HOME from Rome

We are back from Rome. We had a great time. I will work on a proper post in the next day or two. It looks like I have somewhere around 300 pictures to sort through. So it might take a little time.

Sorry that we were unable to call anyone or post to the site during the trip, but it seems that Rome is not the most connected city in the world. We hardly saw an internet cafe except once. And then it was closed because it was Christmas Eve, the Christmas day and finally the day after Christmas all the shops are closed as well.

I have no idea how any of my teams did. We were basically cut off from the standard media outlets and since the TV was only in Italian, we hardly turned it on.

More to follow, but MERRY CHRISTMAS to all!

Chris

Start of trip: ROME

Well, I am sitting in the Shannon Airport. We have about 10 minutes until boarding the wonderful RyanAir plane. We did manage to 'score' priority boarding again. That means that we get on the plane first. Not normally a big deal, but since this is a free seating airline it is HUGE!

RyanAir and Southwest Airlines use the same business plan, no reserved seats. Why they do this I have no idea. It doesn't seem like it would cost them more to have reserved seating. But the fares are really cheap.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the US air travel options if they finally pass that friendly skies bill.

So we drove down to Shannon. It took 1 hour and 45 minutes. About 45 minutes longer than I anticipated. Mainly because in Ireland you have to drive directly through EVERY little town or village on the highway. No freeways. Heck, these wouldn't even qualify as a highway back in the states.

But this means for those of you that are coming to visit, it is easier to fly to Shannon. But not prohibitively so. The drive to Dublin is about 3 hours in good traffic. Can be as bad as five hours at times are the rumors.

My super slow free internet time in the airport departure waiting area is wrapping up so I will leave.

Again, have a good Christmas. If you take the time to read this it is safe to say we are thinking of you as well!

5th Annual Tobin Last Minute Christmas Party

I took a break from my WoW play with Klisch to organize the 5th Annual Tobin Last Minute Christmas Party. For those of you that don't know, I always organize a Christmas party in the week leading up to Christmas. I try to time it so it is midweek and coincides with what is most likely to be everyone's last day in town before they head out to see the family. But after the last Christmas shopping weekend so everyone is pretty much wrapped up and ready to get on with the revelry.

Me preparing the decorations:

Pics from last year's party:

More of an 'after' picture. Seems Porfy was enjoying himself.

Now we normally don't have a gift exchange, but since we missed the 'did not exist in 2006 Annual Sobolewski Christmas Party' we decided a white elephant gift exchange was appropriate to keep traditions alive.

Now this created a dilemma as the rules of the White Elephant Gift Exchange are fuzzy and somewhat dynamic, but the basic premise is that you can change gifts with someone if you like their gift better. But the same gift can not be exchanged more than twice and no one can own a gift twice.

The crew at the party, a somewhat casual affair:

The dilemma is created when you realize that with only two people I could basically get a white elephant gift and then take it for myself.

As I have been wanting one of those Irish hats that all the cool really old Irish dudes wear and Paty is NOT interested in my owning of said hat, this is the PERFECT opportunity to get one.

But in the interest of maintaining matrimonial harmony throughout the holiday season, I resisted the urge. This is what I ended up purchasing, a real hit!

NO, it is not a table runner, but a stylish scarf that could conceivably double as a woolen table runner. On top of that is a friendship ball that is essentially a mouth blown glass ball you hang in your sun exposed window. An Irish thing. Or more like a County Galway thing.

In the true essence of the White Elephant party, Paty regifted me a bottle of wine or three that her coworkers gave her. Good call on her part as most likely I would have drank the wine myself. Plus, she did get me a new bottle of Irish liquor, Bailey's, to replace the one I drank that was supposed to be for her.

All in all, a great night! The champagne, Spanish Cava actually, was really good.

Tomorrow we head out to Rome. Five nights in the 'Eternal City'! Should be great. We plan to see the Pope do Christmas blessing and we are going to an Italian Serie 'A' game on Saturday. We are both really looking forward to one of these events.

I might not be able to post pics from Rome, but I have figured how to remote post text only. So I will try to keep you updated. And there will be a large post with many pictures once we return.............

To those of you that I am not going to talk with over the ensuing week:

HAPPY CHRISTMAS (the Irish version of Merry Christmas)

And for the Non Irish:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!, we miss you all.

The Sports Gods Were Smiling At Me, Sort of......

Loyal readers of this post, thank you to the two of you, will have noted that I was very excited to be able to watch my first live Seahawks game since I came to Ireland on Thursday night.

In addition, the good people at Sky Sports graced me with my first Sonics game as well on Saturday night at 6 pm.

This was like I hit the Chris Tobin sports viewing jackpot! I was really excited to be able to track to of my favorite teams for the first time all year.

But then I watched the games. Sometimes sports is much better in the anticipation than the actual event. Let's just say that it was not my ideal result to see Alex Smith channel his inner Joe Montana for the second half in Seattle. After watching paint dry, er the first half, that was excruciating. When Kelly Herdon missed that sack I almost woke Paty up I was so pissed and wanted to talk to someone. Of course, it was 3:30 in the morning at that time so I wisely relented.

Then the Sonics were on last night, Saturday. We get two NBA games a week, one Monday night and one Saturday night. These are tape delayed so invariably they were from the night before. But since I don't normally know the scores they are pseudo live for me.

