Heading to the UK

For our vacation in August, we picked Scotland, UK. We planned a trip to fly to Paris, change planes, and land in Edinburgh. The first full day we took a bus tour into the highlands, up to Inverness and Loch Ness. No we did not see Nessie (darn). We also took a weekend to go up to Aberdeen and visit friends, then back to Edinburgh to tour the zoo, castle and down to Roslyn Chapel. Here are our highlights. The flight to Paris was long, but since I slept most of the way, I didn't notice much. I woke up a while before landing. BonJour! We flew on Air France, which btw, is one of the best airlines I've ever been on!!! They gave us hot towels, eye shades, ear plugs, and the seats were comfy, even in coach. Once we landed in Paris, we got on the bus system at CDG airport, rode around the outside of the airport to the next gate, where we waited maybe 10 minutes and was able to line up to get on the next bus to take us to our next plane to Edinburgh. Welcome to the UK! After heading off to our little hotel, Victoria Park House Hotel, a very minimalistic hotel. Our room was not ready, so we went down the road to find ourselves some lunch. We found a fabulous veggie food in a restaurant, Roseleaf Bar Cafe, that played the entire Cure Standing on the Beach CD, I was happy... I had the The Roseleafer, yummy!! We overtipped hugely because we were thinking American style, but the food was spectacular, so in the end, they deserved it. Back up to the hotel to our dinky room, far, far up the many stairs (many many stairs). Unfortunately the TV didn't work, we didn't have a hand towel and they never replaced our other used towels. Luckily it was only for a few days. But the beds were fine, sheets were clean and we only slept there and the price was low, bonus. We learned how to use the Lothian buses, even after taking one the wrong way accidentally once. The driver let us stay on and go back the other direction, Thank You!!! Our next day, our first full day in Scotland, we took the bus tour, via Scotline Tours They were wonderful to deal with online, and easy to find on the Royal Mile. Our guide was pleasant and the ride took us away from a day of downpours in Edinburgh into a chilly highlands. On our ride we stopped to see the

Harry Potter film site

sites where Harry Potter was filmed, a highland cow named Hamish, some "cheese and pickle" sandwiches with IRN-BRU drinks (both, acquired tastes) and the ride up to Urquhart Castle that sits on the top edge of Loch Ness. It was pretty awesome to walk around the ruins, see the trébuchet, and look out over the water. After our ruins tour, we got on the boat and took a water tour down the long lake. It was soooo cold! A hot cocoa was necessary to break the chill. I didn't take many photos because I was so busy trying to

Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness

keep warm. We finished up the tour, found a rest stop to get some food, much needed. And of course a tour through the gift shop. I found one of my eggie obsessions! If you read back on one of my holiday posts, you'd discover my Eggie addiction. I found an Eggie, refrigerator magnet with a measuring tape inside. I had to have it! I was so thrilled, and to top it off, I named it my "Scotch Egg" since it came from Scotland! (oh come on that was funny...). Once we were done there, we boarded the coach, snuggled up, and road the long road back to Edinburgh. It began to rain, we listened to soft highland music, the scenery got dark and a while later, in the misty rain, we arrived in a lamp-lit, stone street city. We thanked our guide and headed back to our room, far far above the streets. And the next days we we walked around Edinburgh getting a feel for the city, loving the transportation, choice of foods, the fact that the Fringe Festival was going on, and listing to all the excitement. Soon our weekend to Aberdeen was coming...

Leaving Italy

And it is done. Vacation is over, the fun and relaxation of Sorrento, the ease of shopping, the quaint side street restaurants, the smell of leather shops, the spice shops, the hunt for silk scarves (found a beautiful red one!), and the casual walks along the cobble streets are done.  Sigh.  Back on the train, back to Rome for one more night. A walk through the streets, enjoying my home away from the US, realizing that I feel so beyond comfortable here that it is difficult to leave.  I wish I could grab my darling, hop on the plane and come here and not leave.  The culture, the atmosphere, the weather, the sea, the proximity to history, and the amazing world that just is, I love it.  Maybe a retirement location?  Who knew this Irish-Czech/Galician-English-Iroquois woman would feel most comfortable in Italy... I've been to Ireland, I loved it too, I've been to the Czech Republic and actually did not feel at home at all, but rather more of an outsider for some reason, and I've yet to actually be in England any place other than Heathrow airport....(that doesn't count) But then again the second most comfortable place I've been has been Berlin, Germany.  Italy, Germany, not Czech, not France (god no!), not the Netherlands, or even Ireland.  I've enjoyed many other countries too, but anyway.  I digress.  The point of this whole thing was that I love Italy, and I will miss it, but I will be back, but I will not wait 10 years again like the last time.  I realize that this is too long to wait to be in a place I love so much.  Ciao, but not for long Italia! Ciao Bella!

