Viking River Cruise-Getting There

Monday we left Seattle for Amsterdam, where we will embark on a Viking River Cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest.

We had a short layover in Iceland.  Very few trees. 

This is what we hoped to see, but it never got dark. These pictures are from the lounge. Very nice and relaxing while waiting for your flight out. 

Nice wall hangings like this sheepskin with some famous autographs: Ginger Rogers, Frank Sinatra, Anna Moffo, and George Bush.

Icelandic compound word of the day: hvitlaukschilisosu = garlic chili sauce

Fun word of the day: kaka (cake)

The COVID Blues

We've been semi-locked up for a few months, and it is really getting to Asta.  The golf course is closed, and we have been able to take some really nice walks and avoid the crowds.  Asta likes the walks.   But twice a day and why so long?!

 Vera and her quilting friends have been making masks.  That quality quilting fabric is supposed to be the best if you cannot get N95 masks.

My deceased mother even got her "Economic Impact Payment".   Note that it even says deceased on the check.  Go figure.  Luckily there was a check box on the envelope to tell the Treasury what they already know, so we sent it back.  BTW: Dave and Vera have yet to receive their checks! 

But there is good news.  Toilet paper is back!  Yes, those are pallets of TP in the main entry aisle at Costco that greeted us one morning early in the epidemic.  Of course, they will now no longer allow returns on the stuff.  Costco has been wonderful throughout the process, and running things in what we think is a very safe and efficient way.  They implemented senior hours, greet you with a sanitized cart, have moved/reduced inventory to make more room in the check out aisles, require masks for everyone (including customers), etc, etc.  Much different than Walmart.

COVID did not stop the tulips.  The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival was canceled this year, but no one told Mother Nature.

In fact, Mother Nature seems pretty much oblivious to COVID-19.  This is a picture from our back porch.  Maybe it is because we have been locked up, but this Spring seems more beautiful to us than most.  The flowers have been gorgeous.

We have even managed a few COVID happy hours with friends.  On this day it was raining, so we retreated to the garage.  Rules are simple:

1. Observe social distancing
2. Do not enter anyone's home
3. BYOB and glasses (no food)
4. Party ends when the first person has to use the bathroom

We have been lucky in Washington.  We had the first reported cases, and people started following the lock down recommendations and orders immediately.  They have been tough, but we are now in a much better position to transition out.  Everyone: STAY SAFE!

A Morning Drive Through Skagit Valley-Nov 2019

This morning was cold, but clear, so we decided to take a drive through Skagit Valley and check out the sights.  Some birding friends of Dave's had shown him some great birding areas, so we added them to our normal route.

We even found a few barns with quilt patterns painted on their sides


The famous eagle tree was empty today, but we still manged to count 36 bald eagles.


Mount Baker was out in all its glory.


Numerous wetlands have been restored by breaching old dykes.  This was originally done for salmon restoration, but it also opens up great habitat locations for birds.  The tide was on its way out, leaving behind some ice from the previous night's frost.


In addition to the eagles, we saw many other bird species, including the heron shown above, and other hawk and falcon species.  The shore birds were too numerous to count.


The valley is famous for the snow geese and trumpeter swans which make their home here in the winter.  These are snow geese, but we also saw hundreds of trumpeter swans.  It was a fun trip, plus we took some new roads that offer more of these beautiful views.

Ireland-2019 (Irish Humor)

The Irish have a wonderful sense of humor.

Tonight we are staying at The Mont in Dublin.  This is Monte, the hotel mascot.

The Irish may understand American history better than we do:

The Bobbsey Twins: Donald and Boris

This one applies universally:

Sign in the women's loo:

Sign in the men's loo:

Ireland-2019 (Guinness)

The Irish love their Guiness.  I made this collection of Guinness advertisements we ran into all around the island.  Excuse the poor quality, as we were sometimes rushed and/or they were in hard to photograph places.

Ireland-2019 (Belfast and the end of our tour)

It's our last day, and this is Susie Millar, our tour guide talking to us about the Titanic.  The ship was built in Belfast, the largest ship building city in the world at the time.  She is standing in front of a memorial to all those who died when the ship went down.  Susie's story is personal, and she waited until today to tell it.

Susie's great-grandfather, Thomas helped build the Titanic.  A recent widower, he signed on as a deck engineer on the ship, hoping to find a home in America for his two sons.  He left Susie's grandfather the two coins you see here, telling him not to spend them until they meet again.

Susie has written a book about it and has been instrumental in helping families reconnect with their Titanic roots. 

There is an irony to this whole story.  Susie was recently married to David, an American economist, and now she is struggling to get a Green Card so she can work in the US.  The present political climate is making that very difficult.  Luckily, David just got a work permit from Ireland.  We hope it all works out for them.

  

The bad times in Northern Ireland are over for now, but there are many murals in the city depicting conflicts around the world.  They are changed on a regular basis.  There is still a wall in the city separating two areas with very different cultural identities.  Fortunately this represents only a small part of the Belfast population.

Belfast has a great exhibit in City Hall where you can learn all kinds of things about it's history and culture.  In one exhibit they explained some of the local sayings.

 

Only 11 miles separates this part of Ireland from Scotland, and we visited a museum dedicated to the Scotch-Irish and their influence around the world.  Several US presidents, starting with Andrew Jackson have direct Scotch-Irish ancestry.  In the potato famine, Ireland lost 1 million people to starvation, and 1 million to a mass migration.  Their population has not yet returned to pre-famine numbers.

I spoke earlier about Ireland's influence on American music.  After our farewell dinner, we had more opportunity to experience some of that Irish music.  Kudos to George for catching on to the dancing so quickly.  This event was a real treat, as each song/dance was proceeded with a short description melding the music with Ireland's long history.  

Ireland-2019 (Around Portrush)

I'm getting behind in my blog postings.  We have been busy.  Tuesday we did a lot of walking and climbing, investigating the many things to do in the Portrush area.

Our first stop was the "Giant's Causeway", which is a World Heritage Site.  You can barely make it out in the background, but those are basalt columns extruding up from the shoreline below.  In addition to a lot of hill climbing, Vera counted 164 steps on our trek to get there.

The "Causeway" was formed during a volcanic eruption in which basalt was extruded into the sea and fractured into these large columns.

Some of us were adventuresome and climbed to the top.  The guy in the orange vest is there to help out just in case anyone got stuck on the very slick surfaces.  That's Dave in the middle debating about whether he needs help or not.

Next stop was Dunluce Castle, where parts of "Game of Thrones" was filmed.  It is easy to see why they picked the site.  Much of Northern Ireland was used for the filming of the series, and the main recording studio was in Belfast.  It was a great boon to the local economy.

The castle sits on a high cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.  Years ago, part of it fell into the sea during a violent winter storm.

The views are quite stunning.

Next stop was the Bushmills distillery.  Vera and I went for the "Hot Toddy", as we are both recovering from a cold that had been spreading through the bus.

The Carrick-a-Rede Rope bridge was our last stop.  For years it has been used as a way for fishermen to access a prime fishing spot. It is still used that way today during the Spring salmon season, and of course for tourists like us.

Lots of stairs down (and back up).  

Almost all of us ventured across.  Now the long trek back up many steps to the bus.  Needless to say, everyone was quite tired at the end of this day.