Belated Birthdays

Back in April (yes, I’m behind on blogging again) we were able to celebrate David’s and Laura’s birthdays together.  Laura was in town and her birthday is just a couple of days before David’s, so it was perfect timing!

The House’s b-day celebrations spanned a couple of weeks.  Laura’s first gift came a few days before when we treated her and Karen to Matilda.  The musical was so much fun; those kids are amazing singers and dancers! 

Then a week or so after David’s birthday, he got a gift basket full of local Austin favorites like Rudy’s dry rub, barbeque sauce, and Rotel in the mail from his stateside coworkers. 

On top of the gifts, a new perk at Volusion is employees get their birthdays off!  So on the Friday morning of David’s actual big day, he slept in and I work up early to make him breakfast in bed.

Then hell broke loose at work.

Between last-minute meetings being scheduled and emails flying, I struggled to make the Boston Cream Pie pancakes I had found on Pinterest. 

I wasn’t even making the pancake batter from scratch, but that’s probably where I went wrong.  I read the directions on the back of the bag of mix for waffles instead of pancakes.  Waffles use more oil, which were turning the pancakes more into crepes.  So then I tore the kitchen apart trying to find our waffle maker to cook up some Boston Cream Pie waffles instead. 

No luck.

Finally, exasperated, hungry, and stressed out, I ran into the bedroom and yelled at David, “Get up and make your own damn pancakes!”

Poor guy… shouted at by his wife first thing in the morning on his birthday.  But I made it up to him by getting his gifts ready to open and making him lunch once all of my conference calls were done.  He was thrilled with the new neck-rest my parents got him for all of his upcoming travels, and even allowed me to put this pic on the blog:

Later that night we had tickets to see one of David’s favorite bands, the Ataris, at the Underworld in Camden.  The Ataris have been around forever, and was also one of my favorite bands in high school. 

They opened with “In this Diary,” my favorite song of theirs, which I also nominated as our official Class of 2003 senior song.

We knew it was going to be a good night when we saw this double rainbow at the tube stop!

The Underworld was a bit shady.  There were some scary pics on the walls leading down into the basement, where the stage and bar were. 

When I saw this guy’s photo, I started to question where we were...

The show was great, though!  We felt like kids again when they played all of their old songs, and the crowd started moshing.  There was even some crowd-surfing going on.  Moshing’s always scared me, though.  One time in college we went to Stubb’s to see Yellowcard and Something Corporate with my roommate and I got caught in the middle of a mosh pit.  I lost my shoe (I was an idiot for wearing flip flops anyway) during that first song and had to stand like a flamingo on the side for the rest of the night while Ankeeta and David danced around in the front row.

At the end of the show, David got to meet the lead singer, Kris Roe.  He told him it was his birthday and he first saw the Ataris 10 years ago in London.  When he said, “It was like going back in time,” I thought Kris might be offended, but he was cool about it.  He seemed like a really nice guy.

The next afternoon, Karen and Laura had planned a laid-back birthday lunch at the Greyfriar’s pub in Chawton, Jane Austen’s hometown.

The pub was right across the street from the Austen’s home, so after we ate we walked over to take a tour. 

David and I had some fun with the Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy cut-outs from Pride and Prejudice.

We all tried writing with a quill and fresh ink, which is a lot harder than it looks! 

It’s rare that we get to spend birthdays with our families anymore, so it was a nice weekend to celebrate David and Laura together.  Happy belated birthday! 

New Forest

For those of you that don’t know, I mostly work from home. While I absolutely love it, it does have some draw-backs. One of those is not being able to shut off. I have my computer open and pinging practically 24/7. Lately, work has been extremely stressful. I’ve spent the last few weeks dragging myself out of bed at 5AM and then back home at 10PM, spending days in workshops, trying to fit in bites to eat between meetings, and sitting on trains for hours a day commuting to various offices around the UK. So even though David and I had booked a weekend trip to Copenhagen with some friends in early May, I decided that I couldn’t wait that long and needed to get away from it all for a couple of days.

Where better to go than the New Forest?  It’s literally the middle of the woods – no Wi-Fi, cell phone reception, or real-world distractions.  The plan was just a relaxing weekend enjoying the beautiful Spring weather, immersed in nature.

The New Forest is a royal forest created by William the Conqueror and covers over 200 sq. miles of land on the Southern coast of England.  It’s home to thousands of wild ponies, donkeys, deer, and other wildlife.

It was such a long winter in England that the New Forest wasn't as green as we thought it'd be.  It looked like Fall with all of the leaves on the ground and the bare trees.

