Berlin: Part 1

I'm not even sure where to begin with my travel posts, cause I have over 500 pictures and a very poor short term memory about what we did every day.  Though every day activities in both places would most likely bore you to death so I think I'll just post some picture highlights and see how that goes.

Side note: I'm feeling much better after my last post.  I thought I had something worse than the post-vacation blues and that I'd feel that way forever and now that it's Tuesday and work is fine and I haven't gotten fired and I'm used to cooler weather and already made plans with my pals this weekend, I think it's all gonna be ok.  I'm still worried about the future and all that comes with it, but who isn't?  Anyways, ok.  Bye.

Berlin!  We went to Berlin for a week cause my brother and sis and bebe niece cutie pie angel bebe were there while John did research for his PhD!  They used to live there a few years ago so they were all too happy to return with bebe in tow to have a good time this summer.  And when we approached them about coming to stay with them for over a WEEK, they were happy and thrilled and accommodating and couldn't have been better hosts!  And obviously Annie was the light of our lives and made us happier than anything, ever.

Our days varied but the structure was mostly the same: an early awakening from Annie babbling in the kitchen, and after texting John our approval he would open the door and Annie would slowly creep in, not knowing what to make of us, and we'd play with her and I'd yell at Uncle Drew to put on athletic shorts because he can't just wear boxer shorts around his toddler niece; we'd eat croissants, Annie would nap while we got ready for the day, we'd go out exploring to some different place, and we'd all meet up at a biergarten in the afternoon for fun before a delicious meal and home for wine drinking and game playing and talking and laughing.  Pretty great week, in my opinion.

Here are some pics!

Siblings reunited!  The night we got there, outside the donner kebap place for din.  Yum yum.

On Saturday we went to a Turkish market where J&L got fresh fruit and veggies for the fam.  And Lauren cooked an amazing German meal for us on Monday!  It was delish.

Drew and I in front of the Fernsehturm, a big tower built in 1965 as a modern symbol of East Berlin to show "Hey, look at us, we're modern and cool!  Nothing to see here folks!"  NOT.  Still neat though.

Saturday afternoon at Volkspark Friedrichshain, a cool park that also had a lovely biergarten.

Best pals.

We might have stopped by a place to try on liederhosen for our upcoming trip to Oktoberfest.  Stay tuned.

Dinner at Der Alte Fritz.  Annie and Drew are sizing each other up.  He's in love.

Brothers!  Prost!

Brunch on Sunday morning at a bomb ass Italian place with a homemade Italian buffet!  And Uncle Drew was entertaining Angel Bebe with his classic napkin mustache, a party trick he's been using at my parent's house since the beginning of time.

On Sunday, John took us on an amazing bike tour of the city, and I didn't fall off or panic!  And I learned a lot about Berlin too.  Here we are in front of the Berlin Dom, the big humongous Protestant church here, which is also a sort of symbol of Berlin.  I too am looking my personal best.  Not.  Dangit.

This marked the memorial for the book burning in Bebelplatz, near Humboldt University, where the Nazis burned some 20K books in 1933.  This is a quote by German writer Heinrich Heine that says "Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people."  He wrote that in the 1800s.  Foreboding, no?

Part of Humboldt University.  Pretty!

The Gendarmenmarkt- a square flanked by two beautiful churches.

One of the beautiful churches.

Over at Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the wall have been dismantled and murals have been painted.  This shows all of the world's bozo leaders.  Bozo is a euphemism for something else that Drew won't let me say on the blog.
*See Tiger Woods post for more details

Famous sign about entering the American sector.

The checkpoint, and the picture of the guard above it.

We also got to see the Memorial to the Murdered Jews - which is pretty cool and abstract.  More on that later.

The Reichstag!  This is where Parliament is.  This is also a building that Hitler burned down in 1933 but blamed on the Communists and Jews to consolidate power and start brainwashing his people.  Today, it's been rebuilt and is a beautiful building!  More on that later too.

Did I mention that we learned a TON of World War II history?  And communist history?  I may need a separate blog post about that, which you're all dying to read.  And you're in luck cause I'm dying to tell you.  So there.

