Xmas Candids

Christmas was great fun - eating, drinking, laughing, hugging and kissing. I didn't get pics of everyone, but here are a few candid shots. Merry Christmas everyone!!

Looks Like Christmas...in Florida!

Either a well tanned or black Santa Christmas Crabs Golfcart Santa Noel Flamingo Flamingos and Candy Canes Well Decorated Palm Tree Palm Tree with Xmas Earrings Florida Key Deer grazing near Xmas palm

I hadn't thought about Christmas decorations in Florida being different from the rest of the country until someone asked me about it.  Then I started looking around and realized that maybe crabs with bows, black Santas, and decorated palm trees might be a localized statement to the holiday.

A Weekend at the Races

Rugged Men

Mark was invited to join 'the guys' for a weekend camp out at the Sebring race track, to watch the Sebring Historic Fall Classic race. This is an annual event where over 300 historic sports cars from North America and Europe, 1950's to now, can race and show off in various day and night races.

I do believe the weekend included much eating, imbibing in adult beverages, ooo'ing and aahh'ing over various types of cars, and occasional sleeping at night. Despite the cold temperatures and pouring rains, the rugged men survived.

2002 BMW CSi 1968 Mustang Porsche 356

1970's Chevron Caymun for Miller High Life Lotus 7

Rain Barrel Art

I attended the Pinellas County rain barrel training program and am now a certified rain barrel specialist. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration! But I did learn how to set up the barrel - which I immediately decided was Mark's job... and how to paint the barrel - which I thought was more within my skill set. I came home with a 59 gallon plastic barrel, after a struggle to wrestle it into the BMW.

Mark primed the barrel, while I figured out what to paint on it. I finally decided to use one of his old t-shirts as my inspiration. It's from Hawaii and features the ancient Hawaiian petroglyphs. I thought they'd be within my painting capabilities. As you can see, these ancients were surfer dudes!

Crabmania

 

Mark has diversified his fishing to include crabs. These crabs must be walking under his feet so he can just bend down and pick them up. The likelihood of this happening is slim, so we've been collecting crabs for a couple of months with the goal of a crab feast when we accumulate enough wayward crabs.

The number of captured (and then frozen) wandering crabs finally hit 10 which was the magic number required for the feast. They were quite delicious and we made quite a mess!!

Late Summer Yard

 
 
 

In order to see how quickly plants grow here, compare these pictures with the ones from May 10, 2008 blog entry. That is when some of these plants were planted...or later!

Mark keeps saying that I'm creating a jungle. I just smile and agree.

Chuckles in Europe

I chuckle when i think back to our Europe trip this summer. Here are a few reasons why.

Mercedes Episode
We reserved the cheapest car the rental company had to drive from Heidelberg to Walldorf for some business meetings. When we picked up the car, it had no headrests which I thought might be important amenities while driving on the autobahn. So, the only car left was a C class Mercedes which we happily took. We even had a GPS!

We jumped in the car and started checking everything out. First was to get the GPS in English. Then we realized we didnt know how to work this GPS, so out came the owners manual...in German. I needed a translator to translate our GPS! We realized, somehow, that we had to load a CD - and after that things seemed to make sense.

Off we went to the autobahn. I couldn't wait to drive as fast as I could. It was so nice driving in such organized traffic. I gladly used my turn signal to move to the fast lane. But when I did, the car sped up, with no turn signal indicator. hmmm. I just sped away in the lane. Now it was time to move to the slow lane and I flipped down the turn signal device to move left... and the car slowed way down. Ahkkk! Too slow! So I stepped on the gas and moved on. This was making me crazy. The turn signal indicator didnt work! And the car had some sort of bizarre speed up/slow down thing happening with the turn signal.

We got to the meetings and enjoyed a nice lunch (thanks Adnan!). It was time to drive around now. But I was a bit nervous about the signal/acceleration problem. We got into the car (which was really nice otherwise) and started driving, and then it hit me! I was using the cruise control as the turn signal!!! DUH. Things worked much better after that realization. The turn signal DID work and the car accelerated only when I wanted it to.