As the forest is only about a 2-hour drive from our home in London, we decided to rent a car for the weekend so we could bring Kirby, too.  This was his first road trip in England!  Poor guy is always left back in London at London Woof, a local boarder, when we travel...

Who am I kidding?  He LOVES London Woof!  He’s probably made more friends here than we have!

The New Forest is probably the most dog-friendly place in the world.  Much like the wildlife, they can wander the streets without leashes.  They are allowed inside the tourist office and museums and pubs.  And for places with restrictions, like the Beaulieu Abbey, dogs can hang out in special areas of the building with water to keep them hydrated and other pups to keep them company.

The three of us arrived in the forest on Friday night.  We had rented a cottage through a couple David found online through a Homeaway-type website.  They usually only let people book in 7-day slots, but made an exception for us as it’s still the low-season.  And on Sunday, they stopped by with fresh flowers and suggestions of places to see/things to do.  They were really sweet.

Kirby was very excited to be in a new house!  Whenever he does travel with us, he gets incredibly restless and wants to be out exploring and having fun all the time.  So just like at Possum Kingdom, he woke up at 4AM when the birds started chirping (it gets light VERY early these days) and wouldn’t really go back to sleep.  David and I finally gave in, and got up and at ’em by 7:30.  So much for sleeping in during our relaxing getaway…

During the drive in, we had already seen a ton of wild ponies along the side of the road (the speed limit is 40, but everyone has to drive at 20 to avoid hitting one of these beasts).

The village idiot - standing in the middle of the street, daring the cars to hit him!

But we were still so excited to walk out our front door and see the ponies up-close!

Haha, there weren't really ponies EVERYWHERE but I was still excited!

Throughout the weekend, we took lots of walks through the woods.  We started Saturday morning off on the trail near our cottage.

We saw plenty of wild ponies and even some donkeys.  The donkeys were so curious, they cracked us up!  When we were driving around, they would come up to the car to try and stick their heads in.

And the baby in this video was fearlessly trying to check out Kirby!

I wasn’t expecting to see Shetland ponies, but I’m happy we did!  They are so adorable!  I could not get over how tiny they were, and so docile. 

The local cows weren’t too friendly, though.  They did not like Kirby one bit, and would start to huff and puff when he got too close.  We made sure to keep the dog on a leash around them, so he wouldn’t get kicked.

During our walk on the wild side, we met a nice couple with an 11-month old black lab.  While Kirby and his new buddy were saying hi, the couple invited us to their local pub, the Turfcutters, for lunch and made sure to tell us that dogs are welcome, too.

David's yummy chicken and leek pie

This was Kirby’s second time at a pub, but his first time actually inside a pub.  Last summer, he just hung out in the beer garden with us.  Luckily he was worn out from chasing donkeys and swimming, so he was very well behaved.  It didn’t hurt that they had doggy treats at the bar and towards the end of lunch a black lab and a Scottish terrier came in and sat down right next to us.  It was like doggy daycare inside that pub!  I think Kirby really does have more friends than us…

Sooo... could I have a bite of that chicken pie???

After lunch, we needed to go to the market to pick up some things for the cottage, so we headed to the local village, Beaulieu.  I felt like we had just arrived at Disneyland.

Picturesque homes line the river, a 13^th century palace overlooks Victorian gardens… and a monorail runs through the town.  A monorail?  We figured cars were not allowed inside the village because there were parking lots outside the monorail station, but when we started to walk towards the entrance, we noticed tills and realized there is a charge of $60/couple to enter Beaulieu!  With those prices, we really did feel like we were at Disney!

Instead, we headed to Lyndhurst, the capital of the New Forest.

Kirby running along a church wall

That weekend, we also made time to go to the coast so Kirby could take a dip in the sea.

It was too cold for us to swim, but it was a great chance to see the Isle of Wight and hang out on the beach. 

The Isle of Wight

A big storm passing us by

Empty beach huts.  It was a little too chilly to be hanging out at the beach.

Throw a stone, Dad!

The seagulls in England in this area look a lot different than American seagulls.

Mission accomplished – a successful, stress-free weekend away! 

Banking on a Great Holiday

After we heard about the financial crisis, Cyprus was not on the top of our list of places to visit, but it was too late because we had already booked our Easter vacation to Pafos months ago. Before flying, we withdrew a ton of Euros just in case our debit/credit cards wouldn’t be accepted, and then we crossed our fingers that we wouldn’t get mugged. In the end, it was fine.  