Leaving the airport, over the Mediterranean Sea...

And off to Sorrento and Pompeii

And after our days in Rome, touring the Italian version of Manhattan (I LOVE this place!!!!), we hop on the train and head out to down to the Amalfi Coast to Sorrento.  We have to switch trains in Napoli.  This is where I discover that the Jersey Shore is not original.  Nope. There is an entire city, in Italy, existing of the same thing....  At the train station, all I saw was bedazzed jeans, 4 inch spiked heels, skinny jeans, low rise skinny jeans, crop tops, hoop earings, big hair, lots of make up, long red finger nails, and chain wallets....  Yep, the Jersey Shore in Italy.  Sigh.  We escaped, I mean left, Napoli on the next train and headed off to our final destination... Sorrento. We arrived, and after an extensive search and a nearly 1.5 or 2 mile walk, we found our hotel.  Our beautiful, wonderful, large room, deep bathtub, tile floor, airy huge room hotel. :-)  Yay!!!  And then after a quick change we did what was absolutely necessary.... Walk to the Mediterranean Sea!  This is were we saw the edge of Europe, the beauty of family fishing, the romantic hillside world and the place that will forever remain as a peaceful thought in my mind.  We found a nice restaurant, which was built out onto a pier stretching over the Mediterranean Sea.  As we sat there, eating dinner, watching the sun set, sipping our wine..... I realized how wonderful this moment really was.  Mental snapshot!

We also took a day and went to Pompeii.  Unfortunately, it was raining, off and on and with a lot of cloud cover.  Our trip up to Mt. Vesuvius was canceled, it was cloud covered and I'm sure pouring rain.  Our walk through Pompeii consisted of several escapes into ancient ruins to hide from downpours.  At one point we hid in an ancient fast-food restaurant, and decided this was the perfect place to eat our snacks. Ironic.  It was an amazing place to be, but there was a lingering thought in my mind too. .. .. ...  This place was destroyed and all the people died within about 3 minutes when the noxious gases escaped from the volcano, then buried under the ash, then lava.  No time to escape or think.  The volcano is still active and has a huge plume of lava that stretches out for miles, even out under the Mediterranean Sea... And.. I.... am... standing.... here....   Luckily, it did not erupt, and we survived. Yay.  But it was a bit of a thought.....

Free Lemoncello with dinner, you can see the Med Sea from our table

Admiring the sunset in Sorrento

Me loving where I am!

Shopping Day!!!

The lemons in Sorrento are huge

In Pompeii, the amazing place, between rain storms

Pompeii, the jacket I had to buy because it was so cold due to the rain.

the joys of the Amalfi Coast in photos...

Welcome to Italy!

We're Here! (or rather were there....)

Running through the streets of Rome... to see the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Vatican City, St. Peter's, Vatican Museum, Castel Sant'Angelo, Campo di Fiorni, Parthenon, Villa Borgehese, various Piazza's, and Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps to name a few....

On the train from the airport to Roma Termini

Inside the Colosseum

Leo's Mom outside the Colosseum

St. Peter's in Vatican City

The view from the top of Castel Sant'Angelo

Trevi Fountain after we tossed our coins in there!

The best meal in the world at La Carbonara!

A pictoral of our days in Rome.... :-)

Very late entries from Italy

Yes, I know, I've been back from Italy for a little while now and I never had an actual chance while I was there to post.  To be honest, I was enjoying my days too much to take time out, find a small internet store and pay 1E for 15 min to sit and try to figure out the Italian keyboard and type up the day's events.  I don't apologize for that, instead, I went to the cafe next to it and ordered a latte and a croissant.... :-)  A much better bargain for my Euros and time well spent.

