Singing in the Rain

At the last minute we swapped a timeshare for a week in Ireland. We stayed in a 300 year old Abbey near Kilkenny. The Irish weather is wet; it rains every day but not all day. It rains hard and it drizzles. It's cloudy and then the sun peeps out but only for a few minutes. Then the wind blows and howls and the rain comes back. Everything is damp and soggy all the time. There must be more pubs per capita in Ireland than anywhere else on earth and it's probably because it's more cosy in a pub than out in the temperamental weather. The Irish may be the friendliest people in the world and you're likely to meet them in the pub. Charles spent the weekend with us. On the first night we went to a grungy pub called Eddie Murphy's in Thomastown to hear an ex Dire Straits guitarist,"Guitar George, he knows all the chords". Kilkenny has some amazing pubs and on Sunday night there was an amazing choice of live music. Over the course of the day and late into the night we went to 10 pubs, 8 with music. We visited Whiskey distilleries in Killbeggan, Tullamore and Jameson's near Cork. We went to Dublin and the Guinness Museum and the Jazz Festival in Cork. We saw a lot of green scenery and some stormy coastal vistas. Back in Kilkenny we spent the evenings seeing more live music almost every day.

Camping in the snow and other stories

Thursday 10 October and its snowing at the campsite in Munich as I write this! Neil has his feet up against the little space heater and we are cooking curry, Durban style to enjoy with Mrs. Balls Chutney. A reminder to self, get the hell out of Europe the minute Oktoberfest is over next year! We will be heading to London on Monday, but we are not planning on getting much sun there either. Oktoberfest was fun as usual. I had more than my fair share of it this year, even representing Neil at the BOC alumni parties when he had to fly to SA for a funeral. We popped down to Venice mid-fest for four nights to meet Andrew and Terri before heading back to Munich for the final weekend of the fest. Venice is just a wonderful city, so unique, with so much to see everywhere you walk. Its a city for strolling and getting lost in. This time we loved all the little Osteria del Anticos, serving drinks, good coffee and tapas style snacks in a cosy, traditional atmosphere. The Biennale was on this year, so we saw some really weird art. Exhibitions are on in all sorts of buildings around the city  and checking out the architecture and interiors is sometimes more rewarding than looking at the art . Back at Oktoberfest, Tommy and Gavin both diverted their business trips via Munich to join us for the final Fest weekend. It's all about the beer in Munich, so Neil and I also did a great little trip to Alsace to taste some Rieslings in September. Alsace is in France but it feels more like Germany. Eguisheim was voted "Best Town to Visit in France" for 2013. It is picture postcard cute and was quite busy for so late in the season. There are  loads of small wineries offering tastings and plenty of nice restaurants to choose from.             
                                                                                

Birthday Party Number 3

For my actual birthday, we were in Amsterdam. On Saturday 7th, we left the campsite early to catch the first rugby game, NZ vs Argentina at 9am. Then the Springboks pulled off a  great birthday surprise just for me by thrashing the Aussies 38 -12. By 6pm we were tasting Jenevers, a Dutch gin, drunk neat like a grappa, with Christiane and Arjen in a traditional, old Amsterdam pub. We had a fabulous Mexican dinner, with jugs of margaritas at Los Pilones, where Sabine, Cristina and Andreas joined us. We all enjoyed a very festive evening. After midnight the die-hards went dancing in a blues bar with a great live band and then faded slowly over a last drink in a jazz bar. Neil and I had to catch the 3.10am night bus back to the campsite. The bus driver took a detour off his route to drop us right outside the gate- whose ever heard of that in a big city! Sunday 8th was a pretty quiet day at the campsite, reading the Sunday papers and watching movies on the computer. Unfortunately, Neil accidentally lost all the photos while downloading them, so the silly pic was taken on Monday outside the restaurant!

Belguim and Holland

We spent a day in and around Ypres, visiting the WW1 museum before heading to Brussels. We really enjoyed Brussells as a small European city with great café culture and enough to keep tourists busy. We spent a whole Saturday watching Rugby, Championship and Currie Cup games, at the Six Nations Pub.There was plenty of US Open tennis on every day as well, so we soon became regulars at the Six Nations. We loved the old African Museum, about to close indefinitely, I think, due to it being a rather non- pc, old colonial place and rather an embarrassment in modern Europe! The Magritte Museum was also really good. At first we were really put off by the rows and rows of awful tourist restaurants with foreign waiters touting Moulles Frites to a passing parade of  Unesco twitchers. Then we found the St. Catherine's Canal area and had a few really nice meals. In Holland, we chose to go to Den Bosch and Delft, two really nice Dutch towns, one touristy and one not so, but both worthwhile, before heading to Schoorl to spend a great weekend with the Benders/ English clan, catching up over loads of wine and whiskey. We did hike in the dunes and cycle around the dykes as well! The Dutch really are the bicycle nation of the world! And probably the fittest too! Everyone from 3 to 93 owns a bike; great distance or bad weather are not deterrants!
On Monday 2nd September, we met Sabine, Benjamin and Tobias and got the ferry to Texel Island. We rented a fabulous cabin at Loopmansduin, and had four days of glorious, hot weather on the beach! Yes, the picture is Holland not Thailand!
Amsterdam was the next stop for a weekend of birthdays, rugby and tennis, this time at the Coco's Outback Pub near Rembrandt Square. Although the Northern European autumn did start rolling in, we loved walking around Amsterdam's various districts. Highlights were visits to the newly opened Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum.