Day 20 - Fin!

-- Home safe and sound now ... managed to make it from Dublin through Paris to Newark and finally up to Lowell all in one piece. How nice it is to be back in the land of wide streets, one-size-fits-all paper currency, and working cell phones (seriously, how annoying is it that Europeans can bring their cell phones all over their continent and Asia, too, and we can't even bring ours to Mexico ... are they in metric or something?).

-- Fun bit of excitement on the way back ... it seems Air France overbooked the Dublin flight, leaving only one seat available on the 9am. Sue, wanting to make sure she made it home in time for Jen's wedding (Vegas had the odds at 5:3 against), took the seat (leaving a Sue-shaped cloud of dust behind her), leaving Alan to fend for himself. All turned out OK, as there were seats on the 10:15 and, thanks to some recent EU laws, Alan got a 250Euro compensation voucher. Go byzantine regulatory state!

-- We were aware that you couldn't take any liquids or gels on the planes, but when did M&Ms, deodorant and aspirin turn into liquids? In retrospect, we should have just checked everything and boarded the plane naked with our passports and boarding passes taped to our chests.

-- Anyway, this is pretty much the end of the line. I thought about extending this to cover our adventures in Lowell (it's my belief that the main industry of Lowell is generating tough-looking tattooed young men) but I think it's time to wrap it up. Thanks to everyone who read this (that's you, Moms), and I'm sure we'll see everyone soon.

Best,
A&S

Day 18 - Dublin

-- The Dublin skyline is hilarious ... in that there is no skyline. We went up to the top of the Guinness brewery (great tour, by the way) and looked out over Dublin ... and there is nothing! Just miles and miles of cute little houses and green trees.

-- We're apparently dragging this cold and rainy weather around with us, because it's the same here as it is in Paris. I don't really care all that much, just so long as the trend of good beer keeps up, too. (Sapporo to Tsingtao to Singha to various Belgian beers to Guinness and Irish Ales ... it's a distinctly upward curve)

-- They have these huge Irish gift shops here, but unlike the truly crappy Paris tourist shops or the nonexistant Thai/Hong Kong gift shops, these things are FANTASTIC. First, they carry every kind of clothing you could possibly want, all in cute shades of green and emblazoned with "IRELAND." We bought a ton of crap, including a spiffy "Ireland" jacket for me (on account of the fact that neither Sue nor I brought a jacket on this trip -- it is August, after all). Even besides the gift shops, the shopping has been great here, too (I found a Liverpool jersey that fit perfectly and Sue has finally found a country where women's clothes fit people taller than 5'2"). Go Dublin.

-- Our favorite game on this trip has been "Do They Tip Here?" Our tentative answers: No in Japan, Yes in Hong Kong, No in Thailand, Only A Little in Paris, and We Think So in Ireland. Good times.

Last Day in Dublin,
A&S

Day 16 - Dublin

- Paris was cold. And wet. And yet still lovely. Even the people weren't mean, which was a complete shock. I mean, the guy selling tickets at the Metro certainly had an absence of nice, but he wasn't overtly mean.

- You can get a bottle of wine for $2 in Paris. And not "Le Night Train," either. Good times!

- So, one of Alan's only memories of Paris from when he was little was getting a hot dog at the Eiffel Tower. It was a footlong hot dog in a hollowed out baguette (with ketchup and everything!) and it blew my eight-year-old mind. So when I saw "Le Hot Dog" -- almost as good a translation as the ad for "Les Monster Trucks" on the subway -- on the menu yesterday, I couldn't resist. And lemme tell you -- it was FANTASTIC. The list of French food that Alan will eat now looks like this: 1) Mayonnaise, 2) Creme Brulee, and 3) French Hot Dogs. Well done, Pierre.

- Safe and sound in Dublin now. Off to find the leprechauns.

A&S

Random Thoughts

a.k.a. "Stuff We Forgot To Post At The Time"

-- We stayed in a neighborhood called Ueno in Tokyo. Pronounced "oo-ay-no." This prompted Alan to start saying "Hey now, I will take your Uno away now in Ueno, bueno?" He has yet to stop.

-- While visiting the Wat Pho ("But I don't know what fo!") shrine in Bangkok, Sue was mobbed by a group of Thai schoolchildren on an assignment for their English class. The intrepid reporters took turns interviewing her about such diverse topics as where she was from, what her favorite Thai food was, and how much she loved the king. Alan was actually in the bathroom at the time, so he came out to a half-dozen Thai children in matching yellow shirts surrounding Sue ... he wasn't sure whether they were selling something or if Sue had adopted them, but he managed to keep his composure. Incidentally, they never asked Alan anything -- perhaps sensing that his king-love-level was about the same as Sue's.

-- Sue, multitasking genius that she is, wrote a story for the Lowell Sun (her former paper) about the nightmare at Heathrow, which was published on the Sun's front page. Check it out here. She wrote it in an hour in an internet cafe here in Paris, which is impressive. And apparently it was good enough to beat out "Black Bear Spotted Again" and "Five Kittens Need Homes." She's got the scoop, indeed, chief.

