Long Layovers

It wasn't exactly a visit, but it was way more than not a visit when Caroline came to call last weekend. She was on her way to a 3.5 month life adventure in South Africa and she managed to get 9 hours in London to recoup. We rode trains, tubes, lugged suitcases, ate nachos and drank beer (well, I did) before Caroline had to get back on a bigger and better plane than the one she came in on. Not bad for a nine hour catch up and it's my hope that we will do it again when she is traveling back to the homeland.

Aging

Every girl should celebrate her 37th year of life with a flaming Marguerita and a black hat. I have to admit that being 37 felt not quite right for about a day. I write this three days after my birthday has passed and it now feels like 37 fits. I feel (and look) a little wiser, a little more prepared, a little better equipped, and a lot more ready to take on whatever is next.

The Ports of call

Mom came to visit, and aside from some good days in England, we decided to do some traveling by sea. We took a cruise involving 7 ports of call in 7 days. They were all compelling and Mom and I had wonderful adventures every day. We visited Zadar and Korcula Croatia, Paxi, Fiskardoo, Corinth and Athens Greece, Budva and Kotor Montenegro and Venice Italy. There is at least one picture from each port of call. The boat with the smiling dog is from a Harbor in Zadar. The incredible landscape shot is Montenegro. Mom and I are having a drink in Zadar. The Harbor view is Fiskardoo, and the pic of me and mom among the ruins was taken at the Parthenon in Athens.
The medieval wall shown in one of the pics surrounds the amazing Croatian town of Korkula, where I hope to visit again someday. The lovely tree was photographed in Paxi very near the beach where we spent the morning swimming, and lastly, the sun breaking through the clouds was an image I enjoyed from the deck of our boat, The Arion, one early morning at sea. It's a trip that has left me with fantastic memories and new found passion for taking the world by boat.

Mom, me and Italy

Italy is such an amazing country. I feel so lucky to live in a place where going to Italy is a about as labor intensive as going from Minneapolis to the Spartz Family cabin. When mom came to visit, we spent two days in Venice before setting sail on the Adriatic Sea aboard the Arion small cruise vessel. We had a lovely time. This picture was taken of two door ways I really liked on two buildings I just loved for obvious reasons in a town/island called Bureno. It took us about 45 minutes to get from Venice to Bureno by water bus. The trip was well worth as the town is charming.


The picture below is Connie J Spartz enjoying the perfect Bureno weather and marveling at the size and number of the piles, on which Venice and many of the smaller islands like Bureno, are built. The picture to the right is the street that our hotel was on during our stay in Venice. I booked the room on the internet and we got really lucky with it. The location was perfect and if I get back to Venice, I will definitely choose to stay in that neighborhood again.

This is a very old house in Venice that might be just about to crumble into the canal below it. That would be a real shame because of all of the clean laundry that is probably barely dry as it is hanging out the windows and off the balcony. Europeans uses this method of clothes drying as opposed to discretely hanging garments from a proper and hidden back yard clothes line or, better yet in a dryer. My mom got the biggest kick out of seeing people's whites, darks and colors hanging out of windows above busy streets in Venice. She was so inspired she talked about trying to rig me up a clothes line out of my front windows. The English seem less likely to expose their wardrobe while drying it, they just drape clothing over furniture and air racks to dry. I would have been the first in Penge to embrace the quick dry public clothes line. It's too bad we forgot all about it by the time we got back to England.

I found the water taxis of Venice to be super cool and perhaps the most overpriced service I have so far come across in my life. My mom and I took three water rides, one of which was complimentary from our hotel, the other two were because we were running very late and feeling very panicked. I don't think it ever took more than 15 minutes to get where we were going and each time it cost 50 Euros, which is roughly the equivalent of 75 dollars. 75 bucks for 15 minutes in a boat. It's not bad work if you can get it. And how fun would it be to look this cool every day?!

Ireland takes the Spartz girls by storm 1

Here we are: Madie O. Spartz, Rebecca D. Spartz and Amy E. Spartz, leaving England and heading to Knock Ireland, where we would look for the famous biblical apparitions, pick up a rent-a-car, check out Sligo County that Yeats made famous, drive down to Connemara and Galway City before finally heading up to Donegal County for the last two days of our trip. It was planned as a high activity tour of West and North West Ireland, but as it turns out, it was a stellar road trip with some activity, some adventure and lots of good times with the family.




You might think this is a photo of a regularly parked car. I am here to report that our most impressive adventure in Ireland happened because we wanted to hike in the Blue Stack Mountains. We tried to park our car, as the pic suggests, but ended up in a little ravine hidden by the long grass you will notice in the photo. It took a little while, but we found an incredibly generous Irish farmer who pulled us out with his 4x4. We were in the middle of nowhere, so without him, we would have been stuck with the middle aged farm living woman who kept trying to explain to us in half English half Gaelic (I presume it was Gaelic) how she couldn't help us because there were no men in her house and none of the men that lived in her house would be returning for several hours. We were happy to find the farmer.


Amy, Madie and I were enroute to the Abbeyglen Manor House in Clifden when we happened upon this actual Abbey. It was closing when we drove by, so we didn't see the inside, but it was thrilling enough to get a photo of the outside. Some French tourists were having a car crisis (they locked their keys in their car) in this parking lot. Maybe Ireland has some sort of weird car karma.

Ireland takes the Spartz girls by storm 2

Have I mentioned how much I love this kid. It was such a joy to spend some seriously high quality time with my niece. Here we are, at a gorgeous river right outside the Markree Castle, practically a ruin it felt, and was so old, where we had the misfortune to spend a night. The castle was a bit of a bummer but the grounds were very pretty and me and Mads had good times.





The West of Ireland is said to be magical. When we picked up our car from the airport, I asked "This is the clutch and this one is the brake, right?" after which we decided it would be best if my sister drove the first leg of the trip. While driving along, we saw a road sign that said "Drive slow." My sister is a bit of a literalist, so naturally, the sign irritated her because it wasn't clear. She said out loud, with attitude, "Drive slow, what does that even mean, how slow?" About ten seconds after that sentence escaped her mouth, the road was painted with big block white letters that said "Very Slow." You had to be there, but it must have been magic.



By accident we took the longest drive possible from Clifden to Galway. We were in the car a long time. For my sister, who had to drive the whole time, being in the car a long time is a very bad thing. Less bad in Ireland than in Minnesota, but still a little rough. Luckily we came across this beautiful beach to break it up a little.

Let me explain why Amy was stuck behind the wheel. You see, I hadn't practiced on a stick shift since the Spartz LeMans died in 1987. That coupled with size of the roads in Sligo County made me a high risk driver. I almost gave Amy a heart attack with my spacial ability challenges. In hind sight, the whole thing is really funny, but at the time, we had words. I'm sure I would have gotten the hang of driving but I couldn't make Amy see my potential so, we had a fight, and then she drove the whole rest of the trip. She was a champ. I probably would have killed us all.