Budapest

As we look forward to the new year, we're trying to take this week to catch up on some posting here. We've definitely dropped off from our earlier posting pace, but it's been such a busy year, with Erika in Africa for the better part of the first six months, the wedding, and Erika's recent work in Taiwan. Still, this year has been an other wonderful opportunity for us to travel a little bit. In November, we flew to Budapest with our friends, Pete and Azure, for a quick weekend of sight-seeing and, as always seems to be the case, amazing dining.

While Rob had been to Hungary before, neither of us had ever been to Budapest and we were excited to explore the city. We got in on a Saturday morning and wandered through the city, starting in the old Pest side where our hotel was, and working our way across the famous Chain Bridge into Buda. We had a late, delicious lunch and wandered without much purpose, taking in the beautiful buildings and river scene, so by the time we made it up the Castle Hill, or Vár, the museums and churches were closed. We wandered over to the Fisherman's Bastion, an old battlement on the land that is said to have been manned and defended by local fisherman during the Middle Ages. The bastion is incredibly well lit and gorgeous:

After a solid day of walking (and climbing up and down the Vár) we took a break on a cocktail-fueled river cruise along the Danube. The view from the river at night is astounding, though the glass windows prevented us (but not the obnoxious girls in front of us, whose camera flashes were blinding) from taking any good pics. Still, the boat ride was very educational and we'd recommend it to anyone visiting Budapest.

We finished off the first day with a truly incredible meal at the restaurant Klassz, which, in addition to fantastic food (who knew Hungarian food was so good?) had an extensive collection of Hungarian wines (who knew Hungarian wines were so good?).

Sunday began with another trip back across the Danube to visit the Cave Church, a, um, church in a cave that still serves mass and is run by an order of monks that date back to the 13th century. Outside the church is a statue of St. Stephen, a canonized king of Hungary who founded the state of Hungary in the 11th century, and who remains the symbol of the republic. That's cool and everything, but check out his crazy toes:

We made a sad, late attempt to get into the gargantuan Parliament building, but the English tour was sold-out well before we arrived. We settled for a quick pit stop at the "most beautiful McDonald's in the world" in one of the train stations, but despite the lovely light fixtures, we were unimpressed- the most beautiful McDonald's in the world still smells like french fry grease. Here's Parliament:

After two solid days of walking, you need a break. What better way to relax than in one of Budapest's famous spas? In pools of 100 degree (or warmer) natural spring water, we relaxed with 300 of our closest friends- it was a little crowded. Refreshed, we headed out for one last, memorable Hungarian dinner before returning home the next morning.

Ireland

A couple weeks ago, Erika had some work in Ireland, so Rob flew up to join her for a quick weekend road trip. We originally planned to focus on a few, small areas, but quickly bit off more than we could chew. Erika's work was in Shannon, so Rob drove up from Cork (after enjoying the traditional Irish treat, Starbucks. There was a time when Rob would feel like a guilty, typical tourist for having a Starbucks, but after two years in a country where a take-away coffee is nearly impossible to find, some of the snob is wearing off).

We made our way through the gorgeous-even-in-the-overcast-fall-weather countryside to Galway, where we stayed in a fantastic bed and breakfast. We were planning to double back to the south after a morning in Galway, but our hostess convinced us to head north, into the area known as Connemara. The thing with Ireland is that it is beautiful everywhere, but each part is uniquely beautiful, so, if you're not careful you end up driving the entire island as you realize, "Oh, we're not too far from X, let's go check it out, too." This is a perfectly wonderful way to travel, but not if you have reservations 5 hours away.

Connemara is beautiful (how many times will we use 'beautiful' when describing Ireland?) and we had a great morning drive to the coast, along the only Irish fjord, in which dolphins are often found if you have the time to stop and look for them. We visited some lovely shops and saw a castle and Rob clapped like a six-year-old when our car was forced to stop for a passing herd of sheep: "It's just like the movies!"

