Maastricht in fall with cousins

The following weekend Jeff and Rita came from Portland and found Maastricht in its sweet autumnal state. We went boot shopping and beer drinking and enjoyed the warmth outside with everyone else who lives here, savoring the company and change of seasons. It was good to see them. There was a bit of bittersweetness in the air as that Sunday morning Gretchen, Mike, Kai and Emerson headed home for Minnesota. As we've had guests since they've left, I'm still not sure what a "normal" day with Ellie looks like without them. Gretchen and I used to spend our mornings hunting for kid fun punctuated by cups of cappuccino and croissants. I know that when the time comes when I'm not happily hanging out with friends and family, there will be a big gaping loss. I'm including a picture of a bike parking lot so you can get the general idea of how Maastricht folks get around.

Enchanting and Chanting in Luxembourg

Do you remember coloring maps in elementary and middle school, when you had to make every country a different color? You'd line up your colored pencils thinking that you had Europe all figured out and then, halfway through, whoa, there was another tiny little country--Andorra maybe, or Luxembourg--then you'd have to go and find another color and your entire scheme was sadly in shambles. Who lives in Luxembourg--and who goes there? Well, now you have the beginnings of an answer, straight from us--tourists of Luxembourg. Early September, right when the leaves were beginning to turn, we hopped in the car with our friend Jennifer from down the block and before that St. Paul, and headed through Belgium to Luxembourg. It was a breathtaking little place--full of hills and the soft mountains of the Ardennes, valleys with rivers winding through them, old forests, castles in various states of upkeep or decay, good food and fine folks who speak German and French and are/were quite Catholic. We hiked through 2 ruined castles and a bit in nearby woods, went to Clairvaux (Clervaux?) and saw monks holding mass with Gregorian chant (until Ellie tired of being quiet). It was a fine day.

Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium and France, grandparents and cousins . . . oh my!

We've been very busy--while excursions and visitors have provided a month's worth of distraction from e-mail and blogging, I resolve to catch up! Here are some teaser pictures of (in order) Luxembourg, Germany (that's the Rhine), Brugges (Belgium) and Monet's gardens in France. Lots more soon.

geen nederlands--no dutch

When I learned Swahili, I had teachers all around me . . . students, fellow teachers, the night guard Sandam, friends, neighbors, folks running stores, women at the market, bus conductors, all seemed to delight in my linguistic foibles and enthusiastically encourage further attempts. Many didn't speak much English at all, and as I was alone in Tanzania I needed to learn quickly, so I did. Learning Dutch is dramatically different. The western value of self-sufficiency tends to be the stumbling block--my attempts at Dutch are quickly met with English, probably to be polite and ensure my pride isn't wounded, perhaps also as a point of pride in their own English proficiency. And people are busier here than in Tanzania (though not as busy as at home), more anxious to get to the point. Why indulge someone's poorly accented attempts at Dutch when you speak perfect English? What must it be like to try to learn English in the States? My empathy for immigrants grows as my optimism that I'll learn Dutch wanes. Oh well--perhaps I'll work more on French--Belgium is just a walk or bike ride away.

. . . jiggity jog--Ireland pt. 2

Rather than wear you out with in-depth explanations (I'm a teacher and, as you know, prone to verbosity . . .), I recommend that anyone with any interest in Ireland check out a book that influenced which sights we saw and helped feed my fascination with Ireland. "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill is a fast, easy read. The jist is that after Rome fell, Ireland was the center of education for all of Europe and the only place where a lot of ancient manuscripts survived. So much of our trip was centered around seeing where "the beacon of knowledge" was kept lit through the middle ages, and a lot of that was in ancient church centers. More trip details continued:

Saturday: Clonmacnoise (pictures 1 and 2) on the River Shannon in the heart of the island was founded in 548 and, despite being burned and plundered 37 times by various marauding hooligans (usually my Viking relatives), remained the center of Christianity in Ireland for as long as Ireland was in the hands of the Irish. It still has a collection of breathtakingly beautiful early Celtic crosses. Ellie loved jumping over the tombstones. Perhaps that was less than respectful, but she was happy and at least we weren't burning the place down. What was cool here was that on these crosses the Celtic art/culture blended so well--so you had ancient fertility symbols mixed with Christian symbols.
After we'd had enough ruins, we took a train ride through the pete bogs. As they dig up the pete for burning for the power company, they keep finding these thousands of years old bodies, not even decomposed. Our guide told us how many times they call the police, sure there's been a recent murder, only to find that the person's last breath was 4000 years ago. Is this starting to read like a National Geographic article? I apologize--enough morbidity. After our train ride, we hopped in the car and drove into the mountains. It was the kind of drive that, although there were pastures and castles to your right and your left, your eyes didn't dare stray from the teeny tiny winding road lest you hit a tractor or oncoming car.

Sunday: We hiked around Glendalough, which is a beautiful mountain valley holding two lakes (picture 3) and, of course, ruins of an ancient abbey. From there we headed in Dublin, where we stayed in the southern Dublin village of Dun Laoghaire. Again, we couldn't believe our luck that we'd just walked into another huge Irish party. The World Cultures Festival was happening right on the waterfront, where our hotel happened to be. There were thousands of people from all over the world, bands and street performers, food from seemingly every country to sample. It was quite a change to go from quiet walks in the ruins of ancient monastic communities to such volume, vibrancy and herds of people.

Monday and Tuesday: Dublin. With a fevered Ellie. Eleanor Peanut, who'd been such a trooper, was worn out and sick. We had to take Dublin a bit easier than we'd planned on, but we still enjoyed a lot between frequent breaks. Highlights: The open air bus tour through Dublin. (Picture 4) Seeing the Book of Kells (stunning Celtic manuscript of the four gospels from the 8th century) at Trinity University, Phoenix park, a few different pubs (love that there's no smoking in Dublin . . . pubs are a great place to relax when Ellie's fallen asleep in the stroller), Christ Church Cathedral (picture 5), the Clarence (Bono and Edge's hotel) and Dublin city hall museum. Ellie woke up much better on Wednesday morning, the day we flew home tired but happy.

Whew.

. . . jiggity jig--Ireland pt. 1

Making a trip to Ireland had been a dream for both Ryan and me. That it worked out so well with Ellie was a delight . . . we were pleasantly surprised with her willingness to konk out in her stroller while we took in museums, stay relatively upbeat while we hunted for our next meal and enjoy and take in whatever she could, wherever she could (graveyards, ancient abbey ruins). The result is that we were able to pack in a lot every day. I know a few Irish-philes will be interested in what we saw/did, but others don't need all the details. Here are a few thoughts on Ireland for those of you who are already yawning reading about someone else's vacation:

1. Super cheerful, upbeat folks there in Ireland. Wherever we stayed, whomever we talked with, it just seemed like people were honestly friendly. Ryan and I talked about this a lot. . . incredible that there is such endemic good will and kindheartedness in a group of people who have seen more than their share of tragedy and struggle. There seems to be a pride in one's ability to laugh or sing off misfortune and raise a toast to tomorrow. I don't want to romanticize the Irish (we saw a sad sight or two as well), but it was refreshing.
2. Surprise--Ireland isn't all Irish. Many of the folks serving in restaurants (less so in the traditional pubs) and working in hotels were immigrants, many from eastern Europe and Nigeria. I don't know why this surprised me, but it did. Apparently people from Catholic countries (Poland especially) like to immigrate to Ireland. With the exception of one older couple who expressed a bit of hesitation, the folks we talked to said they were happy to see a new group of Irish and thought it boded well for the future.
3. Ireland is so easy to travel in. Besides the obvious change for us that people speak English, it was also well set up with public transportation, parks and lots of places that gave out tourist information. Ireland is also easy to travel in with a young child. It's a very young country with lots of kiddos--I think we read that the average age in Ireland is 30! Everyone was happy to accommodate us and the sense we got is that children are viewed as a blessing, not an annoyance. We felt welcome.