Well, Ray Allen was hurt and this was an away game for the Sonics so I knew it would be tough. As the first quarter unfolded, Lebron James and Larry Hughes combined to make their first 14 shots which opened a 20 point lead and that was basically the ball game. It was over before it started. The Sonics showed remarkably little intestinal fortitude. They looked like a team on the fourth of a five game East Coast road trip that was mailing it in. Maybe they were all distracted by the housing market in Oklahoma City.

So the confluence of events that led me to get soooooo excited to watch 'my boys' was a let down to say the least.

And Reading lost 1-2 yesterday at home to Blackburn in another battle of all American goalies to complete the trifecta.

At least the Husky's responded well from their first loss of the season by thumping Portland State, both school's I attended by the way. Speaking of two schools, just for the recond I was firmly cheering for the Huskies. Unlike some of my turncoat family I have no problem cheering for a school's football AND basketball team.

It has recently come to my attention that most of my family was disappointed to see Gonzaga lose to WSU for the first time in forever. So my family that all graduated from WSU, were all cheering for the Zags.

I could say more, but it is Christmas, so I will let it go. Stop picking at the scab Chris.....

Post Updates and Misc....

Well I have been reluctant to put this on the blog because I didn't want to jinx it, but it has been four days with no problems so my confidence is edging up. Thus: WE NOW HAVE WORKING INTERNET IN THE APARTMENT!

Thank you Eircom DSL!!!!!!!!! I got it hooked up on Monday AM and have not had a glitch yet. Of course that being said I am now doomed.

I have also upgraded the blog host to a new version of blogger. You might not notice, but this is what gave me the options for more boxes around the main part of the blog. Not ideal, but it is getting better. I am starting to kick around the idea of getting an actual website.

One of the things that the upgrade has let me do is label all posts. So I have decided to create two labels. The first is Travels. This is self explanatory, but I will explain it nevertheless. This is where I am going to group all our posts that deal with places we go and pictures of said places. The second label is called 'Life of Chris'. This will be the more mundane, although sometimes entertaining, posts that deal with what I am doing here in Galway and elsewhere. This is where I will try and apply all my wit and sarcasm to make the blog interesting. Yes, for those of you that didn't notice, that is what I have been TRYING to do. Judging by the amount of comments, it hasn't been that successful. But anecdotal evidence suggests that I might be doing a decent job.

One of the things I have been continually asked, by everyone including my wife, is what I do with my day. To be honest with you, the transition has been made less difficult with my training as an account rep at hertz. The two situations are not as disparate as you might first imagine.

To kill my day, I have been running most every day. That is until Monday when I hurt my foot. Don't fret, this is not a recurrence of the plantar fasciitis but a new injury. What it is I don't know. But it has had me shelved for the last two days. My right ankle/outside of foot is swelled up and bruised. It does feel better today, so I am going to give football training (Irish for soccer practice) a go tonight.

One of the reasons I have been running everyday, besides the boredom, is that I have pretty much mentally committed myself to doing this:
Prague

After clicking on link, you will see the website for the Prague half marathon on March 24th. What a good birthday present to myself! Do the half marathon and then replenish those calories over the next three days with Pilsner Urquell.

I also just picked up a copy of World of Warcraft, WOW for those in the know. I can already tell that this game is really going to help me pass the time. I highly recommend the game if you have vast amounts of time on your hands. For instance, you are alone in a foreign country, a college student or an account manager. It is a highly addictive game that is played online with 'millions' of other people around the world. I finally got my copy of the game downloaded, updated and logged in online last night at about 1 AM. I then looked up and it was somehow 4 AM.

But don't fret about the late night, I was just training for tonight's activities:

SEAHAWKS ARE ON LIVE TV in Galway! Kickoff at 1 AM!

I am very pumped about this as you can imagine. We need this game to not only clinch the division, but to earmark the start of our 7 game unbeaten run to the Super Bowl title.

Friday we have Paty's Galway Christmas party. Apparently it is in a castle, so it should be cool. If not a little cold and drafty as well.

No plans for the rest of the weekend, but a week from today we will be heading to Rome for Christmas. Five nights in the 'eternal city' should be a good trip. Rest assured there will be a Rome post or two.

Planes, Trains and Taxi's

In the last post you were informed about the first leg of our trip. We pick the story up there.

Friday AM we had to get a 5:30 AM cab to Dublin airport. And as I expected it was only 13 Euros, thus confirming that we got ripped off the night before.

This morning we were flying Aer Lingus. Now, the last thing you want to hear when you have woken up at 5 AM for a flight is that the flight is delayed, but yes that is what happened. So our 6:50 AM flight became an 8 AM flight. But don't worry, we were able to board at 7 and then sit on the tarmac with a full plane for 45 minutes. Good times.

Finally we arrived in Brussels. Paty took a cab directly to work, while I being the veteran of Brussels took the train to town and then walked to the hotel. There is something nice about travelling to a city that you know well. You don't have to find the hotel or figure out how to get from the airport to town or any of the normal stresses that come with travelling to a new city. It is nice to just know exactly where you are going.

