Ramblings...

Jack-o-lantern evening

Neighbors yard was AWESOME!

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Ireland - Dublin to Galway

YAY! Today I finished up my work stuff. Training is over! Woo hoo!
I was very pleased with how today went. I was teaching material that I am pretty vaguely familiar with, but I totally pulled it off. Class seemed interested and learned something. Very good.

So after that, I caught taxi with Dave and one of the customers, Robert, to the airport. From there I picked up my rental car. It's a tiny little bugger. I'll get some pictures tomorrow.
So, driving on the left hand side actually has turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. The hardest thing is when I walk up to the car to get in it, I still walk up the the left hand side.

Hehehe. The whole time I am driving I just keep thinking left left left left. It works :)
So I drove clear across Ireland today. Seriously. I drove from Dublin to Galway. It took me about 2.5-3 hours. Pretty uneventful drive and really nothing much to see either. But I got to Galway, and I set the GPS unit in the car (yeah, I HAD to have it. so glad I did) for Eyre Square in Galway. It is a REALLY cool area. Lots of shops (most were closed tonight) and bars and stuff.

I ended up walking into this record store called Red Light Records. Me and the owner, Des, totally hit it off. He just got back from a 6 week trip across the USA. New York to San Fransisco I believe he said. He went through Austin even! But didn't get much time to spare there. Too bad. Completely cool guy. We chatted for I dunno maybe close to two hours.

Turns out we have very similar music tastes and he played a ton of Irish acts for me. I ended up walking out with 9 CDs! HAHAHA it was a load of fun though. Shot the shit for a while.. then I was STARVING! I walked around trying to find an Italian place, but they were all closed. I ended up at this Chinese place and it was SOOOOOO good. They had this homemade hot chili sauce and I loaded up on it. I was running out of my nose and eyes. That is always a good sign.
After that I strolled around for a while, down the shop/bar district.

Very cool. I went to check out this one club where Ryan Adams is playing next week. Tonight there was no more music by the time I got there. Got a recommendation from the door guy and headed over to another place. The music there was eh.. it was traditional Irish, but the band was a bunch of old farts and quite honestly, not very good. I did enjoy a Guiness there though.
Finally grabbed my car and headed out to find a hotel. I just found one. It's 1am.
Tomorrow I will check out Galway in the daylight in the morning. Then I will head out for Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher. Hopefully make it out there by early afternoon. I will check that out tomorrow, and then possibly drive down to the Ring Of Kerry. Just playing it by ear.
I have a hotel booked in Dublin for Friday night. Then I fly back out for home on Saturday.

Lots to pack into a couple days. Should be fun!

Dave! My coworker that I did training with.

I saw this on my drive to Galway. Looked cool. I didn't have time to stop so I just took this quickly while I got stopped in traffic. It came out ok for a quick shot.

I ate dinner at this Chinese place and they had this cool painting on the wall.

The old fart band.

A bar.

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Dublin - Day 2

The day started off here at a nice coffeeshop called "LemonJellys". I had a great egg, cheddar, and tomato bagel for breakfast.

I was in the Temple Bar district...

And this is the famous Temple Bar.

Late that day it was off the Guiness

The brewery

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The toucan!

Labels

At the top is a bar, surrounded by 360 degrees of windows. The Gravity Bar. Here you get a free pint of Guiness.

Amazing views from up here

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And then on the walk home, I passed by Christchurch Cathedral.

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Really gorgeous.

Past a pub

I ate dinner at this place. It was very nice and homey feeling.

Some cool sculpture

And back to the hotel.

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Fresh shaven, in Dublin

These guys were jamming!

Cowboy in Dublin. This guy played "Blue Suede Shoes" both times I walked by. People were screaming for Johnny Cash.

You see the strangest things in Temple Bar.

Drumming on a box.

This guy would pope into scary poses whenever someone threw money in his jar, and then freeze in that position until the next person threw some change. Scary! I think his pointy ears are real (he had them made that way), and he was wearing freaky contacts.

There was this huge group of people dancing. The girls were dancing "Irish style" in heels! Crazy! The guy on the right approached me afterwards and told me "Don't take my photo, I'm Irish." I didn't even realize he was there!

More of the crazy dancing in the middle of the street. And yes, that is my crazy "friend" on the left that looks like he is about the throw a punch.

There were abut 5 girls who were all wearing mustaches.

done.

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What you lookin at?

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Stack of cut sheetrock

You can see the embedded fiberglass here. I got this all in my hands and arms. Yeowch!

The framing 1x2s I used. Screws ready to go.

