities for sure since in an hour or two you can be just about anywhere in Euroepe and for les than what it cost me to fly from San Fran to Portland to visit my sis! (Will work on catching up on some more posts for that too :)

Ok, well that pretty much over simplifies what has been going on since my last post in March but you get the gist. :) My goal is now to get caught up and start to post some pictures and things from our past travels since I don't think my fam has even seen any Japan, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China, Tibet, etc.etc. and for SURE not seen any from Ireland or our recent travels to Belgium or Switzerland so I am going to try to get on it! :) Wish me luck and I will leave you with a couple random pics from Ireland, with more to follow of course. :)

OK lets get this started ;) :: Ikebukuro and the Gokoku-Ji Buddhist Temple

All right, so I created my first post on the 11th in hopes that it would motivate me to continue on and I am already slackin'. :) So now I figure I will start working backwards and sharing some of what we have been up to. I think I also finally have my picassa web space problem worked out. We have too many travel photos from over the last 5 years or so! A nice problem to have, so many great memories but those files take up a lot of space. :) Now I have it worked out so I finally can start uploading the Japan pictures to share.

Last Monday I rode the train up and walked around the Ikebukuro neighborhood which is north of Shibuya which is the neighborhood that we live in and where Matthews office is. I came to this neighborhood to go to the Gokoku-ji temple which is a Buddhist temple built by the 5th shogun, Tsunayoshi, as a gift for his mother in 1681. It is one of the few relics of the Edo era.

It was a beautiful sunny day, windy again of course though like usual :) , and I only saw a couple of people while I was there so it was extremely peaceful. I wandered around and admired all of the rich texture, pattern, and the abundant attention to detail. I am always so in awe of all of the patterns and detailing that goes into every aspect of these temples. As well as for everything in Japan for that matter. Every small area of surface be it a tiny wrapper, or even Matthews Visa has some pattern or cute little something on it. I don't have great examples of this in this post but when I post some of the other temples I have been to there are some very good examples.

So after I wandered around and admired the beautiful craftsmanship, I found a sunny bench next to the big Buddha to read my Lonely Planet book to get ideas for what our beach vacation should look like that we are planning for a couple of weeks from now to the most southern part of Japan. More on that later :)

Here are just a few pictures from the temple. Here is the link to my new picassa web album for the remainder. Hope everyone is well!!!! xoxo

Testing 1, 2, 3

All right everyone,

I am finally starting a blogspot to help stay in better touch with all of our friends and family. I am still trying to figure it all out and I am sure it will evolve as I go. So now here's to hoping that I can keep up with the posting!!!! :)

xoxo