This was my first time in Brussels since we moved to Galway. And one of the first things that struck me was that Brussels is that I really liked Brussels. Both Paty and I felt this way upon returning. It was really fun. And since it was the Christmas season, Brussels was all dressed up! And they had Christmas Markets:


Christmas Markets are a German thing. Every city in Europe seems to have at least one main square. In that main square all over Germany ever town sets up a Christmas market during December. The Christmas markets sell a lot of gifts and also have food. Also, they all sell the Gluwein. This is the hot mulled wine. It is not a delicacy or anything, it is just really good to have the hot wine when it is cold outside.

Part of this Christmas market is they had this very large inflatable lizard:


I think it was for the kids, they could go inside of it and it was a type of 'fun house'. This must be a Belgian tradition as the German markets most definitely do not have large inflatable lizards. Our hotel in the background. Interestingly enough, they built the hotel around an old Roman tower.

This is the view from our hotel room, next to the Saint Catherine's Cathedral and the Christmas market:

Friday night we stayed in Brussels. We were able to peruse the Christmas markets together and also we were able to revisit our favorite restaurant in Brussels, la canevra.
Brussels being Brussels, they had to add their own gourmet touch to the Christmas market idea:


Yes, that is an oyster stand in the first picture and below is a stand selling cured sausages. Other unique stands were a cheese stand and a foie gras stand. Both were very impressive if you like good food.

The Grand Place was also decorated, no Christmas Market but they had a nativity scene with real animals, a light show and a really large Christmas tree:



After dinner we partook of a couple (few) of the Belgian 'delicacies':


Saturday morning it was off to Antwerp and more Christmas markets!

This market is in the plaza outside the largest Gothic cathedral in the low countries. It was an impressive cathedral, here is picture of the vaulted ceiling from inside:

After the horrid weather we have been experiencing in Galway, Antwerp was a delight. We lucked out with an absolutely beautiful day. We decided to take advantage of this by killing some time at an outdoor cafe. I was able to wear only my Rugby shirt it was so nice:

I had never been to Antwerp before and was really impressed. All I knew about Antwerp was the diamond connection, but it is actually a really nice city. It is a lot like Brussels, but smaller. Kind of like a Brussels light. Except in Brussels they speak French, in Antwerp they speak Dutch or Flemish. But it is only 45 minutes on the train, so they are relatively close. We were told that a lot of Dutch came to Antwerp to shop, that was apparent with the number of people on the main shopping street:

Paty enjoying the Gluwein:

This market was a smaller one that was food and drinks only. They were open very late. And to keep you warm they employed these coal stoked fire pits:

Needless to say, they worked very well.

Saturday night was the Christmas party. It was really fun. Met at the lobby at 6:30 PM for drinks. Then off to the dinner portion. It was a five course dinner that was based around a cabaret style show. While the show left something to be desired, the food was good. What made the show better is it garnered a 7 out of 10 in the unintentional comedy scale. And we had the entire balcony all to ourselves. All the drinks, food and the Saturday night hotel room were paid for by the company. This was a little more extravagant than what I was used to at my former place of employment: 'here is your $25 gift certificate to Safeway, enjoy!'

I think I like the Euro Christmas party better.

Sunday we had to get back to Galway from Antwerp. Not exactly a hub to hub journey. First we caught a train to Brussels. Then switched trains in Brussels to Charleoi. We were flying Ryanair on this leg of the journey, of course they do not go to the regular Brussels airport, but the Charleoi airport. Forty minutes from Brussels to Charleoi, then a bus from downtown Charleoi to the airport took about 10 minutes. We flew from Charleoi to Shannon. In Shannon we were picked up by a car for the 60 minute drive home.

All in all it was a fun and busy weekend. Paty really enjoyed meeting up with her Benelux colleagues at the Christmas party.

The saga begins

Okay, so the weekend trip to Antwerp via Brussels and Dublin didn't really start out the best.

First off, we take a plane to Dublin from Galway. This is a pretty small plane. And there happens to be a virtually constant windstorm in Western, if not all of, Ireland. The plane wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best.

So we get to Dublin and go to the parking lot to find the shuttle to our hotel. The "Days Hotel Dublin Airport". Remember this name and particularly the location moniker. We find the hotel shuttle area and start to wait for the shuttle. Luckily we decide to call the hotel to verify the existence in said shuttle. They say 'no, we don't have a shuttle you have to take a cab'. Alright, this is an airport hotel, how far can it be?

Well, 25 Euros and a 15 minute taxi ride later in addition to the 20 minute taxi queue we made it to the hotel. Obviously I was now not pleased since we passed any number of actual airport hotels. Calling the Days Inn an 'airport hotel' would be like calling the Newcastle Motor Inn a Seatac Airport hotel. While it might be close, it isn't. And you drive by 20 other places on the way.

But this is not the worst, as when I inquired at the front desk the taxi ride should have been around 15 Euros. Our taxi was one of these taxi's that did not prominently, if at all, display the meter. This has not happened to us since our days in Mexico. But yes, we got worked.

Of course I did ask for a receipt. After fumbling around in the front seat for about 30 seconds, the cab driver said he was out of receipts and could he just write the total on the back of his business card. What choice did I have?