 

Only evidence we saw of the financial crisis

Our trip started off… strangely.  David, Jordan, and I spent the night at Jordan’s place since he lives closer to Gatwick.  Our flight left at 7:00 Friday morning, which meant we had to leave the flat by 4:30.  I crashed at about 10:30, Jordan at 12, and at 4:00 when my alarm went off, I realized David was not in bed.  I walked out to the living room and he was sitting on the sofa watching a live basketball game.  Crazy kid!  He stayed up all night… and he wasn’t the only one.  Driving through London at 4:30 on our way to the airport, we saw a ton of drunken boys getting off the Night Buses or shuffling along the streets like zombies on their way home.  And then out of nowhere, a naked man ran in front of the car!  Keep in mind it’s been snowing in London so this streaker was freezing!  He was hopping along the street barefoot, holding tight to his “valuables.”  

Our second strange occurrence happened on our flight.  David and I had not flown EasyJet since the landing incident coming home from Nice (when a gust of wind made us bounce off the runway during landing and we had to take back off), but this flight definitely changed our minds about the budget airline.  It was smooth and the crew was super-friendly.  The flight was 4 hours long, so halfway through, all children were invited to go to the front of the plane to play some games.  The family sitting across from us was helping their older son get into the games, so they handed over their 6-month old baby to Jordan.  I was reading my book and before I knew it, there was a baby in my lap!  “Where did this baby come from?”  I asked, and then handed him over to David.  David and Jordan had been playing a new game on Jordan’s iPad called Shark Attack.  They were obsessed, but David put down the game for a moment, and instead started to pretend to be a shark, chomping at the baby.  He loved it!  That is, until he tried to stick his finger in David’s mouth and David bit him. 

Yes, David bit a stranger’s baby.

The poor child started wailing, so the mother came over and picked him up, saying, “Oh he must be getting tired.”  I was horrified and embarrassed, but there was no way I was admitting to this mother that David had just bit her child.  For the rest of the trip, David was known as the Baby Biter.

During our vacation, we somehow got on a point system.  I think it started when Jordan, our designated driver, kept mistaking the windshield wipers for the indicators.  David and I would joke, “Minus one point for Jordan,” every time he did it.  Jordan would counter with, “Minus three points for David for biting a baby!”  I was the navigator, so I earned points with my map skills.  We don’t really know how it started or who won, but we promised to bring it back while driving through Scotland to hike Ben Nevis later this Spring.

During the trip we also created some sidekicks.  

 

Jordan’s was Mounty, his amazing camera tripod that would stick to any surface.

 
While hiking along the Akamas Peninsula, David picked up a hiking stick and I mentioned that it looked like King Richard III’s crooked spine, and Scoliostick was born.  (I apologize to any of our readers that may have suffered from scoliosis – David made me mention his sidekick.)

Bugs were my sidekicks, I guess.  First, while enjoying the local beverage of choice, iced coffees called Frappes, outside Central Market in Lemesos, we were swarmed by gnats trying to snack on our sugary Cyprus delights (same as Turkish delight).  In mid-sentence, I asked, “Did I just swallow a bug?” And apparently I said it with a very strong Texas accent and the boys thought it was the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Plus I’m married to the Bugman.  During our Easter hike, David put on so much sunscreen that any bug that landed on him got stuck to his skin.  At one point, I looked over and David’s face and chest were covered in tiny black gnats.  He became the Bugman.

 

Right before I swallowed a bug!

So by now you’re probably thinking, “What did you actually do in Cyprus?  What was the island like?”

Day One was really just the flight and soaking up the sun.  Once we landed, we checked into our hotel and then laid out by the beach and pool.  Our hotel suite was enormous – more like an apartment.  There were two bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a dining / living area and kitchen, and a giant balcony overlooking the pool and ocean with a hot tub in the corner.  And because we were splitting the cost, it was incredibly cheap.  Plus we cooked at home a couple of nights and made picnic lunches to eat on the beach, so we saved a lot of money on food.  Cyprus was a bargain!

Pafos offers plenty to see and do, and since we had also rented a car, we were free to explore a lot of the island.  Since we had relaxed on Friday, Saturday we hit the ground running.

We drove along the Southern coast to Lemesos, the largest harbor in Cyprus.  The town is also home to Limassol Castle, where King Richard the Lionheart was married.  King Richard, his fiancée, and his sister were on their way to the Crusades when a storm blew his sister’s and fiancée’s ship aground near Lemesos.  Instead of helping the ladies, the local prince took them prisoner.  Richard was not pleased.  He landed with his entourage, crushed the local army, and imprisoned the prince before selling the island to the Knights Templar.  Don’t mess with Richard the Lionheart!  