Irish Music Episode
Mark and i were in Kilorglin (small town in County Kerry Ireland where my family lives) and wanted to listen to tradition Irish music as we had in Dublin. Cousin Jamesy said he would check out the music scene to find out where to go - remember, this is a small town. But in Ireland, every other business is a pub with music potential. Jamesy found a concert, in progress, at a small church that had been converted to an arts studio for music. We sat down during the break and found that there were about 12 other audience members, and a few musicians.

These musicians played traditional instruments and sang some lively songs. At one point i looked at mark who was making a face. What is it, I asked. His response - That man is killing my donkey.

I think Mark likes Irish music in small doses. After all, he stood up in a pub in Dublin and sang to the Irish musicians and pub crawlers who had been enjoying their Guinness for several hours. He sang in Turkish and it went over quite well, resulting in the singing of even more Irish music. He seemed to be ok with that...

Kissing Episodes
You may know that greetings vary by country. Since we were visiting friends and family, kissing was an expected part of the greetings. But, what kind of kiss and how many became the question. In Germany, a one cheek kiss worked. But in the Netherlands, the 3 cheek kiss (side to side 3 times) was the norm. And in Ireland, with family, the lips kiss was it.

So, you can imagine how confusing it got when I forgot what country I was in and mixed up the single, multiple cheek, and lips kisses. From a distance, it probably looked like a rare bird mating dance, making appearances in countries across Europe.

Our First Pineapples!

We've been waiting the past 4 months to begin harvesting our pineapple 'crop'. Here are the first 2. Delicious!!!!

Ponderings from Europe Trip

 

 

 

I really enjoyed our 3 weeks of playing the carefree vagabonds. Europe wasn't on my top 3 locations to visit, but the friends and family located there were. Now that I have returned, I realize the visit was made even more special because I'd traveled in Europe before. There wasn't a rush to see the 'must see' things. We can buy so many European items in the states, I focused on what I couldn't get at home. This trip was also a bit different because of the dollar devaluation to the Euro. Everything was expensive.

People - 30 years ago, one of my strongest memories was how different people were in Germany, France, Ireland from each other and from what I knew. How they dressed, ate and lived was foreign to how I lived and quite distinctive from each other. This trip showed me that the world really has become smaller. People in all countries were suffering from the economic collapse and it was a universal discussion point. In the past, I would find an angry attitude toward the US. But in this trip, it was interesting to hear the seemingly universal support for the US which originated strongly from their attitudes toward Obama.

Lifestyle - US fast food restaurants were common to see. Music I hear in the states was common. After all, we listen to 'world' music these days. Though we did enjoy the traditional Irish music especially after a music pub crawl in Dublin. In Killorglin though, Mark's comment on a traditional music singer was 'the singer's tone kills my donkey'.
Movies, clothes, TV shows, groceries (Aldi was popular and we have them in Florida!)were all familiar. The euro has definitely created a commonality between these countries and with my EU passport, traveling between them was effortless. No incidents of border police getting on the train to check passports as you cross borders. Homes were more similar than dissimilar to homes in the states. Still, kitchens are much smaller and compact. IKEA is the great equalizer.

Food - My favorite subject! I found fewer unfamiliar foods in this trip. Maybe a bit of this is because I've traveled, but I also think there has been a lot of growth in food distribution globally. That said, this is the area where we found the most diversity, thank goodness!
In Germany, the variety of scrumptious breads was a joy to find. I think that and the variety of beers stood out. My favorite bread is the pretzel bun topped with crunchy salt. Topped with fresh butter and honey it is unmatched joy. YUM!!
What is really 'hot' throughout Europe these days is 'organic' food. It was amazing how much the term 'organic' was used in packaged food. This struck me as odd since 30 years ago, I'm pretty sure the local farmers were organic. I remember people being interested in growing their own fruit and vegetables and this has not decreased. We enjoyed organic veggies in Germany that made us smile just talking about it (thanks Angi!).
We enjoyed the importance of chocolate in the Netherlands (thanks Rita & Kees) and chips of all kinds seem to occupy most of the grocery shelves in Ireland. Lettuce however was in hiding.