Needless to say, the trip hasn't started to well. As for the Days Inn, the hotel is actually nice when you take the location out of the equation. I also walked/jogged about one mile to the closest store in order to buy a bottle of wine for tonight. This was the surprise of the night. I bought a single vineyard Aussie wine. Nothing surprising here, except the grape was 'Durif'. I had never heard of it and wanted to try it. I got the wine home after another mile walk in the driving rain tempered by 50 mph winds and the bottle was fabulous! It totally turned around my night.

Now we are getting ready for bed since we have to catch another, hopefully cheaper, cab at 5:30 AM. We are watching my DVD of West Wing Season 2. We have started over on the series and are watching them again. This is really a good show, I highly recommend it.

As for the durif grape, I googled it and it turns out that the grape is what the Californians call Petite Sirah. Not to be confused with Syrah or Shyraz, this is a unique grape. But the kicker is that some of the best wine for the dollar bottles that we have had from Napa Valley and all of California are Petite Sirah's. I had no idea it was grown anywhere else.

My research:
Durif grape info
http://www.psiloveyou.org/

Let's hope that tomorrow brings a better travel experience.

Due to a little internal Tobin squabble, this post will be corrected for Grammar by new Grammar editor, Michael D. Tobin

Christmas Tree Decision

Okay, so we decided this year not to get a Christmas Tree. It really wasn't that hard of a decision. Mainly because until yesterday I did not see any Christmas Tree stands. But do not despair for the people of Galway. You can get a fake tree at many retail outlets. Besides if we bought a tree then we would have to get a stand, some ornaments and lights. And there is no way we would be able to get this stuff home, so it would have been a money pit. Besides we are confirmed for Rome for Christmas now. We are spending 5 nights in Rome, from the 21st-26th.

Yesterday I found the first Christmas Tree stand. Well not really a stand, they pretty much took over the sidewalk of a bridge that is near my house:


Our solution:

These are basically a paper mache type tree. Cool decorations. And we will most likely be able to get these home somehow.

On another note, we got our first Christmas card in Galway yesterday! I wasn't even sure if our post worked as we go weeks without mail.

The big "1st card winner" is Vince Cheng. Yes, that Vince from Mountain View to those of you curious. We got back in touch because I play fantasy sports with Dave Sobolewski's brother in law Matt Ronayne. Matt married Cathy Sobolewski who has Vince on her myspace page. Small world. On another note, I never took Vince for the guy that sends his Christmas cards out right after Thanksgiving. I guess people change.

All for now, we are heading to Antwerp this weekend. Our itinerary:
Tonight, Thursday, Dublin airport hotel
Friday, 6:50 am flight to Brussels. Stay at Brussels hotel
Saturday am, train to Antwerp, tour Antwerp while attempting to keep Paty away from diamond shops, then Christmas party with a bunch of people speaking Dutch and hotel provided.
Sunday, train back to Brussels, catch 6 PM flight to Shannon. Then home.

Should be fun!

Weekend Plans

I might have mentioned that we are planning on spending the weekend in Dublin. We have been in Ireland for a little over two months now and have not seen Dublin (except the airport). So we were planning on doing the December shopping/sightseeing/Christmas Spirit trip to Dublin. We were going to take the train. It is 40 Euros r/t and drops you off in downtown Dublin.

Now you might notice the change of tense in the middle of that paragraph. We have had a little change of plans that is going to radically change our weekend plans.

As a little background, back in September Paty was invited to the Attachmate (her company) BENELUX Christmas party to be held in Antwerp this Saturday. We talked about going, but there is really no way to get to Antwerp from Galway in an efficient manner.

Paty did really want to go to this party as this is the group of people she worked with for the first assignment. And she established some strong ties over that time.

So we inquired if there was still room for us at the party. It turns out that, yes in fact there is room for Paty plus one (your blog author). They had to pull some strings to get us a hotel room and a spot at the dinner but we are in. So at 2:09 PM the Benelux people e-mail Paty that all the arrangements are taken care of and we are in.

So at 3:40 PM TODAY I get a phone call from Paty that we need to finalize the travel plans to get to Antwerp on Saturday.

Needless to say, this was my task after the late afternoon phone call. I immediately packed up the laptop and headed to a good wifi zone, Fibbers. It turns out that there are a few cost effective options.

Ryanair goes to Brussels on Friday and returns Sunday, but the flight out is pretty full and thus too expensive. Plus we would need to book a hotel for Friday and a way to get from the random Brussels airport that Ryanair flies into to Antwerp. Antwerp might be the diamond capital of the world, but it is not exactly a travel hub. We can train from Brussels pretty easy, but the airport that Ryanair flies in to is also not a travel hub. In addition, Paty is pretty busy at work right now so taking Friday off on short notice is not the best idea.

As of now, the best option I found would be to leave tomorrow from Shannon and fly to Paris. Rent a car in Paris and drive to Antwerp over the next two days. It is only 200 miles and the roads are much better than what passes for a road here in Ireland (this is another blog post someday, the roads in Ireland are a total joke! Going anywhere via car is an adventure). The problem with this is the same as the other options. Paty probably can't take half of Thursday and all of Friday off with zero notice.

