A Pub Quiz

Ireland's greatest export is, of course, people. Pubs come a close second.

Below are seven photos that we took on our trip. See if you can identify the country in which each one was taken. (Clicking on a photo will bring up a bigger version, which might help.)

The countries are Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Holland and USA.

We'll post the answers next week. Good luck!

What a Long, Strange Trip

Yes, folks, the honeymoon's over.

It feels like at least a year's worth of experiences packed into a few months. Right now, after a week back in Seattle, we're still enjoying a familiar routine: sleeping in the same bed, reuniting with our cat, speaking the same language for a few weeks in a row.

It's really impossible to sum things up--I'm still trying to process the sensory overload. Instead, here are some random statistics:

Kilometers bicycled: 3,746
Countries visited: 12 to 14 (depending if you include the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Wales)
Days of cycling: 44
Longest day: 140 km (to Vienna)
Hardest day: 101 km (battling hills and a brutal a headwind to Bursa)
Average daily distance: 80 km
Average speed: 18 km per hour
Pannier weight: unknown, since we never weighed them, but probably around 40 lbs per person

Best cycling:

• Transylvania (when you can find a road)
• Tarsus Mountains in Turkey
  
• Austrian wine region
• West coast of Ireland

Most delicious food:

• Czech beer
• Israeli breakfasts (soft cheeses, salads, humus)
• Turkish desserts
• German bread

Most bike-friendly cities:

• Amsterdam
• Vienna
• Budapest
  

Trip lowlights:

• Turkish toilets
  
• Romanian "highways"
  
• British road signs
  

Gear we would take again:

• Ortlieb panniers
• Schwalbe tires (not a single flat on Hannah's bike!)
  
• Ear plugs
• Photocopies of credit card, passport, driver's license
  

Gear we would take next time:

• Mountain bike wheels (26-inch) for rough terrain
  
• More Ziploc bags (impossible to find and very useful)
• Kickstands
• Bar-end shifters
  

Words in the pan-European lexicon:

• Ciao
• Merci
• Problem
• Kaput
  

What North America could use more of:

• Turkish barbers
• Turkish baths
• Street food vendors
• Bicycling infrastructure from Germany/Austria/Holland/Hungary
  

Best hospitality:

• Everyone!
  

Thanks to everyone who put us up, fed us, offered to help, or just came up to say hello. New friends, old friends, new family, old family--the people made the trip memorable. We hope we'll get to cross paths again someday.

And, last but not least, thanks to everyone who's checked out the blog. It's been fun adventuring together.

Shalom, Lehitra'ot, Merhaba, Na shledanou, Auf wiedersehen, Vaarwel,
D & H

Hurling in Dublin

No... not quite what you were expecting from the title, although afterwards more than a few pints were consumed at the traditional meeting place.

Remember hurling? The ancient and still vital game of Ireland. We had the exceptional good luck to be invited to the all-Ireland quarter finals by Hannah's cousin, Gene. While the first match lacked some excitment--one of the teams was hopelessly outclassed--the second game was a nail-biter, and even featured the underdog, Waterford, coming up from behind and able to maintain a thin margin of points over their opponents, right until the end. Injuries were plentiful but I'm still amazed that no deaths occured. A testament to the skill of the players.

Ahh, but there are even more exciting and odd diversions to be found on Dublin's back streets. We had the privilege of visiting the one, and only, Irish Jewish Museum. A small and unassuming place, rarely heard of and even more rarely visited. But it was charming, a detailed and lovingly preserved history of this small, close-knit community. The story, as it is remembered, is the Jews came by boat to Cork from Lithuania. They had bought passage to America and when the captain stopped and told them they had arrived, it seemed reasonable enough. Everything must have looked different and the streets were filled with people speaking English. So off the deck and on to the New World--Cork, Dublin and Limerick. The captain made a nice profit, going a quarter of the distance, and picked up new passengers for the trans-Atlantic leg of the trip.

Given the desparation of the Irish economy, the population of Jews did not increase, and the population of Dublin's synagogues has dwindled, lost to emigration, assimilation, and migration to the suburbs. But the recent economic boom has seen the return of Jews to this island, even small communities of Israelis.

It seemed a fitting pilgrimage for the last day of our trip. The rest was spent packing, fortifying ourselves with one last Irish fry-up, and preparing for the long and circuitous journey home.