Closeup 1

Closeup 2

Closeup 3

The finished boxes

Another shot

The framing 1x2 screwed to one side of the sheetrock

A finished box, look from up top

You can see the fiberglass sticking out here too

Side view of finished box

Another side

The hardware cloth cover I made to sit on top.

Folded down and they stay put very nicely

The roll of hardware cloth

The label from the hardware cloth.

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Andrea's China cabinet

Our rainchain... in action!

Rain rain rain

Furry friend

Big ol tail on that skunk!

The kitchen is back together.

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To Prague

I did a tour of Munich this morning. Pretty cool. Met a Canadian on the train last night and he recommended a good hostel to me so I stayed there. Caught a free 3 hour tour today. I normally would shy from tours but it was actually prettz decent. I didn't have time to research Munich myself so it worked out. I'll post more soon.
I missed my first train to Prague because it didn't say anything about Prague on the damn sign. So I am catching the next one in a few minutes here.
I just made a post about my day leading up to Zurich. I'll post more later.
All's well. Feet are hurting already and I want to save them for Prague which is why I'm spending my last hour here sitting in an internet cafe :)
More soon...

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Munchen

So my pictures are on Andreas'computer from the Zurich and castle trip. Iĺl post some of the others as soon as I get a chance and do a better journal entry. for now, in Munich, and headed to Prague late tomorrow I think. We shall see.
Having a blast.

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Castles and countryside

I woke up at 5am to give John the luggage. Slept until 7:45am when I got my wakeup call (in German, as I requested). I asked the front desk to not wake me up in English each day I was there, but in German instead so I get the full experience :) It´s kinda nice waking up to something you can´t understand.
I slept a bit more until 8:15am. Showered, packed up mz plastic bag´s worth of stuff and headed out. On my way to te train station, I stopped to buy a 34.99 Euro backpack. Kinda pricy, but I really needed it. Then to the train station to buy my tickets. Bought the just before the train and then headed out. The ride went through the forest and I started to see snow everywhere. Got to Hechingen and just missed the one bus that goes to the castle daily. I ended up grabbing a taxi for 12 E to the castle. Got to the castle and decided to hike up the trail instead of waiting for the shuttle bus. Ummmm, can you say COLD??? Only one set of footprints through the snow going up the stairs on the trail. Couldn't even see the stairs, just had to trust that they were where the footprints were. Not sure if it was the altitude (I have no idea how high I am), or if I'm just out of shape, but it winded me for sure.
At the top of the trail, I bought my ticket for the indoor tour. Hung around for a while until the tour started. It was all in German, so I didn't understand a word of it, but it was very coolen to see the inside. The present castle there really isn't all that old, but it is the 4th castle on the spot. The first from the 13th or 14th century. They all got torn down during sieges.
I decided to pony up the 1.30 E for the shuttle down. Had to wait for the shuttle to show and it was CRAZY cold. I was getting nervous because it didn't show until 14:00 and mz next train connection was at 14:27 and I still had to call a taxi, wait for it, and then a 10 minute ride into town. The taxi showed at 14:12. I asked him if he could make it in time and he assured me he could. I talked with him a bit. He didn't speak much English but I learned that he was born in the same small town (Hechingen) and he hadn't left. He sdai in the last 2 days they got over a foot and a half of snow (he showed me with his hands). So he got me there by about 14:19. Plenty of time :) I got on the train and that's where I am now. I'm hoping to get a chance to pick up a snow cap and gloves and a sweatshirt. Not sure I will have time until Zurich.
Off we go....

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Stuttgart. And the adventure begins...