I will update this space when we figure out how we are going to get to Antwerp. It is not like I have anything to do that is keeping me here so we have options. Although we were going to our first Rugby game on Friday night as the Galway team, Connacht, takes on a French team, Montpellier, in what is allegedly a big European match. It looks like I am now going to miss my first live Rugby match.

post script #1, Paty got permission to work from Brussels either Friday or Monday to make this work, so it is looking more and more like we are going. Although she is balking at the fly to Paris and rent a car option.

post script #2, It looks like we are going. We are flying to Dublin Thursday at 5:15 PM. We are staying at a hotel at the Dublin airport for the night. Then we fly out at 6:50 AM to Brussels. Paty will work on Friday from her old Brussels office. We will stay the night in Brussels. Because we haven't stayed enough nights in Brussels yet. But I am looking forward to the Italian dinner on Friday. This place has the best Truffle ravioli ever made! Then Saturday AM to Antwerp on the train. Paty's company is including the hotel on Saturday night as that comes with the party and they don't want anyone to drink drive. Sunday it is back to Brussels and a 6 PM flight to Shannon airport. Get a cab/car to Galway and we are back home. The good news is I get to see Antwerp, as I haven't seen it yet. The better news is we have just enough time to explore Antwerp, but not enough time for Paty to go diamond shopping! I imagine that there will be some user generated content from the weekend in this space early next week...

On a totally unrelated note, I was flipping through the channels and found Villanova versus Oklahoma live on TV. My first college hoops game of the year! It must be an ESPN production because Rick Majerus is on the call. This is one of the things I miss.

Big road game for the Dawgs this weekend. I did find a way to listen to the Huskies v Zags game live on the radio. But despite my best efforts I have not found a way to watch the game.

Clifden

We decided to take a quick one night trip to Clifden this weekend. Everyone keeps saying we need to see Conemara. Since we haven’t been able to figure out what Conemara is or why we needed to see it, we took it upon ourselves to drive there. Apparently Conemara is the area directly west of Galway. It is kind of an Irish national park. There is what passes for a mountain range in Ireland there. And lots of outdoor activities such as hiking and fishing.

Clifden is the largest village along the coast in the Conemara region. It is kind of a gateway to Conemara or a place you would base your excursions from if you were planning on spending time in Conemara.

Clifden is only about 55 miles from Galway. But this being Ireland, that meant a 1.5-2 hour drive. Although the scenery is thoroughly Irish and genuinely scenic:


But remember that sheep have the right of way on the road:



The town, more like village, of Clifden is dominated by two churches that are on the hills above town:


Also there is a salt water bay as the Atlantic is right around the corner of this inlet:

Downtown Clifden, one of the two streets through town:

The vaunted Clifden Christmas Market, at least three different vendors:

And Ice skating rink:

For only 16 Euros for an adult or 12 Euros for a child, you to could skate around this 30x20 foot oval! Doesn’t seem to be a good value to me.
Our guesthouse:

The Dun Ri, was nice. And for only 70 Euros, unlike the ice skating, it was a good value. I would stay there again if for some unforeseen reason we had to stay in Clifden again.

As there was not much to do in Clifden and we also seemed to be visiting during a typhoon, we ended up here:

Typical Irish pub, really the only thing to do in town.

Overnight the typhoon intensified and this was the view from our hotel in the morning:

Last night there were many sheep grazing around what was an upright gazebo. I am assuming the sheep took cover and were not blown away. The gazebo on the other hand did not fair as well.

The drive home was an adventure as we had to ford the road in a few spots:

But the Nissan Micra made it. Barely. There were 120-150 kph winds. This is 75-94 miles per hour, so pretty serious. I was kind of surprised that the road didn’t get flooded more times than it did.

Overall Clifden was nice. It is very small and very quiet. I think that it would be worth a visit in the summer when more is going on and there are more things to do. My lasting impression is the best I can compare the feeling of the city is to Bend, Oregon. Not the new big Bend, but the downtown core maybe 35 years ago when Bachelor was just one chair lift. There are many cool pubs in Clifden and the one thing we noticed is there were at least three really good outdoors themed stores. More Northface and Gortex on sale in this little village with only two roads (both one way) than in all of Galway.

BIG DAY!

Today is a big day, Paty is going to drive home from work solo. As usual, I dropped her off at work this morning. Then around 1 PM I went back to her office and dropped off the car. I then proceeded to jog home. It is only a little over 5 miles.

I was nervous for her, but she had driven home three times lately after I picked her up at the office. And the last time I didn't even have to grab the steering wheel from the passenger side once!

Since Paty is driving home, I decided to walk downtown and take some pictures of the Christmas decorations in Galway. Then I am going to Fibber's. This is the bar that offers free wi fi to go along with 3 Euro pints of Guinness.

Pictures up and down Quay Street:


Even in an extremely predominant Catholic country, we still have the generic 'Season's Greetings' moniker in the public square. I am telling you, political correctness can be taken too far at times:

Eyre Square, the big square in Galway was all lit up and looked great. Yes, that is a new Genie S-65 for those of you that know about these things:

My sports pub with wi fi:


post script: Paty made it home fine. I was a little worried about the parking situation. The entrance to our garage is very tight. Our Nissan Micra, a very small car, has about 3 inches of clearance on each side of the mirrors. But she made it. A new way of life has now opened up in the Tobin Irish experience; Mid day pubbing!