This is the Berlin Victory Column in the Tiergarten, which was built in the 1800s to symbolize Prussia's victory over several peeps, namely the Frech/Napolean.  It's decorated in canons from the battles the Germans won.  No wonder the French wanted to blow it up after WWII ended.

Then we met up with this little nugget at another biergarten in the Tiergarten!  That rhymed!
But seriously, isn't she the cutest bebe you ever saw?

Cutie cutie cutie cutie cutie cutie cutie cutie.

Clownin with Uncle Drew.  And eating cookies.
(There are more pics of them together as I always had the camera.  Ah well.)

Smoochies!!

Gimme that water bottle.

Nailed it.

More clownin.  Ignore John, he's blinking I think.

The first two days were hot as hell as Berlin was experiencing a heat wave, but they were so fun and such a great way to get acclimated with the city and it's history.  More to come!

Vacation

We got back today from a literal whirlwind 16 day vacation!  I meant to blog beforehand to tell my 4 readers that I'd be leaving and I never had a chance in those last frazzled days.  And then I wanted to be that person who's able to upload their pics and blog while on vacation so they're not so overwhelmed upon their return but of course that seemed impossible.  So I'm here to briefly report that I'm back, before I post several other blogs this week!  (Hopefully.)

So where'd we go?  I'll tell you.  On Friday, July 26 we jetted off to Berlin for a week to hang out with my bro and sis and bebe, who are there doing some PhD research for the latter part of the summer.  While there, we also took a little overnight trip to the cute German town of Dresden to soak up some air conditioning, rich German food, and history.  After an amazingly fun filled week of the cutest bebe niece you've ever seen and delicious food and German beer and sibling frivolity, we left on Saturday, August 3rd to go to Dubrovnik, Croatia to meet some of our best friends from home for a dream vacay!  This Croatian adventure has been a dream in the making for well over a year and the fact that it actually happened shocked and thrilled all of us.  After a week of once in a lifetime experiences, we got back to Ireland on Friday, only to immediately hop in a car bound for Limerick for our first Irish wedding!  These Irish people mean business and these soirees usually last until 6 or 7am.  We desperately tried to last until 3am, got up for a quick breakfast at the B&B, and now...we're home.

We truly had the best time these past two weeks.  We are emotionally and physically drained but it's all worth it for the good times we had and the great people we had them with.

BUT (and there's always a "but" with me, isn't there?), if I'm being real, I...don't wanna be back here.  The thought of returning to Dublin while in Germany and Croatia filled me with dread.  And I think it's more than the average "I'm sad vacation's over and I don't wanna be back in the real world" thing - it seems to have taken over my brain more.  And it's not that I hate Ireland or my life here - quite the opposite - and I'm not sure where else I'd rather be.  Not in Dallas.  Not even necessarily in Croatia or Berlin either.  Just not...HERE.

It may also have something to do with my job stress and the 500+ emails I have waiting for me that I've refused to check until today.  Whatevs.

This wonderful vacation also gave me a lot of time to think about things; things like the future, what's going to happen in a year, how much time we have left, or don't have left as it were, and...I'm just being an angsty teen as per usual.  Which is mostly the theme of this blog: travel, food, drink, and angst.  I'll write more on that later but for some reason I felt inclined to discuss this yuck feeling I can't seem to shake today.

But now, I shall get in bed and dream of crystal clear water and holding Annie in my lap and kissing her cheeks and won't think about what lies ahead tomorrow, next year, or any other time, and just attempt to take each day as it comes, rejoice and be glad in it.

Goodnight!

Guest Blogger, Blake Solomon: A Treatise on Family Travel

While in Ireland, I asked Blake and Beth if they'd like to do a guest blog post.  Blake has since taken me up on my offer after seeing my recent post about his exceptional attitude on the trip.  So here are, everyone: Blake Solomon.

