Energy Challenge Update

Wow, in less than a week we will be face to face with...well we don't really know.  Its a bit strange trying to prepare for something, and not really know what it is going to consist of.  I can't imagine that it will be overly physically taxing, but at the same time I am not a kayaker so the unknown scary.

Our one team meeting so far was at a pub, so unless there is a keg race we probably are going to be unprepared.  I have been doing two a days now, running in the morning and riding my bike at night, hopefully I won't be the least fit on the team.

The good news is that we will have a great excuse for getting last place...nobody will be able to say that we have been training too much and not working enough.

Please consider giving to our team or myself personally. My fundraising page

Our team page

Furry Friday

At this point nothing Hampton does while we are away should surprise me, but its still strange to Randomly see it on line some time later from her dog sitter's websites.  So while we have been away the last couple weeks she thoroughly enjoyed herself again.  She was in another dog show,not as successful as the last one.

And one I would have never guessed....went camping.  Wonder if all the dogs had seperate sleeping bags and there own tent.  It was actually a weekend for Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retrievers (our dog sitter has one), but Hampton tagged along.  She is so tired still 4 days after

Somebody left a comment in Russian that translates to
Elv''s flying horse.  Clearly doesn't translate that well.

Hampton must have gotten a great
workout with all of these big dogs

Driving in France

So everything you have seen lately from France was spread out all over Normandy.  Trying to get trains or any other public transport was going to be a huge pain so we decided to rent a car and have a go at it ourselves.

This was our first time where we were'nt just going to a city to see the city, but had real purposeful destinations in mind.  I have driven exactly 7 days in the last 20 months so was rusty to say the least.  But the good news was that the cars were on the right and the drivers were on the left.  The other way around like in Britain and I am sure this post would have been titled 'International Incident - American causes 30 car pile up on M25'.

So we picked up the in Calais, and had hands down the least helpful attendant ever at Avis.  Now I take partial blame because I don't know French, but living and working 15 miles from the UK you would have thought she might have picked up some English, but alas no.  We walked out with a key (a key might be giving it too much credit, but more on that later) and had to lock and unlock the doors a couple times as a makeshift homing signal till we found her.

This is it....

Megan the Meagan.  A diesel Renault with zero amenities and a French owners manual.  Kristen reserved a manual transmission because I my old Mustang was, but I must have missed that conversation, or didn't know the context, but not sure I would have been up for it had I known.  We set off and it wasn't long before I was in search of the cruise control.  Well therein lie the problem.  The solution was undoubtedly within the owners manual, but as it was in French it wasn't much help.  We pushed any and all buttons on the dash and steering wheel to no avail, only to find that it was strategically placed in  the center consol.  Why didn't we think to look there first?

And then there is the 'key' I put it air quotes because it wasn't much of a key.  Look at the sice of it too, was like carrying around an extra phone in your pocket.

There was a little slot by the radiuo that you had to put it into and the a push button start stop.  I felt like I was initiating the launch sequence for a nuclear missle, it was just ridiculous.  You didn't even need to keep it in the slot while you were driving, but you had to put it back in to turn the car off.

As we only had highway in front of us things were pretty smooth the first day.  But as we travelled around the French countryside to explore the D-Day beaches a number of other unique problems reared their heads.

First and foremost were roundabouts.  Who in their right mind concluded that the best way to cross traffic was in a circle.  Couple that with signs that are pointed skewed to the direction the mean for you to go, and we spent quite a bit of time going in circles.  Any time we weren't quite sure which way to go I just drove in circles a la Clark Griswold till we made a decision.  All in all though I would say we were pretty successful directionally with no major losts and only a couple wrong ways.

When we were in Rouen I kept having the damnedest time with the traffic lights.  Instead of the lights being on the other side of the intersection or even hanging in the middle the were directly above the car as you pulled up to the light.  I kept doing the lean forward crickneck move trying to see them.  It wasn't till we were almost out of town that I realised that what I thought was the pedestrian crossing lights were mini stop lights for the first car at the intersection.

The mini lights are half way
down the pole.  I thought
it was for the crosswalk.

Seemed to me a awfully expensive answer to the problem when they could have just turned the lights around on the other side of the intersection.

I am also a bit confused about the speed limit signage.  We are all used to one sign that tells you sthe speed limit, and you obey that until another sign comes along and tells you something different.  Simple right!!  Well the French have what seemed to be the most over complicated system ever.  After driving for four days it kinda makes sense but at the time was really confused.  There is one sign at the beginning of the highway that gives a dry speed limit and a rain speed limit.

 Then when you go through a town or something it comes down.  Now is the tricky part.  When you leave town they post this sign.

They don't tell you what the speed limit is just what it is not.  Add on the signs for cars with campers and semis and you never know how fast to go.  On Friday it was raining off and on so I wasn't sure to follow the dry speed or wet speed either.

The biggest issue I had the whole time, all 1300 kms of it, was that the speed limit for semis was at least 20kph and sometimes 40kph less than cars.  That effectively made the right lane of the highway completely useless.  It meant that you were constantly slowing down for slower cars as the passed the even slower trucks.  I am sure the whole idea was for safety reasons but frankly seemed to make things less safe.

I couldn't get over seeing kph on the speedometer vs mph.  Something about looking down and seeing 130 in front of you just made me a bit uneasy.  Its only like 80 mph but in my head it felt a lot faster.

It was nice to get back behind the wheel though.  The countryside wasn't all that dissimilar to Oklahoma.  Rolling hills, cows and trees.  When everyone in the car was sleeping and roundabouts were nowhere in sight it felt like home.

