Ireland bound

August 11th -- We had an early wake-up this morning in order to catch our 7:10am train. The hotel provided us breakfast bags so we left the hotel at 6:30 and walked across the street to the train station. We picked up some drinks and a paper and found our way to our train. It was nice to be in an English speaking country for the first time in 6 months. Our first train ride was non-eventful with everyone enjoying breakfast and a little nap due to our short night. We arrived in Chester a little after 9pm and changed trains. The next train was a pretty basic local train. It made quite a few stops along the way to Holyhead, Wales. This was the port where we would catch a ferry to Dublin. Upon arriving, we walked into the train station and the ferry check-in was right there. We checked our bags, hoped on a shuttle and were off to the ferry. Luckily, we only had about 30 minutes between our arrival and our noon departure. The ferry was nice and much like a miniature cruise ship. It was the "fast ferry" so the ride was just under 2 hours. We found a table and grabbed some lunch from the restaurant. They were playing the movie "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" so Abby and Austin were entertained for most of the trip. When we arrived in Dublin, we grabbed our bags and hopped in a taxi. A short 15 minute drive and we were at our apartment. The apartment is actually in a residential apartment complex, like what you would find in the US. The lady who runs the apartment, Naomi, met us and showed us around. She was super nice and very helpful. We were asking all our standard questions about the apartment and had to be constantly reminded that everything was in English. For example, one of our first items we normally ask about is instructions for the washing machine, since we could never read the buttons. So we were asking Naomi how to use the washing machine when it dawned on us we could read the buttons. It will take a little time to re-adjust. Once we got settled in, I asked Naomi to help me find a computer repair shop. We decided since we were here a week, this would be a good opportunity to get the computer fixed. She drove me to a nearby shop while Amy and the kids went to the grocery store. I had to leave the computer for them to fix. Once I got back, we all walked a block over to find some dinner. We found a restaurant called Eddie Rockets. It is set up like a '50s dinner and the kids were excited. Honestly, it was nice to have a burger, fries and a milkshake in an English speaking country (even if it was Irish-English). After dinner we headed back to do some laundry (especially since we hadn't had a washing machine in over a week), baths, and bedtime.

Leaving Continental Europe

August 10th--After 12,000 miles and 13 countries, it's hard to believe that 6 months has passed and we are now leaving continental Europe. Our train for London didn't leave until 2pm, so we had a little time to kill this morning. After having breakfast at the hotel, Amy took the kids to a nearby playground while I packed up our bags. By the time I went to meet them, it had started to rain. Luckily, the playground had a large canopy cover so the kids were protected from the rain. They played for a while until it was time for lunch. There was a nice Italian restaurant nearby so we stopped in for pizza before heading out. It was a great lunch and so with our bellies full, we headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags. We took a taxi to the train station and found our train to Lille. It was a nice double-decker train and our seats were up top. We plopped down in our seats and were on our way. The train had power outlets so I spent some time trying to restore Windows and fix the computer. I had no luck so finally spent some time making sure all our files and pictures were properly backed-up. We had a quick turn in Lille to catch the Eurostar train that travels through the chunnel to England. We only had 25 minutes and they suggest a 30 minute check-in time to get through customs. Well, at some point during our journey, they come on the loud speaker and let us know that we are running 15 minutes behind. We knew that we still had about 10 minutes, but were worried they would close the check-in. When the train started to pull into the station at Lille, we stood in the doorway of the train with our bags. When the train arrived we took off running for our next train. Luckily the Eurostar check-in was right at the top of the escalator where we arrived. We thought we were fine, but as we were filling out our customs forms, people started shouting at us to hurry. We were rushed through and as we entered the baggage check area, they closed the doors behind us. We were the last ones. Then more people started shouting at us to run to our train. So we grabbed our bags and took off towards the platform. We assumed the train was about to leave us, but when we got to the platform, the train was not even there! It arrived about 2 minutes later and we quickly got on and it was off. The train was packed. We weren't too worried because we only had a 30 minute train ride. Well, so we thought. About 15 minutes into the train, when we were still not even in the chunnel yet, I realized that London was an hour behind so our ride was actually an hour and a half. I should have realized that it would be longer than 30 minutes to get to London from Lille, but was just too excited to get there that I didn't even think about it. We finally arrived in London a little after 6pm (new time) and made our way to the ticket office to purchase tickets for tomorrow's journey to Dublin. We had already planned our route and knew that the train left at 7:10am. Since it was an early train, we had reserved a room at a Hilton across from the train station we leave from (that luckily was only a few blocks from this station that we arrived in). So we walked to our hotel room. When we arrived, they let us know that we could have a 3 course meal in their dinning room for $12 per person and the kids were free. Being tired, this sounded great. So we dropped off our bags and went to the restaurant for dinner. It was a nice dinner and was very satisfying after a day on a train. We then went back to the room and crashed for our early wake-up tomorrow.

