London to Ireland

Whew!  We have gotten so far behind in blogging! We have spent a week in London which was wonderful, and now we're on our fourth day in Ireland!

London- we stayed with a friend of Shane's, Greg, from highschool.  It was very funny to hear them swapping high school stories all the time.  He had four other roomates so we got to hear a lot of different stories.  Two were from India, so we are educated now on where we should and shouldn't go in India and even got a private Indian food cooking lesson!  Neither of us had ever sauteed our spices before using them, so Si taught us how to do this.  The most interesting part is you add more spices to the pan once you smell the spice you're currently cooking.  We had so many spices going on we were coughing and sneezing our heads off!  But, the end result was absolutely delicioius!

To see all that we could see in London we bought a Tube 7 day pass. "The Tube" is what they call their subway, or metro.  A subway in the UK is an underground pedestrian walkway.  Their public transit system is AMAZING.  A train comes every few minutes, we had a great app that never got us lost, and the signs are clear as water.  We packed in all the normal touristy stuff the first few days, then had Greg show us around on the weekend.  We watched wakeboarding at the old harbor one morning with a beer in our hand, then headed to Westminster Abbey for a church service.  All I (Stephanie) kept imagining is Kate and William getting married! We also found a zoo and farm just half a mile from the east side of London - very interesting seeing people weed their garden with skyscrapers in the background.  Stephanie's favorite thing to do so far on the trip is grab lunch and coffee, then head to a park and relax for the day.  We did this in Hyde Park a few times in London - then when it wasn't raining we rented bikes for a few hours and rode through the park. We actually missed seeing a broadway show because we thought it was Sunday all throughout the day on Monday...then woke up Tuesday morning and realized we had to leave :(  Oh speaking of leaving London....a thirteen hour bus ride downwind from the stinkiest man we've ever smelled.  And that's saying something since we're both in the medical field.  Stephanie got to the point where she had rubbed peppermint scented body wash all over her nose, then stuck peppermint gum up her nose....I'll leave it at that.

Ireland! Ireland is beautiful! We didn't want to make the same mistake we did in Iceland and not see the countryside- so after a few days in Dublin when we had our fair share of tourist sites and pubs we decided to rent a car.  After finally finding the rental car place at the airport, we arrived and found out we could not keep our reservation because we were under 25...so we walked down to a few different booths and found a local company would rent to us for  a steep fee...fine fine...whatever... "Okay sir we'll take it." "Oh, by the way, we dont have any automatics left..." *Stephanie turns to Shane...who's driven a manual his whole life..."Ummm, want to drive a stick with your opposite hand on the opposite side of the road in a foreign country"  "Sure! Why not?!" Stephanie breaths a sigh of relief because she would have died out there driving!  We start driving, get lost a few times a a few roundabouts and keep repeating "left left left left left"

As we drive through the countryside we stop at Powerscourt House, then drive through the Wicklow Mountains National Park.  As we're driving we see a few places to pull over a hike, we then found one with a hidden lake in a valley.  Then end up at the cutest little country store and have some ice cream.  After talking with a few locals they point us in the direction of an old Monk tower, church, and graveyard.  Gorgeous! Old stone buildings with the sun shining, and green mountains all around you.  We then begin the trek to find a place to sleep tonight.  We've already tested the seats folding down in the back as a bed, but nothing compared to Emily and Brian's Prius set up!  So that's our back up plan, but have no fear.  We are sitting cozily in a bed and breakfast with tea and biscuits!  It was so nice to take a shower and have fluffy towels to use rather than the camping ones.  Andddd a bed tonight, rather than a couch?  Happy Honeymoon to Us!!

Lobster Soup & Silica

Whew! What a whirl wind of things we've done in Iceland.  We had the famous lobster soup, experienced our first hostel, went grocery shopping, and went hiking....and got lost....a lot.....

Our host, Oddur, told us to go to this hole in the wall place (aren't those the best kind?) , called Sgjdiosfjdiofsdnf - at least that's what it looks like in Icelandic.  So we ordered some lobster soup, bread, Icelandic butter, potatoes and shrimp kabobs.  They must of had a spectacular grill because that's the best shrimp and potatoes we've ever had.  The lobster soup is to die for. It was fully worth the 1250 krones, or $11ish, they didn't skimp on the lobster and there was so much cream in it our chance of a CABG increased by at least 5%.   After walking around downtown more, we got a three day bus pass and just rode around the city for a few hours.  The architecture here is very modern, and simple-but its a very young country so that makes sense.

Saturday was our day to hike Mt. Esja, it started off simply enough. We had planned to take the city bus out to the hiking center, hike, then take the bus back. The key to this whole plan was the bus system... Unfortunately for us it is mostly in Icelandic and thus looked like gibberish to us. We made it onto the first bus without a problem but then took the wrong bus back into the city. We made it out a second time only to find out that we had to wait an hour for the next connection. So we stopped in your friendly neighborhood Subway! We made it onto the connection and then proceeded to miss our stop by about 3 miles (an hour walk). So then as you can imagine we walked for an hour to the hiking center and we finally started our hike up the mountain. 

Then begins the hike - we took a peek at the maps, but they were all in Icelandic soooooo we just walked away.  We had heard from our host that it splits into two paths, one longer but easier and the other shorter but steeper.  Well, we had to make up for time and chose the short path!  It waas beautiful, the landscape changed so much from pine trees to open fields with goats and lava rock boulders.  The view was imppecable.  As we kept walking, the trail we were on was taking us down and down towards the parking lot.  Since we wanted to go up, we saw a road in the disance that led up and decided to hike up that.  Shane kept wanting to go "off the beaten path" and "make up our own trail" while Stephanie kept yellling "We are NOT making our own path, in Iceland, on a mountain!) Well, we kept following this road until we realized we were REALLY off this path, because we saw it in the distance.  So we hike accross this field, to the path we were supposed to be on, and decide to hike down.  We got to the bus station at the bottom, and realized we had an hour and a half to wait!!  Then it starts raining....then the bus comes by....then the bus passes us....then the bus stops on the highway and backs up to pick up these sopping wet Americans jumping up and down waving their arms.  We get on the bus, connect to another bus, pick up our stuff at our hosts house, get back on another bus, connect to another bus, walk thirty minutes to our hostel, check in and pass out.

Today we went to the Blue Lagoon. We arrived at the Bluee Lagoon without any stress or bus problems (amazing right?). The lagoon was absolutly amazing, the water was the perfect temperature and you could go into different areas that are either warmer or colder. Next to the lagoon you could use the two steam baths or the sauna We spent a good 4 hours in the lagoon just laying around and putting different scrubs on our faces, it was haven. All in all Iceland was a great start to our trip, our only regrett is not renting a car andd touring the golden circle. If you ever come to Iceland you must take a tour either of the golden circle or a glacier walk.

The Green Man

Our first day in Iceland! I was bored with it at first, I was expecting a smaller town less spread apart with more eye catching architecture and sites.  Well, was I proved wrong by our couch surfing host- Oddur! He not only took us out for 5 hours, but he did all of this after cooking dinner for us! We saw where the northern lights are seen best, he drove us to the presidents house and stood in his yard! (We clarified with Oddur if we tried to do this in the states we would be shot) But my favorite part? Sitting in Oddurs living room and seeing these gorgeous pictures of Iceland-so much packed into an island and so much to do and see.

So, the green man. We were just getting off the plane this morning bleary eyed at 6am after traveling 4 hours in the future and trying to find the buses. We get distracted by food and soda bottles marked "light coca cola" and end up at the end of the building. "Shane, do you know where youre going?" "Yeah. Follow the little green man" "I think that's the exit sign" "Then why the hell is it green and why is he running? You're supposed to walk during emergencies people!"

I now know we will survive this trip.

Bitter Sweet Goodbye

As we sit in the airport waiting for our flight some bitter sweet memories come to mind. This past week was a blur of emotions, it started with being exhausted after moving everything out of our apartment. The only saving grace we had with our move was that it was raining and not 100° outside and we had great friends to help us. After the move the stress of packing started to set in.  Would our bags fit as carry on,  do they weight to much,  and do we have enough stuff. I found the best way to pack was slowly.  Pack for a bit then have a beer, then go back to packing then have another beer.  The theory being that if you couldn't get something right eventually you will be to buzzed to care. As we finished packing it was time for goodbyes. As I left work for the last time I was extremely happy at first, who wouldn't want to leave their job to go on holiday for a year? During the drive home I realized I will miss the place,  I was very lucky to work with the coworkers I had. I didn't like all of them but most of them became pretty good friends, I also enjoyed my job and was paid well for the little work I had to do.
I can only hope I will be able to find a similar job when I return. 

As for the family It was hard for some because they seem to think we are in the stone age and will have no communication for a year (guess there not reading the blog). For our close friends it was a sad goodbye with lots of trying to convince them to travel with us, hopefully some of them will. Both our friends and families will be missed but then again we will be in Europe!

So now,  after successfully navigating through security (without a rectal exam ;-) ) , we wait outside our gate! Our next blog will be from across the pond and the adventure will be officially on.

Until then wish us luck, 
The Corpolongos

So Much Stuff!

So much stuff!

As we were winding down from an amazing wedding weekend- we had to face reality and start packing.  Where in the world did we find all of this stuff to fit into our small apartment? It's amazing how quickly junk can find its way into the nooks and crannies of your house - not to be found until a few years later.  

We both kept looking at our "Europe pile" as we were packing, and kept saying "Isn't it crazy that we're going from THIS to this .... and isn't it?  I took a picture of our bare naked apartment, with our packs silently sitting in the background.  How materialistic can we get? Do we really need all this stuff? We hope that this adventure shows us how much we really don't need, and what we really do need.

In other news, we're married now!  It was such a perfect and beautiful day - it was everything we talked about and dreamed of!  How lucky are we that people would fly halfway across the world to celebrate with us, and others taking entire weeks off to spend time with us, and even people driving for hours or spending half a day in the airport to spend just two days with us!  Keep checking out our Facebooks for links our photographer and videographer put out! 

Love,
The Corpolongos!!