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Croatia

4 Weeks in Split, Croatia

Unless your European geography is better than ours, you may not known that Croatia is a relatively small country on the Adriatic Sea bordered by Hungary and Slovenia to the North and Bosnia-Herzegovina to the South. Our travels took us to the lovely seaside tourist town of Split (43.508 N, 16.440 E).

We flew in from Dublin (after a train ride from Portrush to Belfast and then a bus to Dublin). Usually by the time we pay extra for our baggage and instruments, we’ve found that the discount airlines end up not being such a great deal. However this time it was one of those rare occasions when, even though we had baggage and instruments, Ryan Air ended up being the cheapest flights we found. In many cases by the time we add all the extra fees, it is cheaper to pay regular fare with a full-service airline.

As we arrived late, we opted to stay in a hotel for the first night. We cannot say enough great stuff about the Hotel Splendida Palace. From the moment we booked the room until the second we left (and even after we left) the owner Marinya showed us a level of care and customer service that was just amazing. They arranged a late-night pickup from the airport, which was very reasonably priced, and despite the late hour greeted us with a smile and a ‘welcome to Croatia” glass of one of the local specialty cordials. The room was lovely, and included breakfast excellent. We were a bit sad to leave, luckily our Airbnb rental was only about two blocks away so the transition was painless.

Croatia has existed since the Middle Ages and the influence of the Roman Empire can be seen throughout the country. Split, the second largest city in Croatia, centers around  Diocletian’s Palace, which is a large enclosed area that is now packed with shops, bars, restaurants and crowds of tourist ducklings following their “walking tour” guides. A significant portion of the Split economy is centered around tourism, especially during the summer months. During our stay we have been able to see the crowds dissipate to the level that it was easy to see when a cruise ship was docked and had disgorged it’s host of passengers

The Golden Gate of the Palace is guarded by a huge statue of Bishop Gregory of Nin. Legend has it that if one makes a wish while rubbing the big toe of the statue, your wish will come true. As a result, the entire bronze statue is a lovely patina except for the big toe which is polished to a bright luster. George did not pass the statue without stopping to repeat his wish.

Inside of the palace, you can tour architecture that has been standing since the palace was built for a Roman emperor in in 305 A.D. it is not surprising to know that many of the historic buildings, walkways and undergrounds areas of the palace have been used in multiple films and TV shows. Below you can see a picture of George standing in the same spot as a scene from the popular series “Game of Thrones”

   

During our month long stay, we found plenty to keep us busy. It is a lovely walking town, with hiking trails, a pedestrian walkway along the waterfront and of course the palace to explore. Those who know us, or have read some of our other blog entries, will not be surprised to hear that we averaged around 5 miles in our daily wanderings.

Since our Airbnb had a nice kitchen we made most of our meals at home, this was made possibly by a wealth of fresh fruit and vegetables from the daily outdoor Green Market just outside the palace. We had a great time shopping for fresh produce, locally grown honey, fresh baked bread and cheeses.

On occasion we would venture out for dinner or a cocktail, we did spend on particularly lovely afternoon at a beach bar called Joe’s. Perfect weather, excellent cocktails and amazing scenery all contributed to a great time.

About halfway through the tour we were lucky enough to catch up with our dear friends Art and Jacqueline Shand, who were in Split for one night of a world wind gastronomic tour of Croatia and Italy. It was such a pleasure to see them, visit for a few hours and share a lovely dinner.

We also spent one evening on an exceptional tour of one of the local wineries. Our vino connoisseur friends might be surprised to learn the unique strain of Zinfandel grapes so long credited with origin in Northern California have been traced to right here in Split. If you get a chance to take the winemakers tour at Putalj Winery, it worth the effort.

Very soon we will say goodbye to Croatia (for now) and head to Portugal (Lisbon and Porto) to meet two of our favorite people in the world. More about that in the next post.

       

Northern Ireland

Portrush Northern Ireland: By The Numbers

We were lucky enough to be chosen for a house sit  in the beautiful village  of Portrush.

Here are the stats:

We enjoyed 26 days house sitting for our hosts Tim & Judy. To get there from our training class in Germany we flew into Dublin, took a bus into Belfast and after a couple of days in an Airbnb there we hopped a train up the coast to Portrush.

While we were there we looked after 2 “wee dogs”, Socks and Beau. They accompanied us pretty much everywhere we went, woke us up by jumping in bed with us in the morning and generally demanded love and attention which we were happy to give.

Although we took a couple of day trips by bus, our principle mode of transportation was walking, most often with the dogs straining at the leashes and dragging us along our route, this is kind of nice when you are going uphill. In total during our stay, we walked 96 miles which works out to an average of 3.7 miles per day.

Our favorite spot to eat out what a little bar called “Kiwi’s Brew Bar” which not surprisingly is owned by a New Zealander. During our visits we dined on some of the best Buffalo chicken wings we have ever had outside of the USA. While did not eat too many in any one sitting, we did visit often enough to consume a total of 5 dozen. If you get a chance, go for a visit and try the wings!

On the topic of food, the folks at Kiwi’s told us they got their wings from Etherson’s Family Butchers. We set out to find their shop one day only to realize that they do not sell retail out of the shop in Portrush. They sell wholesale to the bars and restaurants and stock a butcher’s counter in one of the local shops. While we stood and pondered the closed storefront of the meat processing facility in town, we struck up a conversation with one of the butchers who was out for a smoke. When we explained that we were looking for a butcher to cut us a couple of nice thick America style steaks. They were nice enough to invite us round to the “back door” and hand cut a couple of gorgeous 11 oz sirloins for us. These are the wonderful types of folks we ran into all over Portrush.