Beaujolais Region

August 9th--We were slower than we had planned this morning. We had breakfast downstairs in the hotel. They have a small room that serves basic, bread & breakfast style meals. So, it was a little before 11:00 before heading out to go rent our car. We were told to walk to the train station close to our hotel to rent a car from Hertz. On our way to the train station, Austin was running and fell down. He fell smack dab into the only pile of mud on the pedestrian street. When he stood up, mud was all over his shirt and jeans. So, Mike and Abby continued on to the train station while Austin and I walked back to the hotel. Mike and Abby were going to get the car and then come pick us up at the hotel. Austin and I made it quickly back to the hotel to change his clothes and clean up the muddy ones. We were done in plenty of time to make it back downstairs and wait for a while. I looked up at one point and time and couldn't believe that I actually saw Mike and Abby walking back toward us. That only meant one thing to me "they didn't get a car". Well, it turns out that since it was Sunday, the Hertz center was not open at this train station. So, we took a taxi to another train station, but Hertz was closed for lunch when we arrived. We just started asking any car rental desk if we could rent a car. Europcar had no cars available, but finally we found one with National. A little behind schedule, we pulled out of the parking lot a little before noon. Luckily for us though, the exit we took for the Beaujolais region was only about 30 minutes North of Lyon. The unlucky thing (at least for Mike and I) was there was a McDonald's right at this exit. The kids wouldn't take NO for an answer so we went through the drive thru. So, lets get this straight...the only places we've eaten since being back in France are Subway and McDonald's...real French, huh? Anyway, with our Big Macs in hand, we continued our drive heading towards the town of Beaujeu in hopes that the Information office would be open. When we got there, it was closed for lunch (it seems most places around here close between 12:00 and 2:30 for lunch). So, we decided to drive up North to another town, Fleurie, that had an Information office as well. When we arrived at this office, it was 1:30 and the office opened back up at 2:00. It worked out well though because there was a playground close by so we killed the 30 minutes there. At 2:00, we went inside and got a lot of helpful information on the wine caves in the Beaujolais area. So, our route began...we drove to Villie-Morgon where we visited the Caveau Cru Morgon. We got to sample wonderful Morgon red wine here. From Villie-Morgon, we drove to St. Etienne-des-Oullieres where we visited the Cellier des Saint Etienne. It was here that we got to sample several different wines from the region: Beaujolais, Beaujolais Village, and Brouilly. We met this really nice guy there that spoke pretty good English so he was able to help explain some of the wines to us. From St. Etienne, we drove to Oingt. Now mind you, this area is not very big so we were constantly going through small towns every 5 minutes. We traveled down many curvy roads and through many small towns. It was a great French experience. Once we arrived in Oingt though, we didn't really have a plan. So, we found a parking spot and walked around the old town for a while. We climbed up the stairs into the church and then behind it to get a great view of the wine region. From here, we walked into the city center and found the Cave St. Laurent d' Oingt. The guy in there was so friendly and we probably sampled the best Beaujolais wine we've ever had. We are hoping to be able to find it in the States someday. By the time we finished up in Oingt, it was after 6:00 and everyone was getting hungry. Well, since it was Sunday in a small town there weren't any restaurants open for dinner so we decided to head back to Lyon. After turning the car back in, we took a taxi back to the Old Town area. This time we knew dinner would be available because it was well after 7:00 and we were in the mood for French food. We picked a restaurant and sat outside under their cover. Well, I use cover loosely because it started raining and we kept having to scoot our table and chairs further in to avoid getting really wet. All in all, it was great food though and a wonderful French day!