In Ireland, the food in Dublin restaurants was wonderful. I've read that the Irish are discovering cuisine and Irish chefs are quite popular. This was apparent in Dublin. We discovered how seafood chowder SHOULD taste in the port towns in County Kerry. A symphony of flavors in a light cream base, often with a touch of fennel, really made the chowders a highlight of our food experience. We enjoyed the soda bread, and Maureen, cousin Jamesy's wife, made an outstanding Porter Cake (made with Guinness) which we decided was really bread, so we could eat it for breakfast.

The Drink - it seems a theme of this trip was alcohol. In fact, the purchases we brought back home were almost all food and alcohol. We rediscovered a liquor made and sold only in Etten-Leur, a small Dutch town near the Belgium border. That came back with us. I enjoy gin and brought back Bokma gin which I discovered 9 years ago in Amsterdam. Our other imbibing enjoyments included Jameson whiskey- especially after visiting their museum in Dublin, and Heneken which is Mark's fave. And yes, we spent a bit of time in the Heneken brewery in Amsterdam. We discovered fruit flavored beers in Germany which are heavily marketed to 'young professionals'. Very refreshing!

Marketing - I pay attention to this since my business is marketing. I found it interesting that the marketing was quite similar to what we know in the US, while 30 years ago I thought it quite different. I felt like Europeans had become like Americans in some respects when seeing the similarities in marketing. Not sure it went the other way around. Note that we didn't watch much TV, so this may be a skewed view based on print media. People were very interested in home improvement shows and magazines.

Cars - I know that there are car models manufactured only for the European market, but it seemed to me that fewer cars were unique from what we have in the states. Over 10 years ago, we drove a SMART car. Now they are sold in the states. In Germany, there was an abundance of mercedes and BMWs. It felt like silicon valley!

Trains - I used trains as my main mode of transportation for a number of years while traveling around Europe. It is still the most economical. Of course, now you may have internet connection on the 'fast' trains. I did find the Deutsch Bahn to be incredibly confusing. The ticket machines claimed to have an English version and in our attempt to be self supporting we tried this option. Only German was provided! And the cities we were looking for weren't necessarily on the ticket options. I think DB realized their equipment did not communicate well because we found at least one live person in every train station ready to help even the Germans figure out the
'self service' ticket opportunities.

Language - I'm not sure if I've become more comfortable with German, or if Mark's Turkish and German was the saving grace. But language wasn't an issue for us. It was apparent that more Europeans speak English, but also that those who didn't were very interested in communicating with us using a few key words... much like my few key German words. Note that most workers we interacted with in Germany were Turkish. So, Mark's Turkish was very handy. His German resurfaced only after a beer. So the mornings were definitely in Turkish.

In my three weeks, I think I was just getting into travel mode. The suitcase seemed to hold enough clothes, and I wanted to jump on more trains and see more towns and countryside. I guess that means we'll be going on more adventures, even in the states there is so much still to see! And I'll always enjoy the differences I get to see, hear, taste and feel...no matter how subtle they seem to become.

Drama in Istanbul

Big vacation for Tulin this year. She flew out to Turkey to visit her dad's family and was meeting Mark in Istanbul so they could fly the final leg of the trip together. But this turned out to be more difficult than we anticipated.

Tulin was flying from LA to Chicago through Madrid to Istanbul. Mark was going from Tampa to NY though Paris to Istanbul. They were to land within 30 minutes of each other and meet at the Turkish Airline counter where they would check in for their last leg to Izmir get to Mark's family.