Tonight is more soccer training and then possibly pints with the lads. Also I get the NFL game between Cincy and Baltimore live at 1 AM. I am pumped about that. As long as I survive the training. While you are all dealing with snow and ice, we have 80 kph winds and rain. I am not quite sure if it is raining really hard or the rain in the air just never hits the ground because of all the wind.

Thanksgiving weekend in Galway

First the internet update. Today we called to cancel NTL, the cable modem. We ordered Eircom DSL. Eircom will not be ready to install until December 11th. My rudimentary calendar skills tells me that I have two more weeks of surfing the net from Mocha Beans.

I went for a run again today, while I am not Steve Prefontaine, I am getting into the routine of exercising some again. This is good as I was getting pretty fat. I am still fat, but now I am a fat guy running 4.5 miles a day in 36 minutes. A smoking 8 minute mile average.

Ironically enough, when I got back from my run, for the first time in over two weeks the internet is working again. I am not going to be cynical and ask this has any correlation that we cancelled the service today? No matter, it takes a few days to cancel and the internet is not working well at all. I can’t surf, but I can check my e-mail at the flying speed of one e-mail loaded per minute or so. Anything is an improvement.

We now have a home phone. Feel free to call us. I talked to a few of you over Thanksgiving. Happy belated Thanksgiving. Paty went to see the new James Bond and I went to footy training. Afterwards we met up with some of the lads from the soccer and a few of Paty’s work people that went to the movie at a pub. I thought it was a coincidence that both our parties were going to the same pub, but apparently these very disparate groups all know each other. The bar we were at had a Thanksgiving dinner plate they were serving!

It was really good, moist turkey breast, dry stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and very good cranberry sauce. And it was free! Well not free, it was for a charity so you gave a donation to some cause in for the food. I was very happy to donate 20 Euros for our dinners!

An Irish Thanksgiving wouldn’t be complete without the prerequisite Guinness!

The rest of the weekend we took it pretty easy. Friday night we went to see Borat. Predictably, I liked it and Paty was not thrilled. I think she was okay with it until the scene where Borat and his producer wrestle in the hotel. If you have seen the movie then this scene is indelibly burned into your memory banks whether you like it or not. If you haven’t seen the movie then I won’t ‘ruin’ the surprise. Quote of the night overheard on the way out of the theater “Is Kazakhstan a real country?”

On the way home we decided to stop for a drink. We stopped at a bar called ‘The Living Room’ that is really close to our place. This is the bar that was pictured in this space a little over a month ago with all the kegs out front. It turned out to be a pretty cool bar. There were three levels, the third of which is like a loft overlooking the second level. More importantly this third level included our favorite bar pastime.....FOOSBALL!

Us playing Paty’s coworkers tattooed friends:

Deserved celebration after the victory:

We ended up staying at this bar until 2:30 AM. We played foosball for a little over 2 and a half hours. Why so long you ask? Because it would be rude to leave after a win.
That’s right, Paty and I played for over two hours without losing. We were on fire. To be honest, a few of the groups we played weren’t that good. But we played at least five sets of guys that thought they were going to smoke us. We got the requisite look “we can beat them, they have a girl”. Well Paty is actually pretty good. And with her on offense and me on defense we are pretty tough to beat. I bet we played at least 40 games until we finally lost as the bar was closing. In our defense, by that time we were looking for an excuse to leave as we had enough to drink and wanted to call it a night.

Saturday Paty got a hair cut, color and scalp massage. Excruciatingly exciting, let me tell you. I made her got see Casino Royale again that night as I hadn’t seen the new James Bond. I liked it a lot.
Sunday was a wine tasting in Galway at the Radisson. It was really fun. I tried what was probably my favorite Spanish wine of all time. A 1995 Duero Reserva that was fabulous.
The Irish do their wine tastings a little bit different that we do. It was held in a hotel lobby. There were 15 tables. Each table had between 8-12 wines. All were open at the same time. And you could taste any wine at any table. Needless to say, there were a lot of drunk people leaving the hotel lobby. For 10 Euros per person it was well worth it. Some pictures:




As the internet is not working again I will probably have to upload this tomorrow back at Mocha Beans. Hopefully the internet will get itself righted before the Seahawks game tonight. I want to at least follow the game tracker. If the Hawks can pull this one out at Qwest tonight then we are in good shape for the rest of the season. GO HAWKS!

p.s. Back at Mocha Beans, my new hangout. They all know me here by now. I just saw that the Hawks won! In the SNOW? What is going on up there? First I hear of torrential rains unrivaled in modern history and now we have snow in November. Maybe we got out at a good time. Next there will be locusts or something.

Do As I Say

Do as I say, not as I do:

This car on the right is getting 'clamped'. That is what happens if you park illegally here. This means the parking fines collection rate is real close to 100% in Galway.

But the funny thing is notice where the 'Please Park Legally' van is parked? Totally in the yellow zone, which happens to block the entrance to my parking garage 100%. There was a car waiting there to get out and I saw the parking guy give them the 'just one minute' finger and not move the van. Essentially locking them in their legal parking spot. Wasn't fast enough to get a picture of that.

Today we are LEGAL ALIENS! Kind of fuzzy, but this is my official 'Certificate of Registration' card:

Pretty cool, my first time being an alien. Of course this is old hat for Paty, her third such successfully completed process....