And now for the play by play . . .
Friday: After a super freaky late Thursday night ride from the airport on the left side of the road ("are you sure this is the way we get on the highway?" "is that guy going to hit us?" "watch out!!!"), we slept in Drogheda, just north of Dublin. Friday was our pre-history, super-early history of Ireland day.
First stop was Newgrange, a 3000 year old (older than the pyramids) tomb of Irish kings that still aligns perfectly to let the sun in on the solstice. The first two pictures above are of Newgrange. . . the second with the tri-swirl detail is the design carved on the huge stone just outside the entrance. All beautifully mysterious.
Next we headed to the Hill of Slane. This is a notable place for a couple reasons: 1. St. Patrick lit a gigantic fire here on Easter morning in (probably) 433, calling all Irish to become Christians. The Irish were all set to have their own druid festival on the Hill of Tara that morning and saw St. Patrick's fire before they could get their own lit. The story is that the druid priest told the king that if he didn't go put out St. Patrick's fire, it would burn forever in Ireland. The priest and the king were eventually converted and the rest is history. What's neat is that the Irish hold both hills sacred . . . old Irish Christianity still retained the best parts of druid mysticism, with St. Patrick encouraging the syncretism. The 3rd picture is of an old abbey built on the Hill of Slane. 2. Perhaps not as historically notable, but important for some of us nerds, U2 recorded the appropriately titled album "The Unforgettable Fire" in nearby Slane Castle.
From Slane we went to Tara. (Picture 4, Ryan and Ellie on the highest point.) The Hill of Tara is where the ancient Irish kings, chieftans and priests congregated for ceremonies and important meetings. Viewed from above, there are decorative swirls in the ground made from long mounds, some of which are burial mounds. The Mound of Hostages is tomb similar to Newgrange in that it aligns to the sun for solstice. Ellie loved running up and down the "funny hills". We were cracking up that, here on one of Ireland's oldest and most sacred sites, sheep were grazing and you really had to watch your step lest you bring home a stinky souvenir.
To me, all three places were a beautiful and bit haunting. That part of Ireland is still quite pastoral and so we were looking out mostly on fields and pastures . . . it wasn't that difficult to imagine what it must have been like thousands of years ago.
That night we went to a small town nearby our B&B and felt crazily lucky to have happened upon the yearly traditional Irish music festival. We walked into the town, had a meal in the pub, and then walked into a crowd of people, half of whom were toting instruments. It was quite literally like walking into a tourist brochure for Ireland, but the only tourists around were the Irish themselves. The signs all in Irish, we learned by asking that this was a national festival, 3 days yearly, that most musicians in Ireland try to attend. Kids with penny whistles, old men with fiddles, there were folks there to play their music in every park, street corner and pub. We saw the opening parade (picture 5) with the clans holding flags of their coats of arms aloft and lustily singing their particular songs. The music was just starting, Guinness was flowing, but we had a wee one who had trampled through thousands of years of Irish history and desperately needed her bed. Ryan and I left feeling so fortunate to have had a small taste of the fun. Speaking of bed . . . although I've only got through what we did on the first day, mine is calling. Tomorrow I'll be less garrulous and just tell you where we went the rest of the time. Much love to you all!

home again, home again

Hello all! We're back in Maastricht after a fabulous trip to Ireland. Ellie was fantastic, we did/saw tons and are home safely. Much more to come, but here are a few teaser pics. (click on them to really take in the green)
1. Clonmacnoise castle ruins
2. Glendalough
3. Pub in Tullamore
4. Ellie reclining on graves, Newgrange
5. The scripture cross at Clonmacnoise (9th century)