We finally made it back to Galway for a late lunch (for some of the best chicken pot pie we've ever had) and then pushed on to the Cliffs of Moher. Unfortunately, two things happened then. One, we'd spent too much time (and daylight) in Connemara, and, two, the 'cute' picturesque, windy Irish roads caught up to us and we got a little carsick. So we raced to the cliffs, trying to reach them before sunset but also trying not to drive too fast. It was pretty stupid. We made it in time to see the cliffs and grab a photo, but just barely:

Finally, we continued on (after an insane GPS-inspired trip through several farms) to Kilarney. Though we'd originally intended to drive both the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula, we actually learned a lesson from the first day, and chose to just do the Ring of Kerry. The drive around the Ring of Kerry is absolutely breathtaking. The weather wasn't great for photographs, but we managed to get in a few.

Like our trip to Scotland, we just barely got a taste of Ireland and can't wait to get back. We ate well, the beer was phenomenal, the people were fantastic and the countryside is stunning. You just can't see it all in two days.

Prost!

We spent the weekend in Munich at the Oktoberfest. It was fantastic! Rob forgot to pack the camera, so we relied on our friends, Paul and Simon, to capture a few pics for us.

Erika and Paul

A big group of folks from Amsterdam went down and one of them had the foresight to reserve a table months ago, which is key, since most visitors spend half their time there trying to squeeze in to a table. We enjoyed our own table on Friday, but were thrown in with the masses on Saturday. Though we didn't make it into one of the main tents, we managed to carve out a little space for ourselves. The Duffys, our friends from Germany, and several of their friends joined us and we got to play with the kids. Rob even spoiled Denali with a SpongeBob SquarePants balloon, a horn (which he made sure she kept for the car ride home), and a pony ride. He's clearly not afraid of being accused of buying her love.

The Oktoberfest was a lot of fun- we had several liters of beer and tons of delicious, fatty German food, some of which Rob even remembers eating.

It was Erika's first trip and she likened it to Vegas- a whole lot of fun, but you don't want to go every year and it takes a week to detox when you're done. And, at the end of the night, you have to carry Rob home.

Malaysia (Truly Asia!)

For our honeymoon, we headed to Malaysia (Truly Asia) for some time on the beach. We stayed on the island of Langkawi, which is actually a group of 99 small islands, though we were on the largest of them. Malaysia (Truly Asia) is a beautiful country and the islands were blanketed with deep green forests covering the large hills and surrounding the many gorgeous waterfalls. Because of its location on the western side of the main Malaysian (Truly Asian) peninsula, Langkawi is sheltered from most of the normal monsoon rains, which is important if you're honeymooning near the beginning of monsoon season. Oh, and the lame (Truly Asia) joke is from the Malaysian tourism commercial that plays about 50 times a day on CNN International. When we told our friends in Amsterdam that we were going to honeymoon in Malaysia, the most common response was, "Truly Asia?"

The honeymoon was everything we wanted it to be, which is to say that it was incredibly relaxing. We took multiple trips to the spa for massages and sat on the beach or poolside and enjoyed many delicious cocktails. The food at the resort was fantastic, although we had our best meal in town at the Ramadan bazaar. That part of the country is primarily Muslim, so each evening a couple hours before sunset, little roadside stands and town markets spring up, selling amazing local food in preparation for the end of the daytime Ramadan fast. For something like 3 or 4 dollars, we bought a giant spread of grilled chicken, meatball dumplings, and several roti with unbelievably good dipping sauces. Roti is the local flatbread, which is fairly simple, but the sauces were out of this world. Here's one of the vendors frying up some roti:

Though we were content to sit in the sun and read (and enjoy a cocktail or three), we did manage to venture out a bit and explore some of the island. We took a tour of a few of the islands main waterfalls:

Our favorite event was a sunset dinner cruise we took one evening. The boat sailed around several of the small or uninhabited islands and the crew grilled and served us another awesome meal:

It was a wonderful honeymoon and we're excited about going back to that corner of the world and exploring more of Malaysia!

(Truly Asia!)

Erika and Rob Got Married

What a blast: in a whirlwind month, we moved apartments in Amsterdam (now with more room for guests!), flew home, prepped for a wedding, got married, flew back and repacked, flew to Malaysia for a honeymoon, and returned home to unpack boxes and move into the new place just in time to host five visiting friends for a long weekend! Erika was on four continents in as many weeks and we spent almost 2 full days on airplanes.

