The New Year

After five very busy weeks at school we were off once again on a wonderful invention over here known as February break. Monique and I had a very busy January as we started training at the beginning of the year. I will get into that in a later post. We were looking forward to seeing more of Europe. The trip started with an absolute travel nightmare as we decided to vacation in Nice, but took a deter to Dublin for the weekend first. It was actually cheaper to fly to Dublin and spend the weekend, than to fly to Nice direct. This decision turned into a nightmare as we spent an entire day travelling from one airport to another since our early flight was cancelled. They have many discount airlines in Europe but they run on tight schedules. If they are overdue due to weather, they cancel flights and give you options. What a nightmare. We finally arrived in Dublin at just past midnight, missing an entire day, but OH WELL life goes on. We enjoyed our one day in Dublin immensely. We walk around the city and went to Trinity University and saw the famous book of the Kells and the coolest library I have ever been in. I also tried seeing a former student who is spending the semester in Dublin, but we never could get ahold of her. (Kelly i am talking to you). We went to the Guiness warehouse which is an amazing building and we told everyone that we met about our 6'9" irish friend back in Chicago. Mr. Woolley they are demanding you in your homeland. All in all the detour to Dublin was well worth it, even with all of the travel nightmares.

Cheers

Back into the Game

Once again it has been awhile since I have blogged. Teaching can be a very demanding mistress. When last we adventured, we had just returned from a beautiful week in Cyprus and much!!!! has occurred since then. We spent three days in London on our return and did after holiday shopping. London at Christmas was amazing, but by far the best story was the carnival in Leiceister Square. It is one of our favorite places in the city and we found the carnival by mistake. Monique and I went on some of the rides and of course Monique played some of the cheesy games, but you can never win at those WRONG!!! She won a six foot white tiger. See the picture of her bringing it back on the Tube, it was a riot. Everyone in London was staring. Priceless. We got back on the 30th to Mussey and the next day was Hogemany (new year's eve) This is a major event in Edinburgh and over 140,000 people took part. Brian bought us tickets to the Princes street gardens and we got to Cailih (scottish dancing) all night long. At midnight they send off fireworks from all seven hills and the castle. Tremendous. Then we had the largest mass singing of Auld Lang Syne which is a song of Scottish origin. It was one of the top nights that we have had thus far. Enjoyed it immensely. I will try to catch up over the next couple of weeks.

Cheers

Christmas in Cyprus

Hope to hear from some of my readers in the near future. I know people have been visiting by the counter, but comments have become sparse. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we were on our way to Cyprus for the break. The sun was much needed. It was never warmer than 75 degrees but the sun felt tremendous in the middle of winter. It is actually NOT that cold here in Scotland, and they do not get much snow. It sounds like winter is much worse in Chicago this year. We stayed just north of Paphos, which is a famous city that has seen the likes of the Romans, Greeks (Alexander the Great), the Byzantines, the Crusaders and the Persians. As an island it is literally at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe and played a crucial role as a port. I know HISTORY GEEK. Seriously though the ruins on the island were awesome. One day we went to Kato Paphos which is a UNESCO site that was a roman and byzantine town and then on the last full day we went to Kourion which is one of the most complete Roman towns anywhere and has the original greek ampitheatre, I was in heaven, plus the views were magnificant. We also met a lot of very nice people on the trip. We were the only Americans anywhere, and everyone wanted to know why we were there. We got to be regulars at some of the coffee shops in town. We also spent a day in Nicosea(Lefkosos) which is the only walled city left in the world. (since Berlin fell) Turkey invaded in 1974 and still control a third of the island. We crossed over to the Turkish Cypriot side which was very interesting to contrast. We also had an amazing meal on the Greek side. The best story of the trip however was probably the following: we rented a car and I have not driven since leaving the United States. We went out to the car and it was already dark. I went to the drivers side, because I was told they drove on our side of the road. To make a long story short they drive on the British side, since it was a fomer colony. It was dark, we did not know where our apartment was, and I was driving on the left hand side for the first time ever. I am still alive to talk about it. :) All in all, an amazing TRIP. Enjoy the pictures.

Cheers