But I do need to include what transpired, or at least a bit of what the trip was like.  Right?  Yes.  Well, I can begin by the night before I left, May 8th.  I called Ms. Kitty and chatted with her for a while.  We reminisced about our trip to Belfast and that we really, really needed to get together and have a bit of relaxation and fun again.  My honey was off at a bachelor party in AC, he texted me to tell me he had won a bit of $$, yay!  Then I did my 400th check of the suitcase to make sure I had everything packed, the house was clean and all that fun stuff.

I got up the next morning, 6:30 am (ya'll who know how much I'm such a morning person will know how well that went over with me.....) but my awesome man got us together, carried my suitcase down two large flights of stairs and to the car, then off to pick up Leo's Mom.  Gathered her up, and headed off to the Newark, NJ airport... nap time in the car for the travelers! Got to the airport, said our bye-byes and headed in for the fun check-in.  Luckily it wasn't so bad and we got to our gate pretty quickly, but realized that, um, there was no food there in our gate area.  So we had to leave the gate area, go get food and then go back through security again.  All for the love of real food! Silly airport setups!

We got onto our plane fine, and into Toronto, our layover, without any issue. Once in Canada, Leo's Mom exchanged some USD for some Euros, but the exchange lady messed up and gave her Canadian coins... Why???  We weren't sticking around Canada if we were getting Euros woman!! Sheesh.  Oh and btw, thanx to Greece we spent more $$ on this trip than necessary. Gee thanx! Grrrr.  We did a little shopping, found some water, and unfortunately for me, I ended up with a severe migraine. Most likely due to a combination of the air-pressure and the intense light coming through the all-window terminal in Toronto.  I took my Imitrex and draped my sweater over my head to block out the light, while trying to let the meds take effect.  Luckily by the time boarding was ready for out flight, my brain had started to cooperate.

We were a little late on the plane.  The pilot had informed us that due to the problems with the Iceland volcano (still) we would be diverted further up over the Arctic to avoid the ash.  It made us land 2 hours later than our original time.  I slept for quite a while on the flight over, and was lucky in my dinner too.  I had requested a veggie meal, but the coach class meal was made with curry, me & curry do not get along..... I had to give it back to the flight attendant. She was very kind about it, and a little while later came back to ask if I would like a cheese ravioli instead, someone had passed on that dish.  Sure!  When she brought it to me, it was in a real dish, with metal silver ware, and tasted excellent! It was obviously from either business or first class.  Yummy.

And then we see the sight of the Mediterranian Sea.... And the pilot says... prepare for landing...

I'm home

Okay, I've been home for a few days now. But as with many things, writing the blog could wait a few days.

Our last day we waited for the dry ice to show up so we could pack up our samples in the coolers. It seems like everything went so quickly between noon and 2:30, the ice was there, the coolers packed, the labs cleaned, the bags moved to the dock and the hugs goodbye. We said bye to several people, piled into the cars to be driven to the gate to meet the taxis. It is here where we realized Maddhatter's bag was still on the ship. Doh! Luckily one of the crew was still with us, drove him back to the ship, got the bag and got back to the taxis. We loaded up and headed to the airport. One of the people on the ship said it was 10 minutes away. They lied. It was more like 30 - 45 min away. But the ride in the back of the taxi wasn't too bad, I took lots of pictures of the buildings going by and tried to envision the trip home. :)

Arriving at the airport, which was more or less a 2 room building with glass windows everywhere, we took all our bags inside. The desk clerk for the airline we were flying on wasn't the nicest, she charged us $52.00 for one of the bags that was a little over 2 pounds over the 50 pound limit. Really, I kid you not. I got called over to the security screening for my bags, apparently a rock I packed set off the alarm, okay....., and the computer monitor also set off the alarm. Why me? But in my broken Spanish I was able to get the security guy to say okay to my bags and send them on their way. I stepped through the personal security, walked through the doors and sat for another hour. Luckily on the cold marble floor. I realized my iPod battery was low so I sat on the floor, chatting w/Ms. Ed staring out the window while it charged. Mainly to just see when our little plane would arrive. It finally did and we loaded up and headed to Phoenix.