Sad to say goodbye to the Alps

Augutst 8th--It was hard to leave Switzerland today, but the fact that it was overcast made it a little easier. Our apartment was about 10 minutes from the train station so we walked to the train station about 9:00 for our 9:30 train ride out of Zermatt. Luckily, we got there early because the train was pretty full since that is the only way out of Zermatt. The train left out of Zermatt on time. Thank goodness because we had several train changes throughout the day and needed all trains to be on time. We changed trains in Visp. It was on this train that we went to turn on our computer and it would not come on. We weren't sure why, but went ahead and put the computer up. We arrived in Geneva with plenty of time to catch our next train ride into Lyon, France. Yes, that's right, we are back in France...couldn't stay gone long. Actually, we decided to break up our train ride from Switzerland to London with a few days in Lyon. We arrived in Lyon around 3:30 and caught a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at Hotel des Celestins. It was a traditional European hotel inside an old apartment building. Our room was on the top floor, otherwise known as the attic. It had plenty of room, but when we walked in the windows were skylights and the shades were open so it was like a sauna in the room/bathroom. We quickly turned on the air conditioner wall unit hoping that it would cool off by bedtime. It was also at this time, that we determined that Windows on our computer was corrupted. Luckily, we could still get into our files and pictures, but couldn't operate most of the programs, including the internet utility. We weren't exactly sure what to do, but knew that it was going to have to wait a couple of days, because we were moving too quickly. So without being able to get online, we walked to the Tourist Information office to get some information for our day trip tomorrow. We plan to rent a car and tour the Beaujolais wine region. From here, we headed back to the apartment to get a restaurant recommendation. The hotel suggested that we walk over to the Old Town area of Lyon. To get to this area, we walked across the pedestrian suspension bridge over the Saone River. Upon arriving in the Old Town area, there were a lot restaurants to choose from. The only problem was it was a little after 6:00 and most of them didn't start serving dinner until 7:00. Since we had 2 hungry children and a long day of traveling, we settled on Subway. After dinner, we walked back to the hotel to start winding down for bed. Since we were all in one big room, we knew it would take a little while for everyone to fall asleep. But once everybody did, we slept really good in the dark, cool room.

Sunnegga Paradise

August 7th--After mailing our 5th package home to the States (hoping to lighten our load...ha!), we ate in the main city square of Zermatt. There was a store that grilled their sausage out on the street so it was easy to grab them and go. We sat down on one of the benches in the main square enjoying our lunch and the beautiful weather. After lunch, we headed up the funicular to Sunnegga Paradise. Today was the warmest day we had had all week, but still in the upper 50's. We went up the funicular and found a spot to sit around the lake. First, the kids wanted to get in the water until they realized it wasn't exactly Texas warm. So, they headed to the playground. The kids were able to run back and forth between the playground and the water. It got to be funny because Austin ran back and forth more times than we could count putting on his bathing suit, getting a little wet, putting back on his clothes. This went on for hours throughout the afternoon. A family from Scotland arrived after a couple of hours. Austin and Abby instantly made friends with their kids. They all seemed to be about the same age and enjoyed playing around the lake and on the playground the remainder of the afternoon. Mike and I just enjoyed a relaxing and beautiful afternoon among the Swiss Alps. Around 5:00, I left Mike and the kids on the mountain and headed back to the apartment. We had had so much fun in the mountains that we got so behind on the blog. So, I went back to the apartment to get caught up on the blog and start packing for us to leave tomorrow.