But, wow, was it worth it. The wedding, if we can be so modest, was beautiful and just about perfect. The farm looked fantastic and the weather couldn't have been better for the ceremony. (Okay, we weren't prepared for the temperature to drop so quickly with the sunset, but we hope it wasn't too cold.) It was wonderful to see our friends and family and have such a great day together.

Erika looked absolutely gorgeous and Rob cleaned up okay, too. Photos are still coming in from everyone and we encourage you to share if you'd like. Our amazing photographers have compiled an initial gallery that can be found here. There's a nice slideshow and if you're interested in seeing the whole gallery, send us an email and we'll make sure you get access (both these photos are by Stickeen Photography).

Thanks again to everyone who helped make it the most wonderful wedding we could have hoped for! And, as always, if you need a little more Erika-and-Rob time, you're always invited to come see us here.

Moronathon 2009!

We recently held our 2nd annual Moronathon here in Amsterdam. The Moronathon is a series of ten semi-athletic and semi-sober events designed to test strength, endurance, and your (lack of) ego. To give you a quick idea of what it's about, here's a video of some of last year's event:

This year was another rousing success. We started things off with a little pre-party to get everyone in the right frame of mind before heading down to the park. You'll notice we had t-shirts made. The 'I amoron' is a play on the city's tourism campaign, "I amsterdam."

The Moronathon kicks off with the first event, where each man punts a football and then attempts to chase it down and catch it. Everybody gets 5 punts and the person who has traveled the farthest wins. We score on a point system, with 5 points for 1st place, 3 for second, and 1 for third.

The second event was a crabwalk relay with cups of beer at each end. Each contestant crabwalked four lengths, downing a total of 2 cans of beer. The event was scored for time, with penalties added for spilled beer.

The third event was a 3-man race bouncing on exercise balls, as seen in the video. This was actually a better event last year, when the field was muddy and everybody had a hard time controlling the ball.

A new event this year, completely ripped off from a little girl Brian and Rob saw in the park during Queens Day, was the launching of a Dutch chocolate-covered marshmallow snack into the air by means of jumping onto a board and attempting to catch the snack in your mouth. Contestants got three attempts, it was much harder than it looked and it was insanely fun.

The scariest event was the egg toss. Since there were morons involved, the object of this egg toss was not to keep the egg intact, but to hit your opponent with it. Each man carried three eggs, and after starting 30 paces apart, the combatants would decrease the distance between each other for the next throw. It got a little brutal, and once the event was over, devolved into an all out egg war.

The egg war was followed by the hanging competition. Each man hung from a tree branch while the rest bombarded him with the exercise balls. This was followed by a disastrous event where we tried to throw a tennis ball up in the air, drop and do a push up, and then catch the tennis ball. This is not easy to do, and only one guy managed to catch his tennis ball. We won't be doing that event again next year.

We then moved to the Rodeo event where contestants tried to balance on an exercise ball for time. This turned out to be hilarious to watch. The next to last event was dribbling a soccer ball backwards for time. This event was difficult, mostly due to the fact that we'd been drinking for several hours at that point.

The final event was a race. The endpoint of the race was announced and runners could take any path they chose to get to it. Some runners chose a longer, safer route, and the rest of us ran in a straight line, which just so happened to include a dirty canal. It was the perfect moronic ending to another great Moronathon. After the competition, everyone cleans up and gets together for a bbq and a presentation of the trophy, which is a wooden statue of a duck.

Rob has tons and tons of video and is working to splice together another movie for this year's event. Oh, and if you're wondering how well Rob did in the Moronathon this year, doesn't this picture say it all?

To the Ends of the Earth... and Back!

While it's been too long since we posted here, it's not like we haven't been busy. Erika returned to Cape Town for several weeks and Rob visited her cousin, Jason, in Spain, hosted Brian for Queen's Day festivities and chased Erika down to the very bottom of Africa.* As of this posting, we're both in Amsterdam though we'll be heading back to Portland for a couple weeks in June.

