Adventures

Here's a list of the things we have done in the last 2 weeks:
Tain l'Hermitage - We hiked up into some vines and up to a small Chapel in one of the nicest wine regions in France, Hermitage. We tasted wine in 2 wineries and went to town at a chocolate shop under the cover of an enormous American tour group.
Lyon - It rained in Lyon again. It always rains in Lyon as far as I can tell. We visited the zoo and then went to a wine tourism fair that we got free tickets to and tasted a number of wines. I tried to get some free bottles by batting my eyes, but to no avail. We had a little party at the Corsica booth and enjoyed some cheese and a ton of wine. I think we were poured 3 full glasses at the one booth alone.
St. Peray- We ate dinner at a coworker's house. The family raises chickens and sheep and there were 2 lambs. One was 2 weeks old and the other was 4 weeks old and as cute as you can imagine... probably real tasty too.
Grenoble - Another wine expo! Free tickets to this one too! We tried wines from all over France. We were able to compare 3 different champagne producers, tried 8 different Sauternes, Burgundies, Bordeaux and others. Grenoble is dead on a Sunday, which is odd because it's a university town, so we just came home and went to bed early.
Cornas - We went to Cornas, a fantastic wine region, with the explicit purpose to taste and buy. The wine producers are all really small operations and we found ourselves in strangers' basements tasting wine. The last producer we visited was actually closed, but we caught them as they were coming home so they let us taste. They had a nice tasting room, different from all the others that day, and we were poured very generous pours and chatted for about an hour about all sorts of things. I hope to post a photo of it soon, maybe sneak one in after everyone has read this. But it was the most comfortable wine tasting I have ever been to.

Ireland- Heck yeah! We flew from Grenoble airport, which is in the middle of nowhere and the size of my parents living room, to Dublin. Ryanair is just as you would imagine, discount-y. With a budget airline you get budget pilots, but no barfbags. Odd.

Dublin was really expensive, but I think we did it very inexpensivly. First of all, they don't check tickets when entering the Book of Kells. We found this out once we had already walked in to the exhibit and then realized that we had just walked into the exhibit. The Guinness Storehouse does check tickets, but if you ask to go to the gift shop, then you are in without paying for the tour. You don't get the free pint at the end of the tour, but you do get to taste halfway through it. On the 6th floor we bought bottles of Guinness Foreign Extra, a brew that you cannot find in the States, and asked the bartender if he had any extra tokens. He did, and we got free pints on the 7th storey bar which has a great view.

We CouchSurfed with an American and his Finnish roommate on the south end of town. They were really cool but had really bad drinking problems. They were really generous and it was a great way to ease into the city.

We ate dinner at the O'Neills house. The O'Neills are great people whom we met nearly 2 years ago in Colorado. They came to visit my folks and a friend of my folks after said friend of my folks introduced the O'Neills to my folks and my folks stayed with them in Ireland when my folks went to an art thing for my pop. Did you follow that? The O'Neill kids are amazing kids who are some of the most creative people I have met. Tim and Christine, the parents, are very smart people who are experts at conversation (a big change from our CouchSurfing hosts). We had a great evening and I was excited, of all things, to eat brown rice with dinner.

Howth - We rode the Dublin commuter train north to a small penninsula with a small fishing town, Howth. We saw seals and boats in town and then went on a hike along cliffs that line the sea. We stopped just before making it to the light house and cut our loop short because the clouds on that end of the penninsula were so thick that we couldn't see the lighthouse that was a kilometer away. We walked up a hill and then had a pint, the cheapest one we found our entire stay, in the sun. It was here, in Howth, that Molly and I got sunburns. Who would have thought to bring sun block to Ireland?

We saved a lot of money on this trip, which was an added bonus! Not only did we save about 20 euros a person by walking into attractions, but we also got a ride to the airport in Grenoble, saving us 20 euros a person. Upon arriving in Grenoble we hitchhiked into Grenoble, saving us 12.50 euros, and then took a bus to Valence TGV station instead of a train, saving us a buck, and then were given a ride by the sister of a student of mine, my student happend to be on the same bus, from the TGV station to our home. That saved us a three mile walk in the rain!

We are gearing up to go to Marseilles, Montpellier, Perpignan and Barcelona in the coming weeks! So I'm sure we'll write something about that here.

Cheers!
- Patrick