 

Limassol Castle

 
While admiring the view of the Mediterranean from the roof of the castle, my eye caught an ice cream store.  When I looked over, I saw that it was a Coldstone Creamery!  In the middle of Cyprus!  I started yelling, “Coldstone!  Coldstone!”  Apparently I was so loud that David, a floor below, could hear me chanting.  He snapped this picture of Jordan and me, thrilled to know that we would be enjoying some cake batter ice cream in no time!

After our ice cream break (and finding a Taco Bell too!), we drove to Kolossi, the best-preserved medieval castle on the island.  The castle was the headquarters of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller.  It was completely empty when we got there, so we had some fun jumping around.

Jordan really wanted to see the nearby salt lake on the Akrotiri Peninsula, the southernmost point of Cyprus.  It is one of only two salt lakes on the island and supposedly home to a large number of flamingoes.  So we went flamingo hunting, and came up with nada.  (Minus 5 points for Jordan.)  In fact, we hardly saw any birds and nothing interesting like a pelican or swan.  Good thing there was a nearby monastery to save the day, St. Nicholas of the Cats.  Plus Jordan needed to visit to ask forgiveness for almost running over a cat back in Lemesos.

The monastery was completely hidden away and when we pulled up, we weren’t even sure it was the right place because it didn’t resemble any kind of religious building we’d seen before.  But inside, it was beautiful.  

 

The interior of the church featured guilded iconostasis 700 years old

St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, visited Cyprus while returning from the Holy Land.  She was appalled by the number of poisonous snakes on the island, so she sent a ship full of cats to Cyprus to take care of the problem.  The monks cared for the creatures and rallied them to fight by the ringing of the church bells.  And we think it really worked!  We saw a ton of cats everywhere we went, but not one snake!  

Last stop on the way back to Pafos was Kourion beach.  Kourin was a religious town, home to the sanctuary of Apollo and the seat of the Christian bishop before it was destroyed by an earthquake in the 4th century.  We could see the ruins on the bluff above the sea, but the site was closed.

On Easter Sunday we hiked along the Akamas Peninsula.  The peninsula is covered in forests and the shortage of roads means it can only be explored on foot or by four-wheeler.   There are a few trails, so we decided to do the longest one – Aphrodite, starting from her Baths.  

 

Aphrodite’s Baths, a hidden grotto shaded by fig trees

 

The end of the trail is in sight!

After our hike, we had one of our picnic lunches on the beach at a cute coastal town called Latsi before heading to the Adonis Waterfall.  Near the Mavrokolympos reservoir, there is a 32 ft. high waterfall said to be the place where Aphrodite and Adonis carried out their affair.

There were plenty of signs marking the road to the waterfall, but the problem was that the turn-off from the highway to the reservoir did not look drive-able.  The sign even reassured us by stating, “Road suitable for all cars.” 

 

Yeah, right.  Thank goodness Jordan was driving (plus one point!) because I think we would’ve gotten a flat tire or smashed windshield from all of the rocks flying off the narrow, rocky road had I been driving.  And David… we would be at the bottom of a cliff from him turning a corner too fast.

As I was the navigator and Jordan was the driver, David was in the backseat yelling, “Just do it!  It’s an adventure!” while I was hesitant and wanted to just hop out of the car and walk it (the sign also said ‘only 3 km’).  Jordan and I felt like the parents because David entertained himself for hours in the backseat while we drove around the island, singing and dancing to Cypriot songs he couldn’t understand and taking goofy/creepy photos.  We joked that he had eaten too much Cyprus delight, because on the back of the candy box it warns, “May have harmful effects on activity and attention of children.”  Basically, Cyprus delight causes ADHD.

Well we finally made it to the waterfall… and that place has seen better days!

There are statues of naked men and women representing Adonis and Aphrodite all over the park and for each statue you touch, you increase your fertility.  Same goes for the water, but the pool at the bottom of the waterfall was filthy and full of bugs and slime.  So even though we had driven all the way (which seemed much further than 3 km) and paid admission, we did not go swimming.

While driving back from the waterfall, we saw two couples walking along the road.  We told them it wasn’t worth it, and offered to give them a ride back to the highway since they had to go all the way back uphill in the heat.  Both couples were nice, but declined.  When we got to the top of the hill and back on a real road, we did pick up a hitch-hiker, a bumblebee!  He flew right into the car and planted himself on the dashboard.  That is one hitch-hiker we didn’t invite in!  David jumped out of the car while it was still moving (Jordan and I heard, “I’m out!” before he tucked and rolled out the door) and then Jordan pulled over on the side of the road to shoo it out.  It ended up being a fun adventure, though I wouldn’t recommend the Adonis Waterfall to anyone visiting Cyprus.  