YAY! The training is done!! It went extremely well.
We have eaten some really great food here. The first night, we ate at the brewery, and I had fresh gnocchi. Monday night we ate at this AMAZING Thai restaurant and I had some kind of pad thai with tofu. Tuesday night we ate at a really good Greek restaurant and I had these little feta cheese pies, and greek salad, and tzatziki. And tonight (Wednesday) we ate at a restaraunt where we had NO idea what kind of food they served. No English on the menu, waiters didn't speak English at all. I ended up with this kinda Noodles Romanoff/Mac n Cheese kinda thing, with a salad and french fries. The mystery meal!
We took a trip to Stuttgart today since we got out of class early. We walked around and saw some amazing sights. See below. Lots of cool stores and stuff. If you like shopping, that is the town for you!
So tomorrow I start the vacation part of my trip over here. I will leave in the morning via train to Zurich, Switzerland. There I will visit my friend Andreas. He stayed with us over the last summer in Austin for a couple days. It's so cool to be able to visit him over here. Never thought I'd have the chance. On the way to Zurich I may try to find a way to stop to go see the Hohenzollern Castle. Not sure if I will be able to or not though. We shall see. Tomorrow night I'll have dinner with Andreas and his girlfriend in Zurich and crash at his place. Friday we have some tentative plans to go to Rigi. Not sure on that either yet. We shall see if the weather holds. Oh yeah, Monday, during training it was snowing down cats and dogs outside! It was GREAT!
So we'll do that on Friday and then I believe I will leave Friday night to go to Munich. I will spend a half a day or so there on Saturday and then either stay in Munich that night or continue on to Prague. I will spend all day Sunday and Monday in Prague. Tuesday morning I fly back from Prague to Austin.
I'm ditching my luggage with my coworker John since he's been nice enough to take it back to Austin with him tomorrow. And I didn't have time to buy a backpack before I left. So I'll need to buy one. Only thing I'm taking with me is: an extra pair of jeans, boxers, socks, a jacket that I'll wear, my camera, a hairbrush that I bought over here, shampoo, my ipod, and that's about it. I need to pick up a cheap backpack because currently I just have everything stuffed in a plastic bag from the store.
Well I need to go do some research on potential hostels I might stay at in Munich and Prague, and I need to look at train schedules. SPONTANEOUS!

Crazy upturned trees and "giant deer feeders". Boeblingen.

The roofs are amazing. They're extremely steep and this one even has ladders on it permanently!

A pretty tree.

German architecture.

Fountain.

The "cobblestone" work here is so amazing. I really like how it follows every curve and hump in the road.

Schtreetzenznarrowen.

John sitting on some whacky German sculpture.

Ahhh das Brau hausen!

There we go. This is where everyone found us on the first night.

This picture TRULY expresses how Germans feel about their beer. Does that guy looked pleased or what!??!

A liquor that would NEVER make it in the US.

A view from Das Ticketbar.

Rohrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

Flowers everywhere. It is so gorgeous. And it's still freezing outside. I can only imagine once it warms up.

More flowenzenheimers.

Flowerbed.

We took a daytrip to Stuttgart and saw some really great old architecture and plazas.

Ominous rainclouds in the background.

Another flowerbed with a pretty flowering tree.

Tower.

This is one of their main shopping areas. There are stores upon stores. LOTS of people walking around. And because they are gearing up for World Cup, you can see little soccerballs hanging from the trees.

Some old architecture. Let's take a closer look...

Amazing sculpture.

Look at that detail!

Up.

Smartcars are everywhere! This one was tricked out.

A delicious German meal. We had absolutely NO idea what we were getting here because the menu was in German and the waiter didn't speak any English. Mystery meal! It was good!

So funny. a Mexican restaurant with Mexican food with German descriptions!

Another courtyard.

Mighty.

Horseman.

This is just one of many churches. These are amazing. This one had dates on it from the year 1130.

Olympics

I LOVE these courtyards. Check out all that stonework!

Up.

Train station.

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Deutscheland!

OK... so first of all... the house is done, and we moved in Monday before last. It was exactly 6 months, to the day from the fire. It is REALLY REALLY so much better than we ever imagined it would be. Just great. I will post some final pics and all soon.
The funny thing is, I only got to spend a few days there because I was scheduled to come to Germany for work to do some training. So I flew out that Saturday, the 8th. Austin to Chicago to London to Stuttgart, then a taxi to Boeblingen.
We got to the hotel and immediately went out to try to keep the momentum and not go to sleep. We ended up walking around the lakes in town, checking out some awesome architecture and ended up (where else but) at the local brewery. We ordered some Mai Bock beers (their newest brew) and the waitress asked if we wanted small or large. When we said large she said "but it is VERY strong beer!!". Well then, bring us two! hahaha not the thing to do. Challenging two Texans on beer. We drank a couple then in walk the customers that we will be training for the week. They sat down and ate with us and it was a really cool way to get to know them before the training. 30 minutes pass and in walks my father-in-law and his wife!! I had spoken with him just a little while before. He didn't mention that they were going to try to come meet up with me. Boy, was it great seeing them walk in! I had a really good time chatting it up with them and drinking beers. Nice to see family that we rarely get to see.
We asked if they had anything stronger and the waitress turned us on to their Bock beer. It literally said in big block letters on the bottle "REAL STRONG BEER". Not too bad!
After chatting and chatting we headed back to the hotel for the night and bid Bobby and Edith good night. And we were so exhausted and relaxed that we both passed out in our rooms around 6pm. Not a good move. I woke up at 11:30pm. Couldn't get back to sleep until 4:30am and up at 6am. Not a good night's sleep at all. The next day I was SOOOO tired. But the training went very well.