Diversity

Seems like almost everyone in London is caught up in Euro fever.  The European Football (soccer) Championships are underway in Poland and Ukraine.  We weren't here for the World Cup so can't really compare to it but think that it might be more popular with the fans.  Because European countries are participating and the games are only a short flight away, you could understand that its a bigger deal.

But the tournament isn't really my point here, but leads into it.  I was watching Greece play, and was blown away by the names of the players.  I guess living in London, a super diverse city, and coming from the U.S., which in itself is a melting pot I have always been surrounded by a wide range of nationalities.  Purely based on names alone the entire team are long time native Greecens.  Every first and last name but 1 ends in s.

Since I started thinking about I checked out some of the other teams too.  Check out all the 'ski's from Poland.

Adios Ireland

We left Ireland today with a lot of good memories and some surprisingly good weather.  Our waiter a lunch joked that the two sunny days we have day was what the call 'summer'.  It was funny because he was only half joking.

We visited Dublin Castle on our way out of town which was pretty cool.  We didn't get to see all of it because the Prime Minister was having a conference but did get to see the interesting parts of the old viking and norman city buried below the current castle.  Turned out Bram Stoker worked there while writing Dracula.

There is a really cool little chapel there.  I think it probably has the same details as all the others but since it is so small everything is really close and you can get a really good view of it all.

It was a bit weird though hearing the history of everything there.  Hard to believe that Ireland has been a country in its current state for less time than Oklahoma has been a state.  

The one thing that will stick with me the most from the trip, is a bit of sad Irish history.  I am sure everyone has heard of the Irish potato famine, but I never had a real understanding of just how signigicant it was.  Before the famine.in xxxxx there were something like 8 million people in Ireland.  The most recent census puts todays population around 4 million.  To think that there are roughly half as many people here now as there were xxx years ago is mind boggeling.  I would venture a guess that there are very few places in the world which have not grown in population over that same period, let alone declined.

I've said before how the sun is always up in London in the summer, Dublin took it to the next level.  300 or so miles further north and another hour or so of extra daylight.  Took this picture at 10:15 at night.  Took it with my BB so no funny camera tricks going on.

Blarney

We took a day trip today with really only one goal in mind....the gift of gab!

The highlight of the trip was Blarney castle and the Blarney stone.  I think the tour company felt bad for the 3 plus hour drive to get there and threw in some other random stuff, trips to Cork and Cobh, to break up the drive, but personally would have rather gone and come back.  The other cities were nice, but really didn't have the hook to draw you in.

I am pretty sure our driver same straight out of Formula 1 drivers school.  We weren't in a full size tour bus but 30 or so people.

 This dude was nuts!  Up and down these twisty back roads at what seemed like 50 mph or more.  He was catching and passing everything on the road.  I would say there were a good 25 code browns in the back of the bus.

Will save the best for last here.  Our first stop of the day was Cork, a small fishing town, but a good breakfast at the White House.  The owner's brother was a New York Fireman and he had a pretty impressive memorial to the 343.

The tide was out!

Not a combination that I would have expected to see

Then we went to Cobh, which has the second biggest natural harbour in the world, second to Sydney.  It was also the last stopping point for Titanic before its fateful trip across the Atlantic.  They said that 60 or so cruise ships stop there throughout the year and take trips to Blarney for the day

They had a really cool cathedral there.  It was the first I have seen which is modern construction made to look like the old historic churches we see everywhere.  The construction of St. Coleman's Cathedral was started in 1868 and finally completed in 1916.  It has 42 bells in the bell tower, and rang for a good 5 minutes at 4 o'clock.

On to Blarney from there and the Castle and Stone.  The story goes that Queen Elizabeth I, was requesting an oath of loyalty to retain occupancy of land from the Lord of Blarney.  Instead of an oath she only received  promises without actually giving in to the Queen.  After a period of time the Queen proclaimed that the Lord was giving her a lot of blarney.

I was a bit scared of the castle to be honest with you.  I am sure they have done preservation and restoration work to the castle but was hard to believe it just seeing it.  The amount of weeds and stuff growing everywhere was unsettling to say the least.

I played in the caves for awhile, then stepped in mud..

The climb to the top was a bit sketchy

So the stone itself is the bottom stone of the outer wall on the top of the castle.  It is a good two feet below the level you are standing on.  To kiss it you have to lay on your back and literally dangle out over the edge of the castle.  Nothing between you and the ground other than air.  Kristen tried to chicken out but I peer pressured her into it.

Kristen

Me

Just next to the castle is a big shopping area.  Now I can say I've been to the largest Irish store in the world!  But that on my resume from now on.

Guinness

The highlight of the day today was a visit to the Guinness factory here in Dublin.  It was a bit different than going through the AB brewery but still cool.  You don't get to see any actual brewing going on even though it is going on right next door.  The say its the biggest tourist attraction in Ireland.

It was very well done and could tell they spent a lot of $$$ on the building and the tour.  7 stories of Guinnessness.

They have been brewing here for 250 years now.  There is a story that what makes the Guinness taste so good is the water that runs through the city in the river Liffey, but the source is in the mountains above the city.  The original Guinness signed a 9000 year lease from the city for the land and access to the water.  At $45 a year I think the city got taken to the cleaners on that one. 

Kristen was a fan of her first sample but when she ended up with a pint in front of her she was singing a different tune.  Turns out that they brew an extra stout for foreign export to the carribean that doesn't make it to the US.  I had to try one, but there wasn't much of a difference at all.

The round bar at the top of the building gave a awesome view of the city.  They taught a class on the perfect pour....bad news to everyone that I have ever seen get  a Guinness, your bartender did it wrong!  After the first one I am sure nobody notices though.  

There was a huge Catholic thing in town at the time, and we saw a number of priests and nuns on the tour.  Did a double take for sure.  Everything in moderation I guess.