-- According to the news, we as Americans were supposed to avoid traveling to Delhi's airport last week because of the security situation (apparently, their independence day attracts terrorist violence). First of all, we would have loved to have avoided Delhi's airport. I believe our post on the subject makes that clear. Secondly, when you've got a freaking cat running around in the secured area, maybe you've got bigger problems than the possibility of terrorism. Like amazing levels of incompetence.

Randomly,
A&S

Day 14 -- Paris!

-- So it's come to this ... we wake up at 4 in the morning to go to Heathrow (actually easier than it sounds, considering we passed out at 8pm last night), and because of the security restrictions all our bags had to be checked. That's fine, except they make you take your necessities (wallet, tickets, passport) in A GALLON-SIZED CLEAR PLASTIC BAG. That's right, the security procedures at Heathrow were exactly the same as the security procedures for the bar exam (except we couldn't bring in snacks or Number 2 pencils). I seriously expected there to be a two hundred question multiple choice exam waiting for us at the gate.

-- But we made it to Paris and checked into our hotel and had some french food and wine and all that good stuff. So yeah for that.

-- Yeah for the British Airways people, too. They were actually really, really helpful considering the extraordinary nightmare that was Heathrow. The line for rebooking extended out of the terminal and wound down two streets and through a parking lot. They were also using that parking lot as a kind of lobby, where they would call out which flights were boarding and let those people into the terminal -- think a really depressing version of Woodstock except with piles of luggage everywhere and you've got it.

-- I went and stood in line, and mentally prepared myself to stay there for the next four or five hours. Sue went off to find a payphone and call the BA people in the hopes they could resolve things. Fifty minutes later, I had moved ten whole feet. At that point, Sue comes running back with her arms full of vouchers for hotels, meals, etc. She had apparently walked into the terminal and asked a British Airways person where the phones were, and the person ended up booking her a new flight and getting us lodging for the night. WTF??? Why was there this huge line if it was that easy? I think British people just like lines. (This was confirmed the next morning when there was a gigantic line to check in, and we just walked up to the self-service machine, got our boarding passes and dropped off our checked bags, all in about ten minutes).

-- The hotel was fine, the food was fine, the bed was fine ... but we were both a little disappointed that for the first time since Tokyo there was no channel showing last year's English Premier League games. Sigh.

Enjoying Paris,
A&S

Day 13 -- London???

- Our itinerary today was from Bangkok to Delhi to London to Paris ... at no point did we think that London would be the dodgy stop, but here we are in a hotel room at Heathrow. We're safe and sound, though -- a wee bit tired perhaps, but generally okay.

- There's hell. There's super-hell. Then there's the Delhi International Airport. Seriously, it's run like a D.C.-area U-Haul, with a employee:helpful employee ratio of 1000-1. Plus, there is an unbelievable amount of completely needless bureaucracy. Were we supposed to bribe people or something? I don't understand.

- One last thing before we pass out: there was a cat in the Delhi Airport. And it was noticable, too. The thing crawled in an X-ray machine. That right there is all you need to know about Delhi.

Paris tomorrow (hopefully) (*knocking on wood*),
A&S

Day ... What Day Is It Anyway? -- Bangkok

-- Just got back from Ko Samet - absolutely gorgeous beach, white sand, bars on the beach ... and our typical unfortunate forgetting of sunscreen. Let's just say that we enjoyed it, but we're really paying the price today.

-- A not insignificant portion of this country smells like refuse. Worth noting.

-- There are dozens of stray dogs in Ko Samet. Reminded me of the packs of wild dogs in Istanbul, but a lot nicer. Sue thinks they are the happiest stray dogs in the world -- all they do is play all day, frolic in the water and get table scraps from strangers. Sue would live like this if she could.

-- We took the world's most easily tossed about boat to and from the island. Man, never in my life have I taken a mental inventory of life jackets and possible exits so quickly and so deliberately.

-- Sue had pad thai for breakfast on Ko Samet, and Alan has had it for every meal since he's been here.

-- Alan read "The Beach," set in Thailand, on a beach in Thailand. If only there was a book called "Sitting in an Airport in Delhi" for the next leg of our journey.

Enjoying our Last Day in Bangkok,
A&S

Day Ten -- Bangkok

- Everyone in Bangkok is wearing these yellow shirts with the royal emblem on them. At first, we thought they all worked for the same department store. Then we realized it was probably some kind of national show of support for the king, who recently had spinal surgery. Everyone here loves the king. They actually flashed that message on the neon signs as we waited in immigration: "We Love Our King," Well, I love their king, too.

- Here's why: before every movie (we saw Miami Vice last night -- so freaking good), they play the national anthem with a montage of pictures of the king. But instead of normal king-like gear -- you know, crowns, perhaps a military uniform, etc. -- he was in wrinkled suits with a Cannon camera strapped around his neck. He looked like a tourist or a bird-watcher. The dude was awesome; he can be my king any day of the week.

- Food is fantastic and beer is cheap. Good times.

Running to catch a bus for Ko Samet,
A&S