Europe vacation October 2011

Doh-found a post I had left in draft-this is what I did between travelling for work and the Essen Game fair in 2011

Maynooth, Ireland

First to Maynooth, Ireland to visit Khan.  We took a day to wander Maynooth-the school, St. Patrick's chapel, the garden.  A nice long walk at the historic estate.  Visit the Tesco for snacks and the game store for, well, a game.

Beautiful old stone architecture throughout the campus and town.  

We also took a weekend day to visit Howth, a seaside town.  It was a really nice Saturday and there were many people on the train with the same idea. At the pier a couple of seals are hanging around the boats hoping for fish.  It is so nice that people and dogs are actually out swimming.  We instead eat ice cream and then climb up to the cliffs for the view.

You can look back at the town

or out to sea.

Either way, just don't fall off the cliffs!

To get back to the airport I took a bus from downtown Dublin
and we planned on a bit of looking around.  But winds were wild, so just a quick dash up and down the river and across a cute pedestrian bridge.

Budapest

Back in Budapest with my friend Mandy, we had the best lunch at Nobu.  We tried the sake tasting menu, which was, of course, fantastic.  Each sake came in their own specific cup, including a square wooden one-fancy!
  E- arrived shortly after I did and Mandy was willing to do some touristy things with us.  When in doubt, take the bus tour.  This gave us a great view of the river and the two halves of the city, Buda and Pest.  Great Views from the castle on the hill.  Later e- and I stop at the island and walk around to see the famous fountain that 'dances' in time with The Blue Danube.  It is the original Bellagio fountains!

Overnight train to Essen, Germany

Who doesn't love the sleeper train!?!  This adventure actually began at the ticket counter earlier in the day.  If you need to buy train tickets in much of Europe, when you walk in the door, look around to see if there is a numbered queue, if yes, then look for the number dispenser!  You won't get anywhere without your number!  We have to wait almost 30 minutes, but then we get a excellent ticket sales woman who gets us a great rate on an overnight sleeper car, with the option of returning if we happen to need to in the next 30 days.  Our train leaves at 9pm and arrives at Munich at 6am where change to our train to Essen.  It really is not too exciting as we change directly in PJs and try to sleep.  It is a little loud and the smoke detector has a bright light-always bring an eyeshade!  The train attendant wakes us up at 5:30 for breakfast...BBQ chicken sandwich obviously.  Switch to the trains at Munich-ah, this is one of the lovely fast trains.  Maybe next time we will try to start on a train from Germany.