First day. Walk around the Boeblingen lakes.

There is art everywhere around Boeblingen.

It was some kind of fountain.

German pigeons. Also, German grass, and German concrete.

The church at the top of the hill in Boeblingen.

Closer picture of the towering church.

That looks VERY German, no?

Zee churchenzeinen.

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This roof just looked awesome. They looked like metal shingles. Had to take a picture. The satellite dishes are a trip.

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We upgraded the underlayment to some thicker, quieter stuff.

The floor is starting to get put back in!

Living room got completed on the first day.

Look at that curve! These guys are pros.

They even prepped the foundation by grinding down the high spots (see big whitish area) ...

... and filling in the low spots (see dark gray area).

We even got them to tear out the old tile in the entryway. Smart idea (Andrea's) to ask! Here is what we had them put in. It's travertine, not tumbled like in the kitchen though.

A shot of the new flooring in the master bedroom. Those are the new french doors where the old sliding glass door used to be.

They're kinda using the kitchen to store stuff. Well, that is the busted up pantry in the front there. STACKS and STACKS of laminate floowing.

See? STACKS, I tell you!

The kitchen breakfast area chandelier. Slightly different from the old one, but in the same series.

And there is the travertine tile getting laid down.

They LOST our old living room fan, so we had to buy it again and they are reimbursing us.

Tile going in. He's admiring his handiwork.

The new front doors! YAY! They look good, huh?

There's the new door handles. Very nice.

And here is the entryway tile from today. They grouted it this morning. Nice border!

Another shot.

And one more.

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There's the new wall and landscaping.

Came out pretty nicely. It needs a couple months to fill in.

And new sod to fill in the dead patches.

There's the new outdoor lights in the front. This one is by the garage.

And either side of the front door. Still the old front doors.

You can see the two new lights in the back too. And in the upper left corner you can see speaker wire hanging down.

Closeup of rear lights.

Our new Japanese Maple tree!!

Stacks and stacks of laminate. Boy does that look familiar.

New tile in the utility room.

And the hall bath tile.

And the new shower tile in the hall bath.

Tile in master bath

New vent for the master bath.

They got the fan up in the master.

And the shower tile in the master. grrr. not too happy about those corners.

Closet lights.

Hall bath light.

Hall bath linen thing.

Utility room light.

Breakfast area lights.

The kitchen begins to take shape again.

They took out the front tile! YAY!

Front landscaping.

Closeup. That's a Cast Iron plant in the front and a Variegated Aucuba/Ginger in the back.

Dwarf Yaupon Holly.

The hall bath, grouted.

Hall bath shower. Perfect!

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Master bath grouted.

Shower grouted. Corners. grr.

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Looks good.

Utility Room grouted.

Nice view of front landscaping from inside the garage.

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Big new A/C unit. Heat pump.

They cracked the cooktop! AGH!!!!

There's our ceiling fans. We bought the same ones that we had in the rooms before.

And this one is different. Guest room.

Twin garage door openers.

There's the vanity for the hall bath.

And the master vanities.

There's our new front doors. I gotta say, I think WE did a better job at staining them, though they still are pretty.

And there's the little wall they built in the front. The little pillar at the end kinda goes with the mailbox.

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Getting closer

Another long time no post. Theme?
SO anyway, they have really been making progress on the house. They've finished the exterior siding and limestone, installed doors, garage doors, new trim (baseboards, window sills, etc). They've painted the inside and out. They still need to finish touching that up, but the majority is done. Next big step is the flooring and the shower surrounds.
For now, jusst check out the pics and I'll write more soon. By the way, check out Andrea's page, link over there on the left of this page for more frequent updates of pictures.
Off to bed for now...

One of the 4 stacks of sheetrock

More sheetrock

A small stack

Anotgher stack of sheetrock in the back, and siding on the ground there.

They wrapped the house in Tyvek before they put the new siding on.

A messy kitchen

This is the FIRST day of them putting the limestone up. Those guys move fast!

More rock

They put the sheetrock up right over the door openings. I guess it's faster to just cut it out afterwards.

Hard at work

Funny shaped doorways on the left there.

Cutting stone

Another interesting doorway to the hall bathroom

The next day they had a lot more of the limestone done

Getting there

Those are the new doors for the inside. NICE!

And they decided to put rock all along the side here. It used to be just brick in the middle section (just past the fence) and siding on either side of that.