a few shots of Greece

our posh house in athens









already into that sort of thing













cool castle in Nafplio

paris stuff

This is after our worst (and one of the most expensive) meal on the entire trip.










My son decided to take a swing at me. It was very cold, and he did not like wearing his big coat and mickey mouse mittens.

Killarney Ireland

This is the view from the 35 year old mobile home we stayed in during our time in the fairytale town on Killarney. It's one of few pictures sadly, as our camera was drowned in a quick cleansing of my jacket that our child had just thrown up on.

I'd always heard that Ireland was amazingly green, but I'd just figured it was a cliche. Killarney is a small town in southwest Ireland - on the edge of the nation's largest national park. It was quite amazing - castles, ruins, mountains, lakes, and beer. Our hosts loves to take us on night walks through the most amazing scenery. Our mobile home was located behind our hosts house(an old friend of my wife's +her husband and 2 kids). It was great to have our own space after Paris, even with the pain in the ass wood burning stove. Very smoky, 3 kinds of tender, and so small that I had to wake up every 2 hours o refill it or wake up freezing.

It rained quite a bit, but it was nice to be away from a big city. The guinness is indeed better here. Sadly, another trip is winding to an end. Just one day in London before our flight back to
LA. I'm amazed we did it with a baby.

Paris with kids

It's been ages since I've had a free moment to blog, but that's traveling with a baby.  

Right from the start, our trip to France was hectic.  We stayed with my wife's sister and her 2 kids (8 and 5 year-olds), plus her boyfriend in a small 2 bedroom apartment in witch the kids each had their own bedrooms and the adults slept in the living room.  Luckily, the kids shared a bedroom and let us have one while we were there - this did not stop them from running in the room and climbing all over us at any moment.  My wife had never met her niece and nephew and they really loved hanging out with their new baby cousin.  Our son was much happier being around other kids and it was nice to not have to watch him every single moment.  

This trip is unlike any other I've been on, not just traveling with a baby, but staying with people almost the entire time is not something I'm used too when I'm on a big trip.  You're not really free, you're locked into whatever situation your hosts are living in when you stay with them. Sometimes it's a private 2 story guesthouse in the remote hills of Athens, sometimes it's a really small apartment in a ghetto neighborhood (Clichy) in Paris.

My sister-in-law was a great host and she and her boyfriend (a super cool Algerian who's 10 years younger than her) treated every day as if it was a party.  Over the top breakfasts of croissants, coffee, brioche with jam - tons of cheese.  Dinner parties with whatever random friends of their might stop buy meant cranking up the music and downing a ton of wine all while also dealing with their kids schoolwork and still managing to get them up at 7 the next morning.  Needless to stay the only rest was when we slept.  

It was quite cold, the coldest of anyplace we've been so far.  It is slightly easier to deal with the metro system (with baby/stroller in tow) here than in London, though it still means a lot of transfers in stations that only have stairs.  

Of course I forgot to mention that I don't speak much French.  Maybe I have 15 words/ phrases. Luckily my wife speaks some.  Her sister speaks English and her boyfriend speaks some, but her kids don't speak any.  I'd found this to be a bit of a problem when I visited in the summer 10 years go - a lot of the French gave me shit about it, but I think because I had a baby with me they let it slide.  I'm not talking about my wife's family, I mean the people I had contact with on the street/ bars/ restaurants/ museums/etc.  

Paris was with liveliest spot we've visited so far.   It was nice to stay with family and have our son have fun with other kids.  Staying in Athens was nice, but out host did not have kids, nor did she really get what it meant to have kids - naps, going to bed at 9pm, sudden tantrums, your child not wanting to be in a car any longer...etc.

Up next  - small town southwest Ireland... 

Greece on the high end

Not much free time now - so I'll just spit out what I can. We meet up with my wife's friend and we've been staying in her guest house for the past 5 days. The main house is 10,000 square feet - I'll post some pics later, and we're staying in our own 2 story guest house. We're nestled in the Ekali hills high above Athens - her friend's father is a famous Greek Architect. It's nice to be whined and dinned, but we wanted to stay out of their hair so we took a couple of day trips in our rental car.

The first was to an amazing town called Nafplio in the Peloponnese peninsula. A great old town with a few castles (including 1 built out in the middle of the harbor). The food here was even better than Athens, and far cheaper too.

Our second trip the next day was up to Marathon to see the ancient burial tomb. It was very difficult to find due to conflicting signs, but the locals helped us out. Then we cruised down the coast to the Temple of Poseidon at sunset - again with much difficulty as Greek highways can just breakup without warning or signage. You just sort of keep going then you find things by chance. A lot more happened of course - like out stop in the crazy kids indoor playground in a posh beach town at night, like everything in Europe it had a huge bar. Why doesn't stuff like this serve alcohol in the states?

Off to Paris very early tomorrow - more to come.

London - Athens

I'm starting to realize that I'm likely to be tired every time I put up a new post, which isn't really good for blogging. Right now I'm in this internet cafe that is filled with young kids all playing the same video game, a few of them are smoking (they couldn't be more than 12, but that's Greece for you).

So new years was spent outside London in a town called Gerrads Cross. It was a nice little country village, but as you might expect, we were not partying that hard with a young child. Plus it ended up being an all day trek taking 4 trains to get to the airport, flying to Athens, then 2 trains into town. Athens is cold, but not nearly as cold as London.

Not much to say for Athens so far. We've been taking it slow, saw the Acropolis and just strolled through the old city. 99% of things have been closed. New Years day plus the 2nd of January are holidays here. I could not find diapers today and were down to our last one. Well, I did see some in a little tourist shop, but they wanted 14 euros for a pack of 12 - I couldn't do it out of principle. Shops will be open tomorrow though, so we should be okay.

The adventures should heat up tomorrow as we're renting a car for the week.