Welcome to Phoenix, the second most unfriendly place to vegetarians next to Texas. After going through customs and immigration (is it really immigration when you are a citizen of the country?) we went hunting for food. I thought, hey a brew pup would be nice. Right? Ehhhhh. I searched the menu for something to eat, when I asked the waiter if they had a veggie option his reply was, "We have nothing vegetarian." Okay.... Well, since the other two with me were in fact ordering, I asked if I could go forage for food and bring it back? Yup, all good. Gee thanx. I went off to search for food. Did I tell you Phoenix sucks for vegetarians? I found a cheese pizza, that's it. I brought it back, ate my pizza, sipped my bloody mary and watched a football game. I have no clue who was playing or what the score was, I'm a hockey fan so this is foreign to me with no ice!

They kicked us out at 9pm, our flight didn't leave until 11:30, but all the stores and restaurants closed at 9. Nice. We moved over to the seating area, and I curled up on the seats and fell asleep. Hard asleep for ~2 hours. They had to physically shake me to get me to wake up to get onto our plane. I like sleep. I feel asleep more, about another 2 hours on the flight back to Phillie. We landed, did all the baggage stuff, got the shuttle home and arrived to the drop spot. I got out of the van and walked briskly over to Jeboleth and hugged him. It was quite possibly the best hug ever. :)

In the last few days I've unpacked, cleaned my room (killer dust bunnies formed while I was gone!), did loads of laundry, slept, went shopping for a new rug in my room, watched lots of TV with Jeboleth, and even stopped into work for a few hours. The cruise is over. It was good for the most part, lots of good samples and science, new friends were made and I got to see more of the bottom of the ocean than most people will ever see. But there is something to be said for being home, and being with those you love. Being able to pick up the phone and call Ms. B., hug Jeboleth, play with Leo, these things are the things I missed. Oh and I cooked already too! I made salmon croquettes with couscous. The recipe is Jeboleth's mom's, and it turned out very yummy! :D Happy to be back in my kitchen!!! Oh, and I noticed something. When I left gas cost $2.39/gallon, it is now $1.69/gallon. Cool!


Science and Alvin crew of the Xtreme 2008 Pacific Cruise

We have arrived in Mexico

This is a day late, but no matter. We arrived in port yesterday to Guaymas, Mexico, around 7:30 am. It was nice to see land so close, and the cactus covered hills and islands were a beautiful sight. I had the unfortunate event of waking up at 4:21 am. Why? Heck if I know! I wasn't even used to waking up that early, so why my body said time to wake up, not a clue! I did force myself to do the fake sleep thing until I gave up around 6:30. I got up, went down to the deck and watched us coming closer to our final port. We cleared off the decks when the ship was getting ready to actually dock. Its safer that way, heavy lines (ropes) are being tossed about and people scurry to help tie the ship up, so its best to not be in the way of anyone.


For most of the rest of the day, we packed up the remaining parts of the labs to get ready. Strawberry Shortcake and Mookie had a potentially bad issue arise. Their flight out was scheduled for the 30th, but when the immigration officials came to the ship, they forgot the stamp, and said, "see you tomorrow" as they left. Hmmmm. Problem!!! Luckily some swift moving people were able to round up the immigration people, get the problem resolved and they were able to leave Mexico as scheduled. Not before we took a group science picture though. I'll have to post all the pics later, I seemed to be an eager packer yesterday and packed all my cables to transfer my photos from my camera to the computer. Ooops. It was very sad to see them go, we had gotten so used to having the group of us hang out together that it seemed extra quiet after they had gone. Even Maddhatter had a hard time looking up from his computer and not seeing Mookie sitting across from him. We miss you guys!


We got all of the equipment from the wet lab moved down to the computer room. Made up some ice bricks (okay I filled bags with water and stuck them in the freezer!) for samples. I scrubbed clean the wet lab, soap and water washing all the benches, sweeping and mopping the floor and making sure we didn't leave anything important behind. It looks very clean in there now, quite a difference a little hot water and soap can make! We have all the stuff now in here, the computer room. Which for some reason, when its packed doesn't seem like a lot. We'll move all the boxes into the cargo hold today.