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I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t understand what people want to read on blogs. In my everyday life, you learn the name of a person’s blog before you learn their actual name. Which is fine. Most names are boring and most blog names are puns. I love puns. So while it’s taken me a shockingly short amount of time to get off topic, I should note that this is sort of my disclaimer: I’m just going to write about our trip in a way that I find interesting. Hope that’s ok.

While I don’t even remember the dates of our trip or all of the girls I made out with at various pubs, I do remember having a great time. My family isn’t necessarily the weirdest bunch, despite that being one of those things everybody says. “Oh we’re weird and loud and so fun!” I’m not saying we aren’t those things, but they aren’t the things I think of first. What I mostly think is that we’re comfortable with each other. I know that my mother and father have to read every sign they see and that my sister will take 4 hours to finish a glass of white wine. And I’m ok with it. It makes the trips easier and less stressful. But it also means we get right to the fun parts.

There are these little, fun things that can’t help but be revealed when you’re spending all day with people you usually only see a few times a year. It’s fun! Especially when you’re in a 9-passenger square-shaped van driving through perhaps the most winding road in the history of roads. You learn stuff when you’re walking to a weird restaurant with no waiters that is not 5 minutes away like the Bed and Breakfast Lady said but actually like 30 minutes away that goes through a scary, run-down coastal town where everyone looks at you like you have leprosy. 

These are moments of pure bonding. And when we send you our perfectly posed Christmas card this year, standing in front of the beautiful Northern Irish coastline, I hope you think about the absurd conversations we had before that picture. Think about how we forced another American family to take our picture and then insisted on taking their picture even though they didn’t ask us to. I hope you consider that shortly after our perfectly posed picture was taken, I did something so disgusting (which I won’t repeat) on a medieval wall surrounding Londonderry that Lauren almost threw up on a German tourist couple. 

It was just a good time. On those terribly awkward tours you take around distilleries and other distilleries and, since it’s Ireland, a third distillery, you see these other families moseying around, just praying they get their money’s worth. But I never really worry about that when we go around those smelly places with those poor tour guides who answer the same questions a million times, because we probably weren’t listening anyway. 

So it was a nice trip and we had fun and I do still thoroughly enjoy watching my parents watch their children interact with each other. (They smile and wink at each other like we can’t see them, but I’m very observant!) There were quite a few touch and go years in our fam (mostly Beth’s fault), but a trip like this just reiterates that somehow we all turned out pretty well and morphed into a solid familial unit. Trips to foreign places are very isolationist, mostly because everything feels weird when the culture shifts. You hang on to what you know, which is usually only represented by your travel partners. I feel lucky to be tethered to these 5 other people, and to be able to experience museums and beautiful landmasses with them. Duh, that’s the easy stuff. But most importantly, it’s always super reassuring and heartwarming to feel like no matter where you go, there’s always someone who will go there with you.

Blake is very active on the Internet and never in real life. He has a blog, in which he creates a new mini-blog every single day, that can be found here.  His instagram doesn't make any sense and can be found here.  

The British Open

This past weekend, we got to check a big one off our bucket list when we went to Edinburgh for the British Open at Muirfield!  Drew's an avid golfer and had never been to a Major so we figured...let's do this.  It's right across the water!

Our pals Tom and Missy were there too, and we met our friends John and Natalie in Amsterdam there too with their new cutie baby.  We all went to the tournament together on Friday and ate a big delicious Mexican food dinner on Friday (I know, weird but delish), and then Natalie and I had a much needed girl's day (and baby day) together on Saturday while the guys went back to Muirfield.  

I like golf alright.  I prefer to watch it horizontally on a Sunday so I can doze, just like my dad taught me.  I've come to appreciate it more over the years, once I understood it, and once I learned the golfers names and figured out their stories.  But really...I care more about the celebrity aspect of it all.  I care more about the fact that Tiger's a jerk face and that people have a love/hate relationship with Phil and that Sergio is a cute spaniard but a bit of a whiney baby and that Rory is a cutie Irishman who's down on his luck this year and that Adam Scott is a hotty.  So while I too wanted to watch good golf like my husband, I mostly just wanted to be in the presence of celebs.  So sue me!