RIGA

Raise your hand if you had ever heard of Riga before we decided to go? Don’t worry, we hadn’t either. I had to look it up on a map and it is in Latvia. On the Baltic Sea. You must be wondering how we decided to go to Riga. That was all me. I was pursuing the in flight magazine on an Aer Lingus flight and one of the cities they had profiled was Riga. It looked nice, so we made plans.

We have friends living in Zurich, the Klisch’s, that were able to meet us, they hadn’t heard of Riga either. But were willing to go. Very good deal, as it is sometimes more fun to visit these places with another couple.

The four of us:

On a side note, I know Bryan from my adult soccer team in Seattle: Barca. We became friends before he moved to Zurich when his wife got an opportunity eerily similar to Paty’s opportunity. He met us in Germany this summer as part of my World Cup exploits. On a related ‘it’s a small world after all’ note, Bryan and another friend of ours, Dan Pullen, played high school soccer for Timberline High School. My junior year at Mountain View, we beat them in the first round of the state playoffs 3-0 in Vancouver.

We arrived in Riga late Wednesday night. As soon as we stepped off the plane, it was officially the farthest away from home I have ever been. 10 time zones from Seattle. One of the reasons I picked Riga came from a conversation I had this summer while in Seattle. I was telling someone that I liked visiting Eastern Europe. They asked where I had been and my example was Prague, Czech Republic. Whoever it was laughed at me that Prague was definitely not Eastern Europe, it was Central Europe. I got to thinking about it and deduced that they were right. What I am eventually getting around to saying is that while Prague might be Central Europe, Riga is Definitely Eastern Europe. This is readily apparent from the first time you stepped into the airport. Much of this first impression is covered in Klisch’s post that I will link to later. But to steal a concept, all the guys look like they came straight out of central casting as Eastern European contract killers. I heard they are going to make Die Hard 4, save some money and just pick a random guy from Latvia as the bad guy, he will be a perfect match.

While the guys might be a little ominous looking, the women make up for it ten fold. More on this later, but let’s just say that Anna Kournikova would fit in here, not stand out.

First view of Riga as you cross the bridge:


Not all of Riga is old:

Most of our time was spent in old town, this is a typical street in old town featuring old ladies with carts selling handmade socks, mittens or amber trinkets:

Wednesday night we went out for a late dinner, like 10:30. We found a bar with good pizzas, sports on the TV and go-go dancers. For those of you that don’t know; go-go dancers are scantily clad girls that dance on the bar. This was a popular bar in Riga, but not unusual as we found another place with go-go girls. The weird thing was that the places with the go-go dancers were still approximately a one to one guy to girl ratio. A place like this in the States or even Ireland would be predominantly guys.
As cameras didn’t seem to be allowed, these are the best pictures I could get:


Sorry to disappoint my loyal readers who were expecting better, but it is hard to shoot moving objects in low light with no flash, I did the best I could.

The other unexpected bonus was all the bars were non smoking. This really surprised me, I figured being an Easter European county you would come out of the bar smelling like a chimney. Not the case. Although the bars were non smoking, there were a few people smoking. No one (patrons or employees) really seemed to care if someone lit up. And a price of Marlboro’s was 0.67 lats or $1.25. This is in great contrast to Ireland’s 6.60 Euros or $8.50 per pack. Thankfully Ireland is strictly no smoking in any public area.

Thursday night we went to the Opera. Riga is justifiably proud of their National Opera house. And it was across the street from our hotel:

In the Opera bar during one of the THREE intermissions:

The inside of the house, everything you would expect or hope an opera to be:

The finish:

The opera we saw was called Nabuco, since it was an opera it was in Italian. But they had installed a translation screen very discreetly above the stage. Unfortunately the translation was in Latvian. I didn’t have a clue (or particularly care) what they were saying. Paty on the other hand followed every scene with rapt attention. We did buy the program so we knew the general theme of the opera, so I might have been able to follow it more closely if I had tried.

To see an opera at this world famous Opera house cost us 4 lats each. About $7.50. Needless to say it was a great value. While I will not ever be a shill for the opera, it was quite the experience and worth the trip. But just so I would feel manly, afterwards we went back to the go-go dancers bar.

Riga is also famous in the Baltic states for it’s central market. The place is HUGE. It is like Pike Place market on a steroids and human growth hormone. If they grow it, make it, import it, catch it or use it in Latvia then it is at the central market.

The market is set in and around five WWI zeppelin or blimp hangers. Above was the largest of the five hangers. It contained only meats. ALL types of meat could be found here. Pig’s feet, snout, tail, and tongue were some of the things I could recognize.

From St James church spire looking down:

The next four hangers all had a theme. They were cheese, bread, produce and lastly fish:

Caviar was sold prepackaged or bulk:

Yes, these eels are still alive and wiggling:


Some sights of Old Town Riga:

House of the Blackheads, originally built in the 14th century. Statue of Roland in the foreground:


Crests of Latvia:

These are called ‘The Three Brothers’. They show typical Riga architecture. The white one is 1400’s and the oldest stone house in Riga, Yellow is an architectural museum and the last house is from the 17th century.

