Venice

Short and sweet, pink ties and pigeons. That about sums up my weekend in Venice. Well, a bit more... Flew into Venice late on Friday night and after a boat ride and a short walk we found the nearest wine bar. Very cool place. The owner was a old man with curly grey hair and big smile. He wore a checkered vest and bow-tie with mismatched red and yellow sneakers. We were a little ways off the beaten trail, so it really felt like a local place. We didn't exactly blend in, but we were able to meet some of the patrons. We were told that the owner was famous in the region for his refined wine pallet. So customers, instead of tasting the wine themselves before accepting the bottle, asked the owner to taste it for them. Needless to say, by 12:30 am when we met him, he was a little goofy from a long night of work. Such a cool place, we couldn't help but visit again on Saturday.

I've never been too hip with the fashion. Though I can't help noticing that in men's stores all over London, and in Venice, pink has become the new blue- it's everywhere! I'm happy to say, I've jumped on the band wagon. I bought myself a pink tie- and man, it's really pink! I'll let you know if I get up the nerve to actually wear it. After my big purchase, I made myself one with nature and joined the pigeons in St Marks Square.

Venice truly is an unique one of a kind place- glad Annie got me to go...

Edinburgh- the other Dublin.

Caught a train up to Edinburgh this weekend, Friday night was St. Paddy's Day and honestly it was impossible to get into, let alone served at a pub. It was kind of crazy, definitely glad I wasn't in Dublin this weekend... what to say, well spent saturday scoping out the castle and walking along the Royal Mile.

Check it out, on either side of the gate statues of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace. FREEDOM!!!! The Edinburgh Castle was just like I remembered it- really windy and really cold. Not sure why, but I tried to climb inside a cannon.

The castle is pretty impressive- a very cool backdrop over the city.

Sunday, went on a little hike to get a good view over the city...

Next weekend: Venice

MAMBELS!!!

Well where to begin... nine days with the Mambels, need I say more???

Okay, I'll say a little bit more. Big Al himself showed up early on Saturday morning, and we hit the ground running the only way Alan knows how... with a nap.

After spending the first weekend out and around London. I was back to work on Monday and Alan, to be honest, I think mostly slept (although he claims to have seen some museums, if you know the Mambels, you know the man loves his naps).

By Thursday, I'd had about enough of the rat race, so we hopped over to Ireland for the weekend. Unknowingly, we ended up in Dublin on the biggest weekend of the year- no not St. Paddy's Day, 6 Nations Rugby Ireland v. Scotland. If you can close your eyes for a minute and envision a city overrun with rugby-luvin' Scotsman in Kilts crawling around the city- pub to pub (boy let me tell you, it was really windy).

On the advise of my boss, a good Irish lad, we found a few locals to spend some time in- anybody ever heard of a stout beverage- Guinness I think the locals called it. It's quite delightful. Sans Kilts, we did our best to fit in...

Apart from the obvious, I have to say my favorite part of the weekend was driving on the 'wrong' side of the road! That's right, we rented a car on Saturday and went out to see the country. "Tim, left, left, TIM LEFT!" (to be fair that only happened once).

Man the country roads on Ireland are narrow, and ever where you look there are sheep, 1000 year old abbey ruins and stone crosses.

So, we stumbled on to a place called Nauen au Brau- an prehistoric pagen sun worship thingy. It was pretty impressive- we got to walk inside a stone cave build over 5000 year ago (that's older the the pyramids).

These guys built the mound such that on the winter solstice each year the cave lites up from the sun for 17 minute, then it goes completely dark the rest of the year. It's a light show that's been happening every December for 5000 years, that's pretty impressive consider the site took 2 generations to build. That's some serious dedication...

Who do you think they're trying to rent bikes to here...

Ireland is pretty awesome- can't wait to go back!

Yo, Shepard- thanks for a great week- see you in Virginia in the fall.