For Easter dinner later that night, the hotel recommended the meze platter at Hondros near Pafos harbor.  It was so good!  And meze was a great choice because it allowed us to try almost every dish in the restaurant.  From the Greek salad and dips like spicy cheese and humus and tzatziki to start, to the fresh pitas and kebabs and fried seafood, everything was great!  There wasn’t one dish we didn’t like.

The service was also wonderful and the owner, George, was even nice enough to send out a complimentary plate of the Easter specialty, suckling pig, for us to end our meal.  Good ol’ George!  After dinner, he invited us to go to his favorite local bar, Temple, with him and the only other American in Cyprus, Luke.  It was a cool local place, where everyone was very friendly like all other Cypriots we had met.  We had a few drinks, and then called a taxi to take us home.  That’s when Limo Taxi showed up!  

 

Largest taxi ever!  The driver was insane and seriously got us across town to the beach within 4 minutes, yet she still charged us 12 Euros.  Crazy woman!

On our final full day on the island, we planned to finally explore Pafos.

We started off at the Tomb of the Kings down the road from our hotel.

The site is a necropolis full of cave and rock tombs dating from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD.  There were no kings in Cyprus during that time, so the tombs were actually for prominent citizens.  Christians hid there during times of persectuion and later the site was used as a quarry.  The tombs were raided by grave robbers, so nothing remains inside of them, but the shells were still fun to climb on and explore.

Next up was Kato Pafos, or ancient Pafos, which used to be the capital of Cyprus.  The archaeological park is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and reminded me a lot of a scaled-down version of Pompeii.  There’s a Roman theatre, a crumbling castle, and beautiful homes and palaces containing mosaics that are 2,000 years old.

We left Kato Pafos and drove down the road to Agia Kyriak, a church built on the ruins of the largest Christian Byzantine basilica on Cyprus.  

The basilica was destroyed by the Arabs, but parts of the mosaic floor and some columns still stand.  One of the columns is called St. Paul’s Pillar because the apostle was flogged against the pillar after he came to Cyprus to preach Christianity with fellow apostle, Barnabus.  After his torture, Paul had his accuser blinded.  This somehow convinced the governor of the greatness of Christianity and he converted.  Mission accomplished!

Nearby are the Catacombs of Solomoni, dedicated to the Jewish woman whose seven children were tortured in front of her.  The underground church had a couple of rooms, one of which is considered the “sanctuary” and the other a cave containing a tank which holds “miraculous” water.  

For our last meal on Cyprus, we ate at Romeo’s, where Romeo himself greets you at the door.  The guys split another meze platter, while I had garlic mushrooms and scampi, with Greek yogurt and honey for dessert.  The Greek yogurt in the Mediterranean cannot be beat.  It’s so creamy and sweet that it’s like eating ice cream.  And again with the hospitality – after dessert, our waitress brought out some complimentary ouzo for the guys and a glass of Mastika liquor for me.  The Mastika smelled sweet like almond extract and tasted delicious.

And finally – we had to conquer Aphrodite’s Rock!

We had been putting it off all week because the Med can be pretty cold.  We decided to try to swim (according to legend, each time you swim around the rock, you turn a year younger) in the morning when the sea would be calm.  That was a bad idea.  The sea was not calm at all on Tuesday morning!  In fact, it was choppier than we had seen it all week!  I thought that I would grow older by trying to get out there, and I’m a good swimmer so I was sure that the boys wouldn’t try it, either.  But then they put it out there, “Minus 20 points for anyone that doesn’t get in!”  NOOOO!

We must’ve stood there for at least 30 minutes debating and egging each other on, before Jordan finally just jumped in!  I sucked it up, and followed him.  The water wasn’t even that cold; I was more worried about the current slamming me into one of the boulders out there.  And finally, David came out after tip-toeing across the rocky beach. 

I started to swim out towards Aphrodite’s birthplace, but the waves were just too bad.  They don’t look scary at all in the pictures or videos, but trust us, it was a different story once we were in the water.  And we knew we were crazy because we were literally the only people there, Cyprus’ most popular beach.

So we didn’t swim around Aphrodite’s rock, but we still had a great holiday!  After many long, dark, cold months in London we finally saw the sun!  We got our tan on, learned all about Cyprus’s history by visiting some amazing sites, and relaxed!