Dome Cathedral:

This Cathedral houses the fourth largest pipe organ in the world. The organ was installed in 1884, at the time it was the largest in the world. The cathedral dates to 1211. There are many noticeable cracks in the ceiling and walls. It has been placed on the Unesco ‘monuments that are in structural peril’ list. So the money from that should help shore it up as it was apparent that the cathedral was not 100% structurally sound. On Friday night when the Klisch’s arrived we had bought tickets to a concert to hear the organ. While the sound and the acoustics were impressive, in the end it was a classical music organ concert. We left early. But for only 3 lats (less than $6) the experience was worthwhile.

Famous Clock:


So what did you do in Riga?

This is it, walk around drink in the atmosphere and take pictures.

Swedish Gate, the last of the old city walls that were put up during Swedish reign:

Paty and Cheryl in front of St. James:

Relaxing in the hotel lobby:

The hotel we stayed in was called the Hotel Riga. An old inner city hotel. The furnishings were definitely a little outdated, but the lobby bar and all the public spaces were very grand. They were so proud of their hotel at one point on Saturday they stopped Bryan from taking pictures. We think it might be because they had a flower display and flag centerpiece for the independence day. But I would stay there again. Riga is pretty small and this hotel is nicely located in Old Town. Never for the four days did we think about taking a cab or any type of transport other than our own two feet. Taxis to and from the airport was the limit of our transport expenses.

One added bonus is we ended up being in Riga during Latvia’s independence day. It was a nice added bonus as there was a lot going on around the old town. The president even made an apperance to drop flowers at this monument:


Security was stepped up for the event:

It is hard to capture the essence of the occasion on camera, but there were at least two processions that occurred on Saturday the 18th. The first in the day was somber with the flowers where the president was present. The other was more of a candlelight procession to the same monument. We stumbled on the head of the candlelight procession:

This went on for quite some time:


Again, back to the monument. But this time with candles in leiu of flowers:


We spent the rest of the night chilling in a few bars:


Typical Latvian girls:

Bryan trying to decide if it was okay to go home at 1 AM (he did), while Paty and Cheryl are trying to figure out if it is okay to let Bryan go to the hotel by himself and go to another bar (it was okay and we did):


We said goodbye to the Klisch’s at a decent hour on Sunday as their flight was at 3 PM and ours was not until 9 PM. Feeling like a million bucks after four nights out in Riga, we decided to walk around the city and see a few sights outside the Old Town.
We stumbled, literally, upon this church. I think it was recently reopened as it was not in any of my guidebooks:
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We went inside, I think it was an Orthodox Religion that is popular in Riga because there were a lot of locals crossing themselves vigorously.

Statue of Rainis:

Another cool building:

View of the Old Town area from the bridge:


One fishing boat on the river:

One fisherman on the shores, using what must be the largest fishing pole known to man:


View of market from the bridge:

View of old town from across the river:


In summary, we loved Riga.

The city bubbles with charm. I feel like we ‘found’ Prague as a tourist destination 15-20 years ago before it became crowded. We spent four, very long, nights in the city and not once did we not feel safe. There were virtually no beggars on the street. And while I am sure they have homeless people, you can find them much easier in Seattle or even Spokane than you can in the heart of Riga.

We did not go to the beach area, called Jurmala, but it is a string of resorts and small towns only 12.5 miles outside of Riga on the Baltic sea. They have a abundance of spa style resorts. Including a spa hotel that was rated by Forbes Travel as the third best spa hotel in the world!

If you are into Eastern European charm or you are trying to decide where to go on your stag, Riga is definitely for you.
These guys were most likely on a stag:


The city exudes personality. Surprisingly when you consider this was a Soviet state (part of the USSR) only 15 years ago English was never a problem for the duration of the trip. We certainly did not speak Latvian, but had zero communication issues.

If you are into the nightlife, Riga is for you. There are gorgeous women aplenty out every night. It is worth mentioning that you get the impression that a large percentage of the Latvian women are looking particularly for foreigners. Latvia has only been in the EU since 2004, before this there were more travel restrictions. There was no travel before 1991 as the only airline allowed into Riga’s airport was Russia’s Aeroflot. These facts just reinforce the notion that Latvian women are looking for foreigners. If any of you reading this find yourself single and tired of the dating scene, the local English language tourist magazine I picked up advertised no less than four Latvian ‘marriage agencies’. You could do a LOT worse. This is not just me talking, you can ask Paty or Cheryl. It was almost freaky how genuinely good looking a very large percentage of the women were. Not just the girls at the bars or clubs, but the hotel receptionists, the waitresses, bartenders, shop clerks, etc…

If given the choice I would probably still prefer Prague, it is bigger with more to do it seems, but Riga 100% makes my ‘European Top 10 Cities‘. Incidentally this is the title of a blog post I am working on. Mainly just kicking it around in my head but when I get some time and an internet connection that works I will get that post done.

All this same info, but from a different perspective can be accessed by Bryan's blog. It is very good and includes massive info on traveling in Europe.

Riga Post from Klisch

Editor’s note not related to Riga trip: We got our home phone line fixed today. So we have a working Irish number. The internet is still not working. No word from NTL. I did find that our apartment is wired for DSL from the phone guy. So I am going to sign up for that and ditch the cable modem. But it will still be a week or so. So I typed this entry at the apartment and am heading back to back to Mocha Beans. I will download all the pictures then upload the post. Exciting stuff!