Mark's flight to NY was severely delayed due to weather, so he missed all of his international connections and would arrive 7 hours late, at midnight. He called me in a panic about how to let Tulin know. All I could think of was Tulin standing in Istanbul Airport, quite excited to be on this adventure with her dad, and he doesnt show up even though his flights did. And that no one could tell her what happened. Thus began my 3 hours of international calls between the evening and early morning hours.

Without going into great details, which I can easily do, the highlights are: I called Delta, Istanbul Airport, Turkish Airlines, American Express. Delta gave me the Istanbul Airport number and said good luck. The Airport kept sending me to odd offices (lost and found, reservations, parking) instead of to a paging office. Note that language was clearly an issue.
Turkish Airlines helped me change the connecting flights so that Tulin and Mark had tickets on the 7am flight the next day. This made me sure Tulin wouldnt be trying to fly out herself when she couldnt find her dad. But they could not assure me that they would pass the information to Tulin that her dad wasn't coming in until midnight.
I called American Express, their global assist number is just for things like this. So I was sure they could help, and they were quite sure they could as well. Their idea was to page tulin before she got to customs. The desk she would go to for the call was staffed by a woman who spoke good english, understood the issue and the task and was willing to help. And, Amex would provide a toll free number for Tulin to call me. This sounded good. But I still wasnt comfortable that I had covered all the bases.
I called Turkish Airlines again and asked to speak to the manager. I told him the story and that I was dependent upon him and his people to make sure this girl knew that her dad was coming, but 7 hours late. I pleaded with him and spoke as if she were his daughter, waiting for him without knowing where he was. He finally said Ok, that he would try to get her the message.
At this point, I figured I had done all that I could. Now I had to wait for her to land in Istanbul.
An hour after she landed, no calls. two hours, no calls. I contacted AmEx and they said they'd not heard from Tulin. Almost three hours after she landed I get her call!
She's crying and I'm crying - both with relief. She had wondered where her dad was, but proceeded to the Turkish Airlines counter to check in. They told her she had no ticket. Not that the ticket had been changed! When she asked about her dad's ticket, she got the same answer. Confused, she walked away to think about what to do. Her emotions were starting to run high as she returned and demanded to talk with the manager. She told him she and her dad had tickets and he needed to find them. They checked the rest of that day's flights - no tickets. Then she said to check for the next day. He did and said - I have a message for you! Your ticket is now 7am and your dad will be coming in at midnight. Call Kathy.
After that, Tulin was quite fine. She changed her clothes and got comfortable for the long wait (5 more hours). She sat in a cafe near where her dad would arrive and that is where they found each other at midnight - when they both called me to say everything was good.
WHEW!!!

What happened with the seemingly good idea by Amex? The paging system is so bad at Istanbul airport that Tulin couldnt understand anything they were saying. I did let Amex know what happened - and they were very interested to 'close' the incident. They are reviewing their paging idea for airports where this is not a good option.

Festimorial Celebration

Mark's and my annual hosted family holiday is one we made up. NOTE: each O'Leary has a hosted family holiday, but they are typically Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Making up our own holiday gives us flexibility in planning the date - but we've decided its a summer thing- scheduled sometime between May and August. This year, to beat the heat, we tried Memorial weekend, and adjusted the name of the celebration to Festimorial.

There was a quorum of family attendees, and we had lots of food. The rainy weather cleared and it was beautiful for going to the beach and for feasting. The obligatory telling of jokes and feats of strength were a bit more competitive with awards for the best (decided by me). While the feat of strength last year was arm wrestling, this year we had one legged, intertwined arm wrestling. And the winner was....MOM! This feat required lots of hopping and upper body strength, topped off with strong core strength. Mom's pilates paid off!

The hands down highlight of the day was watching the baby doves, literally inches from where we were wrestling and eating. Their mother decided it was time to learn to fly. So we watched the process which was uncannily like teaching a baby person how to take their first steps. And like humans, each baby bird needed motivating by mom, was clumsy when they tried to fly, and had a protective mother taking care of them along the way. It was like having our own personalized National Geographic episode.