Erika's project in Cape Town has kept her quite busy, but she's been able to use the weekends to see some of South Africa. During her last trip she climbed Table Mountain, toured the east coast city of Durban, went for another round of winetasting, and hiked up to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope:

Meanwhile, Rob headed to Madrid and Seville to spend a few days with Jason, who was in country on business. Spain is absolutely beautiful, but Rob's pretty sure that the views he'll remember forever all pretty much looked like this:

Queen's Day is the biggest Dutch national holiday and Rob's friend, Brian, flew out to catch the big party. After the parade, they hit the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens, the Dutch island of Texel, and, of course, the famous Cheese Market:

Now that Erika's back in town, we just had a fantastic weekend with a barbecue in the park followed by a day on the boat in the canals, made even more perfect with the addition of our friends, Rachel and Shawn, who are visiting from Portland. Rob and Shawn are having a lot more fun than they're letting on in this picture. 

It's been an incredibly busy and quick six weeks and with our return trip home, it won't be slowing down anytime soon. We hope to revisit some of these adventures and give them a proper write up, but just wanted to let everyone we're doing well. Oh, and if you haven't visited (or have and want to come back), we're happy to announce that we've decided to stay one more year, so there's plenty of time to come hang out with us! 

*Okay, so technically neither Cape Point nor the Cape of Good Hope are the southernmost tip of Africa, but you get the idea. This footnote should assure of two things: This blog is fact-checked and Rob is a nerd.

Scotland

Over Easter weekend, we toured part of Scotland with Kirsten and Josh. Rather than fly, we took the unorthodox route of taking an overnight ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle, England and driving up to Edinburgh. The trip started off ominously as our google map preparation and our TomTom GPS both (and of course, we) failed to take into account the insane rush hour traffic, so our 25 minute trip took over an hour and a half and our 'let's get there early' plan quickly melted into a panicked 'so, if we miss this ferry, what do we want to do this weekend' discussion. Luckily we cruised into the ferry landing just in time, trading in 4 minor heart attacks for the convenience of driving straight onto the boat and avoiding the lines. 

The ferry experience was mixed. The ride over to England was pretty good. The boat was huge (like a small cruiseliner) and had shops, bars, and restaurants. We slept in little bunks and it was nice to wake up, have breakfast, and get on the road. The trip back, however was not as simple. There were 40-50 young Brits heading in to Amsterdam for the rest of the long weekend and they took full advantage of the ship's bars. We have no problem with the kids having fun, but unfortunately a dozen of them had rooms across from us, so we had the luxury of listening to them until about four in the morning... Also funny was that we had smaller rooms on the way back, notable for the bathrooms which were so small that the shower was a triangle shaped wedge right next to the toilet. You could literally shower while on the toilet if you were so inclined (we weren't!). 

So, anyway. Scotland. Expecting the worst, we were delighted to have three days of sunshine. The Scottish countryside is absolutely beautiful: gorgeous green hills, marked off with stone walls and full of livestock, mostly sheep. 

And, since it's spring, almost every field of sheep was littered with lambs, who frolicked and played in the most ridiculously adorable way, filling our first hour on the road with a car full of 'awwwws' and 'oooohs' (and about a dozen near death experiences as Rob split his focus between driving on the left side of the road and trying to see what all the 'awwwwing' and 'oooohing' was about). If you think you'd eventually become numb to little lambs being absurdly cute, you're wrong. 

We survived the Scottish Lamb Deathtrap and made it to the town of Jedburg (pronounced Jed-bourough). Jedburg's home to the remains of Jedburg Abbey, a 12th century church and monastery destroyed centuries ago during a war with England.

In fact, in an interesting twist on the Giant European Churches that we seem to spend a part of every trip in, there are several church ruins in Scotland. Our favorite was probably Sweetheart Abbey, near the coastal town of Dumfries. Sweetheart Abbey is so called because it was founded as a monument to a Scottish Lady's dead husband (and where she was later buried along with her husband's heart. Rob asked Erika if she'll get buried with his heart. She wasn't so sure). The grounds inside Sweetheart Abbey are overgrown with lush green grass, so as you walk through the old church, it really feels like a beautiful and ancient sculpture. 

Eventually, we made into Edinburgh, where we had a lovely dinner in a small pub and walked around the city. We met this (possibly crazy and) exceptionally nice lady on the bus who heard us talking and proceeded to recommend her favorite 12 restaurants. Actually, every single Scot we chatted with was nice and friendly and helpful. We stayed at a small hotel just outside the city center, which was notable for its tiny beds. Rob's feet and ankles hung off the edge and Josh, who is 6' 11", had an even rougher time of it. 