The rest of the time we waited. Waited to find out what to do next. Waited to find out where the after-cruise party would be and just waited. I chatted with Jeboleth online, played with my Facebook page and took a few more pictures. We had lunch and dinner on the ship, then around 5:45 pm we disembarked from the ship, piled into cars, and went into the town to find the party. It was quite a nice place. It had a hut style roof, was circular in structure and had a little water garden outside in an atrium style area. It was breezy, cool and beautiful for the evening. The crescent moon was out with 2 very bright stars near it (some were arguing they were planets, others said stars... it was pretty nonetheless).


The margaritas here weren't nearly as good as the ones in Manzanillo. In fact I think the bartender was making them with lemon/lime soda versus real lime juice. We had some tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole with some cheese quesadillas for snacking on. It wasn't too bad of a party, a few got a little more liquor in them than the rest, and I was falling asleep. It was 9:00 pm and because I had been technically awake since 4:21 am, I was ready to fall over. I hopped a ride back to the ship shortly thereafter with some folks heading back. It was a much shorter ride this time since our cab driver knew where the heck he was going!


Back on the ship, I took my shower, cleaned up my room and decided to pack up a little. Of course, when I say "a little" that means my OCD kicked in and I packed and cleaned everything. I left out my clothes for today and had everything, including the shrunken cups, t-shirts and a chimney pieces all nicely packed and secured away. Luckily, I had thought ahead to use my vacuum packing bags, and since there are vacuums on board, I was amble to pack up everything in a small space. Too bad shoes can't vacuum down too! After all that fun, I went to bed around 10:30 pm, and slept soundly on my last night on the ship.

This morning, I thankfully did not wake up until 6:15 am. Thank you!! Breakfast was great, fresh fruit!!! And we moved the ice bags to the -80 freezers to get a little colder. Quite a few of us are leaving today, heading home. Those who live on the west coast will be home later tonight, those of us who live on the east coast will be home early tomorrow morning. No matter, we'll all be there soon. Since most of the rest of the day will be either moving stuff into the cargo hold or traveling, the next post will be possibly tomorrow or the following day. I'll post more pictures of the area, one of the whole science party and any others I've forgotton. I'll also post those video tours I did of the ship early on out here. Until then, Ciao!!

Last Dive Day

Yup, that's right, Alvin went into the water for the last time for this cruise this morning at 9:00 am. We had a 1 hour delay because we've been experiencing high winds, a little less than the 25 knot cut off, but still rather high. I missed the women getting into the sub this morning because I was setting up my last induction (did ya hear that, the LAST one!!). But I watched the launch off the A frame and managed to take a few photos of Alvin going into the abyss. I have to say, I'm really glad this was not my dive day. The water was choppy, wavy and I'm sure the sphere occupants had an extra bumpy time on the surface, both this morning and this evening during retrieval. Its been a wavy day. Not nearly as bad as it was back at 9 North when we had the 10 foot swells, but still a bit on the loopy side for even walking down the passageway.

We are now beginning to pack up the labs, process the last of the samples and get things ready to go home. With that thought, I realized I hadn't posted any pictures of our work spaces. I've been talking about the wet lab and the computer room, but you guys haven't seen them. So, I'm taking a moment for a picture page and showing you where we've been working for the last 3.5 weeks.

Computer Room






And...
Wet Lab








We were going to have everything packed up and head to port right after the Alvin recovery, but we realized we needed one more sample, an off axis control for the deep-sea vents we just sampled here. Oops. So we are doing an impromptu CTD cast out there right now. It takes about one hour for the rosette to go to the bottom of the ocean, and one hour to come back. Of course there's a short time in between when the bottles are being fired off and collecting water. We are only getting 50 liters of water, so hopefully it won't be an excruciatingly late evening. Cross your fingers.

And I finally got a beautiful sunrise! This morning it looked like it would be yet another disappointment. The sky was full of clouds, the sun was merely peaking through and I was sure it would not be good. I had taken my camera back inside and started to do some work. Then I peaked around the corner and there it was! This was my morning sunrise on the Pacific finally worth taking the picture for! Only a short time now, Tuesday morning I'll be home!