Holiday Travel Catch Up

Alrighty, a quick catch up of the year.  A little short on the details, but needs be when the devil drives.  

Dec 2016:  Trip to the Netherlands.  Windmills, art everwhere, wooden shoes, the fascination of Amsterdam, and dikes of course.   January 2017:  Stewart's overdue hernia surgery in Landstuhl, Germany.  February:  we turn 50 and 70, celebrate in Greece--Athens, Olympia, Delphi, ancient history galore.   Barcelona for a week, before the independence troubles began.  March:  Sicily, Mt. Etna, Agrigento. 

April:  a week in Berlin, followed by 5 days in Dublin for house-hunting.  Found a great place, and we sign the lease agreement.  May:  Chris, Marianne and Mary visit, three days later we move to Ireland.   June:  Dubin Pride, a trip to visit relatives in County Donegal, a trip to London to see the Chang-Esteys, then August:  the International Gathering of the Clan Macnab in Killin Scotland and marching in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo; whirlwind trip back to Kentucky/Ohio/DC to visit relatives and attend cousin's wedding.  

September Mark Beckett's visits, October Cousin Jay visits, November I'm back in Lexington with my parents for Thanksgiving for the first time in ages and Stewart headed to Milan for Toastmasters.  Then down to Miami for work, back to Dublin in December, Greg and Heidi coming for Christmas.   2017, done.  

It has been a year of poignancy, of heavy travel schedules, and once again schlepping our collective crap from one location to another.  All of it unforgettable, most of it in a good way.  

Black Friday

"Man in bear costume arrested for tearing apart tents of Black Friday campers."  

I hope the judge appreciates such humor.  I do.  

Dublin Bus

If you're not accustomed to riding double-decker buses, I would recommend a ride in one as part of your trip to Dublin.  There is the novelty of perspective, of course, sitting on the upper deck.  But it's the gauntlet of narrow streets and bridges, combined with the unflinching tenacity of the drivers, that makes it a spectacle that never ceases to impress me.   

On a related note, on at least three different occasions the Dublin City bus driver remembered me out of hundreds of riders, knew where I was going, and made sure I got off at the appropriate stop.  One of those times he used the PA system which was sort of embarrassing, but still, kudos that he took enough professional interest in his riders.  

And on another related note, Dublin has a bus dedicated to IKEA.  If you've never imagined schlepping a deconstructed 50 pound filing cabinet on public transportation, add it to your Dublin agenda.  

Ancestry Part 1

So I have become involved, sometimes heavily, in ancestral research.  I consider myself rather terrible at it, as it requires a near-militant focus to get to the particular fact of whatever matter you're pursuing.  And yet the nature of ancestry research leads to multiple, divergent paths at nearly every turn, tempting one to pursue tangential, unrelated inquiries.  Which I invariably do half the time, never to return to the original question at hand.  

I have, though, connected/reconnected with long-lost relatives.  My oldest relative, Genevieve Gray, is sitting to Stewart's left in the photo above.  94 years old but sharp as a tack.  We visited her and her daughter Claudia in August, enroute to visiting my Dad's birthplace and childhood home.  

E, W & F

Who knew Earth, Wind and Fire did a Christmas album.  Wish they hadn't, but who knew. 

Irish Post Office

Last year I had lamented over the Italian Post Office, and its brazen, unabashed incompetence.  So now we're here in Ireland, and things are different.  

For starters, the Irish Post Office has grabbed Christmas by the horns.  Barely three days had passed since Ireland's weeklong celebration of Halloween, and they have pulled out all the stops with mechanised Santas, nativity scenes, and general holiday mayhem all splayed out in their voluminous lobby.  It is clear they do not intend to play second-fiddle to Marks and Spencer or Arnott's or any other high-falutin' department store when it comes to the holiday spirit.  

The employees are very personable, in a next-door-neighbor kind of way: there is no faked smile, or the pretense of them being overly excited you have appeared at their window, but once there will happily chat with you and answer your questions.   And while no one would accuse them of being on technology's leading edge they have their Italian brethren beat hands down when it comes to knowledge and execution of their jobs.  There are still anachronisms for sure--this week we bought 140 holiday stamps, and the clerk printed out a receipt with 140 line items for each individual stamp--but at least they had the stamps at the ready and didn't have to meander for 15 minutes in the back room looking for them as if they worked in a hardware store and not a post office.  (I don't mean to denigrate Italians, by the way--they are wonderful people, except for three of them in the downtown Bergamo post office who, if there is a god, will soon be burning in hell.)

So good on you, Irish Post Office, you represent your country well.    

Where I've Been So Far

Although it is not necessarily below me, I keep records of my whereabouts not for vanity but for the IRS, who takes a keen interest when I leave its immediate jurisdiction.  My time in France has all been for work, in Ireland all for pleasure, and Italy and Germany a mix of the two.  We traveled to Greece for our big birthdays this year, to Barcelona prior to the Catalonia independence movement troubles, and a brief stop in Switzerland on the way through to Germany.  The UK was a mix of work and vacation too, and includes our big trip to Scotland for the Clan Macnab International Gathering.  In August we traveled back to Kentucky, Ohio and DC for a wedding and to catch up with friends and family.  

The rest of 2017 will be in Ireland, with Stewart's brother and sister-in-law arriving for the holidays, and me traveling to the U.S. and Caribbean for work beginning in November.  More on that later.  

Massive Pre-Holiday Update 2017

Ok I admit I gave up on blogging for most of this year, but crikey I'm ready to get crack a lackin'.   Here we go. 

Holiday 2016 Reader Recap, Part 2

(Part 1 is further down the page)

8.  I have recently started genealogical research on the McNabb family line.  What I have learned so far is that U.S. Federal Census field representatives and County Clerks who record marriage, birth and death records, pride themselves in tweaking names, ages, and locations just enough to make the identified individuals seem like your relatives, but not without placing a nagging doubt that you're being conned.  

9.  We are headed to The Netherlands tomorrow for a couple of weeks.  Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, with a two day diversion to the Isle of Man in the middle of it.  

10.   Next February we are looking to celebrate our 70th and 50th Birthdays, and our 20th Anniversary.  If we can hold our bodies together by then.   Stephen's Dad turns 80 next Summer, so the celebrations may continue for most of the year.

11.  Next August we are attending the Macnab Clan reunion in Killin, Scotland, and we're participating in Edinburgh's Military Tattoo as a part of it.  

12.  Stewart's son Chris still lives in Spokane, daughter Caroline still lives in Melbourne.  Stephen's parents are still in Lexington, his sister Lori and her extended family in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  

Stewart's Location, 2016

We trace our location not so much for vanity but for the IRS, who takes a keen interest in our daily whereabouts.  

Why I Never Became A Doctor

Just finished reading Stewart's informative pamphlet on hernias.  

Sheep Ahoy

Right along side our home in Ponteranica is a farmer's right of way, to access other agricultural property to our south.  It's not used often, but every now and then sheepherders appear with a large number of sheep, a few donkeys, a gaggle of lambs, and a few dogs to keep the group in line.  Quite the spectacle.

Update:  the next day the same sheepherders and sheep were across the street, this time not going anywhere in particular but grazing on an empty lot.  I had not thought much of the intellect of sheep before, but it was interesting how quickly they responded to the threat of a slap from a wooden rod, but only for that duration of time as the sheepherder was looking.  The moment he turned his back, they were back up on the road eating the much greener vegetation there.