The following day, we made our way into the city. Edinburgh Castle towers over the city and is definitely worth a tour. We do have one good tip to share. If you go to the castle you can view the Honours of Scotland, which are the old crown jewels of the Scottish Kingdom. The jewels are beautiful, but what we didn't know was that there were two ways to view them. The door we entered led to a 45 minute line that wrapped through a cheesy museum display giving the history of the jewels. The display was actually okay, but it was prerecorded and repeated itself 3 or 4 times as you waited for the line to move. When we finally made it to the viewing room we discovered there was another entry way that led directly to the jewels. One of the older women in that line was very curious about where we came from, but when Rob assured her that she hadn't missed anything she shrugged and said, "Got it. Just google it." 

After the viewing the castle, we had lunch and enjoyed a Scottish Whisky tasting. It would have been preferable to visit a distillery, but we didn't really have the time to go north into the Highlands. The tasting was great as you got an appreciation for how different the whisky from each region in Scotland is. We spent the rest of our time in Edinburgh wandering through the old city and doing a little shopping before heading out to the western coast.

We spent the next night in Dumfries, a small fishing town, where had the unnerving experience of walking around the city center while scarcely seeing another soul as we looked for a place to eat dinner. It was like something out of a bad horror movie where all the locals turn in after sundown. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) we never came across any Scottish vampires or zombies and finally found the one non-Chinese restaurant that was open after 8. The next day we headed back to England to catch our ferry, but not before visiting a working 15th century mill and Caerlaverock Castle. 

The mill's water wheel still works and there's a miller who still grinds oats a few times a month. 

Caerlaverock Castle is mostly in ruins, but the two tall battle towers are still quite imposing and the castle is still surrounded by a moat. The castle was destroyed and rebuilt several times and there is a lifesize replica of a medieval trebuchet (catapult) on the grounds. 

The castle visit also gave us one last chance to enjoy some haggis, which is not as bad as you think it will be, and which Rob was delighted to find can be eaten on a baked potato. How can anything be bad if you can eat on a baked potato?

We had such a good time in Scotland that we think we need to go back. The people, the food, the whisky, the sights, and the country were so great, we left wanting more. 

Now that their vacation is over, maybe they can rest

Well, that was quick. Kirsten and Josh have returned home, but we tried to cram in as much as possible while they were here. After the trip to the model village in The Hague, we toured the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and made a trip out to the Keukenhof Gardens to see the tulips.

In addition to the beautiful flowers, we also saw an actual Dutch gardener wearing actual wooden clogs:

Of course, one of the main reasons Rob likes returning to the Keukenhof is for the Belgian Waffles, which he happily introduced to Josh:

The day before they left had probably the nicest weather of the year here in Amsterdam and we celebrated by making a second trip along the canals on the boat. And no trip to Amsterdam is complete without a trip to our favorite Dutch jenever bar for a glass of the traditional Dutch drink in the traditional fashion:

And finally, we celebrated Easter weekend with a quick trip to lovely Scotland. We'll get another, Scotland-centric post up tomorrow, but until then, here are Erika and Kirsten checking out a couple of swans in a moat around a 13th century castle:

It was fantastic seeing Kirst and Josh and we hope they had as much fun as we did. See you guys again this summer!

The Most Exciting Thing You'll See All Day

Back to the South Africa posts! The winery we stayed at also had a small cheetah sanctuary. Cheetahs are an endangered species and are still frequently targeted by farmers for killing livestock. The purpose of the sanctuary is to raise awareness about the plight of the cheetah and to promote alternate methods of protecting livestock, including the use of Turkish Anatolian Shepards, which are giant, fast, and extremely protective dogs that are famously good at protecting herds of livestock from bears and wolves (the center also breeds the dogs). 

The center houses about 15 cheetahs, including the cubs above. The center breeds the cheetahs and feeds and cares for them. Here are some interesting facts about cheetahs:

• Cheetahs sleep 18 hours a day
• There are wild cheetahs in Iran. Iran! And all this time we worried about nukes.
• Cheetahs are indifferent to German goth girls:

And of course, cheetahs are famously fast. We had the amazing luck of catching one in action while we were at the center, but it was almost too quick to capture. So lean in and pay attention, or you'll miss it: