Two Passports And A Dog

Please close your eyes and pretend that you are reading this in August. Wait, that doesn’t make sense – you can’t read with your eyes closed. Please go ask your parent or guardian or Santa to read this to you, and close your eyes and pretend it’s August. Bonjour. Guten Tag. Καλή μέρα. Bom dia. Hey y’all. We haven’t spoken on this blog since France. I’m writing this from Maine by way of Austria and Greece and Portugal and DC/MD/NC/SC/GA/VA/NY or something (see here). You may recall that Rachel’s university had insisted she return on campus in person this fall; the result being that she told them auf wiedersehen, and…

Alright, Rachel and I wanted to know what it’s like to live on a boat. Europe has 20,000 miles of navigable inland waterways, so we rented a canal boat to check out the Alsace region of France, near the border with Germany. We took a train and spent a few days in Strasbourg and Saverne, waiting for our boat rental, and discovered that we really enjoy this region as combining the best parts of French and German culture. While German sausages and potatoes are always on the menu, French cuisine is featured as well, saving us from a Munich situation last year in which potatoes protruded from our ears after…

Rachel and I fled the summer crowds of Scotland to relax in a small Dutch city an hour east of Amsterdam. After learning that I was let go from my job and she was leaving hers, we needed some time to regroup and figure out what we want to do when we – uh – grow up. We had come across the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT), which would give us two-year visas to stay the Netherlands – a welcome respite from our current situation of moving countries to dodge tourist visa expirations every few months. The Netherlands is clean, efficient, well-run, pleasant, and…not for us. I would never be so…

I’m gonna dump a crapload of Scottish photos on you are you ready ok let’s get started. After a few days in hectic Edinburgh, Rachel and I and her parents moved south to the Lochhouse Tower, built in the mid-16th-century – tower houses were commonly used in the Middle Ages as residences for aristocrats – and recently restored as a short-term rental, complete with suits of armor, faux weapons, a small pond, and a hot tub. This guy scared the shit out of me every time I used the spiral staircase; I always forgot he was hiding in a recession in the wall. It reminded me of when Rachel used…

February turned into March and April and May, as February tends to do, and tourism returned to the world in force. We noticed more and more American accents in Ireland. Obviously we’re American tourists, so pot/kettle and all that, but the charm of visiting such historical, unique cultures is diminished when the accents we overhear in the pub all shift from Irish brogue to Jersey gruff. Fuh-gedda-boud-dit. We crossed the Irish Sea on May 7 knowing that they would soon follow. I felt like a reverse Paul Revere, warning the British that the Americans are coming. Getting from Belfast to Edinburgh was annoying (5:00 a.m. taxi to ferry station, ferry…

How do you think the unthinkable? With an itheberg. After nearly three months in green, sheep-laden, friendly, gorgeous Ireland, we switched tactics completely and headed to green, sheep-laden, friendly, gorgeous Northern Ireland. Belfast was a necessary stop en ferry route to Scotland, and we specifically wanted to see the Titanic Museum and do a “Black Cab” Troubles Tour to learn more about the afflicted history of this divided city. In the early 1900’s, Belfast’s shipyards dominated global shipbuilding. The RMS Titanic was built for the White Star Line by the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, as one of three Olympic-class ocean liners intended to regain White Star’s transatlantic advantage…

We continued our Irish journey northeast to Moville, a sea town near the very top of the island. Our route took us in and out of the UK, crossing the open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland with no signs or security, and at some points it was hard to tell which country we were in. The speed limits alternated between kilometers-per-hour on the Irish side and miles-per-hour on the British side, but neglected to show units, leaving Rachel perplexed as to why cars were zooming around her after a “60” sign – she was driving 60 kph in a 60 mph zone. (I’m reminded of an instance in Dubai…

From Clonbur, we drove north 200 kilometers (120 freedom units) into County Donegal (Dún na nGall in Irish). Our two-week stay was a jumping-off point to explore Ireland’s northern-most and wildest county. We quickly felt at home among the open spaces and gorgeous coastal views, and were getting into the rhythm of life in Ireland. I was finally getting used to driving on the left side of the road and interpreting road signs in Irish that read like poorly thought-out vanity license plates: GO MALL, GEILL SLI. (English has been the first language of most Irish residents for 200 years, but recent decades have seen legislation to put Irish/Gaelic on…

On February 12, our time in the UAE behind us, we settled in for a week in Dublin. The culture shock was immediate, and welcome. No more happy hour at sterile hotel bars; we found drinking draft Guinness and listening to a live fiddler at the neighborhood pub much more to our liking. No more searching for the clandestine enclosed alcove in a grocery store labelled “Non-Muslims Only” to peruse pork products like we’re buying skunk weed out of a trench-coat in a Juarez alley. No more waiting for an empty elevator car just because we had Lily with us. We did the usual things that people do in Dublin…

On January 17, a drone attack killed three people and wounded six at the Abu Dhabi International airport, about 70 miles south of our apartment in downtown Dubai. The attack was claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels based in Yemen; the UAE has troops based in Yemen and backs a Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis. The coalition responded the next day by bombing camps in the Houthi-occupied Yemen city of Sanaa, killing 12. On the following Monday, the UAE, aided by US Patriot interceptor missiles, destroyed two ballistic missiles flying towards Abu Dhabi, fired from Yemen. Houthis again claimed responsibility, and said they targeted Abu Dhabi’s Dhafra airbase as well as…