I tried to get Drew to write this blog post but it's 11:20pm and he's still at work and showed no interest in doing so.  So you're stuck with my amateur golf blogging.  Here are some pics!

Crazies on a plane.

We got in at 11:30pm on Thursday night and woke up bright and early to take the train and the shuttle out to Muirfield.  We wandered around a bit and then went over to the first tee to watch the big timers tee off, and to hear the announcer with the funny voice.  (Shout out to Peter B. who Drew kept trying to take a video for.  They love this guy.)

Sergio!  My main man!  But he needs a 'tude check, I'm not gonna lie.  And he needs to start WINNING, damnit!

Sergio and Lee Westwood shootin the shit before they hit. 

Adam Scott, being sexy as hell.

Great form, Adam.  And I mean that literally.

Here he comes.  That son of a bitch.

Side note: Drew hoped and I kinda thought that seeing Tiger would get me excited and I'd be super impressed and forget that he disrespects women and children and ruins lives, but...I DIDN'T.  He looked like even more of a son-of-a-bitch than ever.  Smug bastard.  You may be fooling the rest of these clowns but NOT ME.

Lining up his shot.

And away we go.
(I refused to clap for him throughout the day.  You don't DESERVE MY APPLAUSE!)

This is just a picture of the links overlooking the sea.  On television, the course looked brown and gross and unkempt.  And while it's brown and relatively unkempt, it was still rugged and beautiful in person.  Lots of hay-like grass and LOTS of dust, but still lovely.

We wandered over to some other holes and watched from the stands and followed some other big names around, and then went and got a couple of frosty brews and watched the tournament on the big screen.  And Drew and I got some baby time.  Yay!

Cutie bebe sweetie.

He looks a little too natural.  Uh oh.

Another one!  Help!  My uterus!
We came back from the bathroom and he was just standing there holding him and playing with him by himself.  Sigh.

These are some oldies but goodies: Freddie Couples (Lolly's favorite), Tom Watson, and Nick Faldo.
Nick Faldo is a large man.

Just a picture to capture how dirty me and Nat's feet were.  Literally covered in black dust.  But everyone else's were too so there was no judgement, except from you reading this right now.

You can't really see but the sun was reflecting off the water making it look gold.  So I tried to capture it, and then this large fellow in orange walked into my shot.  Oh well.

Drew and Tom outside the entrance tent.

Dustin Johnson!  He might be my new golf crush.   He's tall and cute.

Bubba!  Family man!  Love him.

More of Freddie "Boom Boom" Couples.  That's what Drew calls him.  Does everyone call him that?

Rory about to take a swing.

Rory walking on down the green, after having made a terrible shot that no one clapped for.  Yikes.  The Brits/Scots don't sugarcoat it for you.  

Phil and Bones.
Some girl right behind me yelled "I love you, Phil!" as he was about 5 feet in front of me and he looked right at me and nodded and smiled.  So that was awesome.  And I didn't even have to embarrass myself!

Douche bag on the prowl.

Me and my boo!

Natalie and I went to Afternoon Tea at the Balmoral, went shopping for hats, and sat outside on the Royal Mile and had a (couple) bottle(s) of wine.  It was really...refreshing to talk to someone so sweet and positive and caring, and someone who's doing exactly what you're doing, but with a new baby, and can still encourage you!  I had a truly great day with her.

Pretty tea accoutrements.  

Fascinators!  (Neither of us bought one because we couldn't figure out where to wear it.  Shoot!)

If Drew had written this blog, he'd be telling you all about the cool shots we saw, how NO ONE could sink a put on hole 7, how cool it was to see his golf idols in person, etc.  But instead you got the play by play of insignificant details that no one cares about.  C'est la vie.

Bottom line: we had a great time and I'm glad we got to experience something that will probably be once in a lifetime for us.  And something really important to Drew.  Our hipster hotel was very cute, we had great food, really awesome time with friends, and a cool weekend overall.

I think I'm finally caught up with the blog now!  Hopefully I'll write another post before our BIG vacation coming up this weekend.  Goodnight!