Of course we had to visit the Bushmills Distillery , and while we were there we tasted a total of 12 different variations of the delightful product. You can read all about our day at Bushmills here…

Since we are on the topic of drinks, we should mention the amazing pints of Guinness Irish Stout poured at the Harbor Bar. We are told it is the best pour our Guinness in Northern Ireland, and we believe it. While in Port Rush, between us we enjoyed a total of 12 pints.

No visit to this area of the country would be complete without a visit to the Giant’s Causeway. There are 2 stories of how this amazing set of stacks perfectly octagonal stones came to be found in Northern Ireland.

Of course there is the boring old tale of how geometric shapes where formed as a result of volcanic activity.

But a much more fun version is about an Irish Giant named Finn McCool why had a beef with a Scottish giant on the other side of the waterway, so he built a stone bridge causeway so he could go over and fight him. When Finn arrived and spied on the Scottish giant, he realized that the Scott was MUCH larger than he appeared from across the water. So, Finn hot footed it back across the causeway (loosing one shoe along the way). Finn’s clever wife dressed Finn as a baby and when the Scottish giant came across the causeway to Ireland, he took one look at Finn and decided that if the baby was that big he did not want to visit the daddy.So the Scottish giant headed back across the water destroying most of the causeway on the Scottish side, but leaving it on the Irish side.

While visited the Causeway we hiked 5.1 miles of amazing trails much of which ran atop bluffs that looked down onto amazing vistas.

We had an amazing time hanging out with Socks and Beau, thanks again to our hosts Judy and Tim Nelson.

By the way American Judy Nelson (of Deck Bar fame) says there may be some linked heritage with her and the Irish Nelsons back there someplace…

Northern Ireland

A Day at Bushmills Distillery

A Day at Bushmills Distillery

We, Bonnie and George, have both toured the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg Tennessee, so we are well versed on how Tennessee whisky is made. George continues to check the continuity of Black Label Jack Daniels around the globe, so he could report back on any irregularities he finds. So far there have been none.

This week we got the chance to tour the Bushmills distillery, which is only about 15 minutes’ drive away from the house where we are pet sitting in Portrush Northern Ireland. We opted for both a tour and then a private tasting and education session after the tour. We were quite pleased with both.

Sorry that are no photos from most of the initial tour, but we were required to turn our phones off during the tour. Since most of the distillery burned down in 1885, they are very conscious of anything that may be a danger- including the concern over a spark from the battery of a phone in the alcohol saturated air.

The first part of the process was all too familiar to us, having owned and worked at a brewery. In short, to make Irish whiskey, you start by making beer. Grain (in this case barley) is malted which means it is wet and allowed to start to grow, which created sugars. The growth process is stopped just as the barley seed begins to spout. The grain is then dried.

A note here on the drying technique: in Ireland they dry the grains using gas ovens. In Scotland the grain is dried by burning dense dried turf known as peat in the drying ovens (in addition to the gas burners). The smell of the dried peat is quite distinctive and adds a strong flavor to Scotch whiskey. The more peat that is used the stronger the flavor.

The malted grain is then cracked using a roller and placed into giant vats where hot water is stirred in and used to wash the sugar from the grain. This process called sparging produces a sugary liquid called wort. The wort is then piped into giant tanks, where yeast is added to start the fermentation process. The spent grain is sold to local farms as feed. The yeast blooms in the sugary wort and creates the by products of alcohol (methyl and ethyl), carbon dioxide and dead yeast (which looks a lot like baby poop).

As noted, up to this stage, the similarities between making beer and Irish whiskey are extremely similar, but this is where the similarities end. Instead of racking off the “green” fermented liquid and carbonating it to make beer, the liquid is distilled.

Distilling is a very interesting process in which the fermented wort is placed in a giant kettle and heated to “boil off” the alcohol. The first type of alcohol to boil off is methanol, which, while great for running a race car, is not really something you want to drink, (see note below) so Bushmills captures this and sells this for industrial use. The second type of alcohol to evaporate in ethyl alcohol which in the one that is captured and will eventually become whiskey. In the case of Bushmills, this result of the first distillation process is then run back through the process twice more to create a ‘triple distilled” liquor of extreme purity.

A note on early whiskey making in Ireland: the current process of making Irish whiskey is a science (although the blending process is still very much an art). But hundreds of years ago, this science did not exist, for instance, the methanol was not separated from the ethanol. In beer the ratio of alcohol to other liquids is low enough so you could get away with it. But when whiskey was distilled to it’s purest form, it could be quite dangerous. In fact, many people died. In some other cases people who drank early whiskeys could fall into a coma that made them appear to be dead. This of course was a problem as people mistaken for dead, were buried and later came out of the coma. Initially the answer for this was to tie a string onto the wrist of the presumed deceased and connect the string to a bell above ground. This is where we get terms “dead ringer” and “graveyard shift. However, the Catholic church frowned on this process, so a new tradition was created. The presumed dead were laid out in the coffin at the family home and for several days was surrounded by family and friends who socialized and ate and drank noisily in an attempt to “wake” the dead. If in fact it was just an alcohol induced coma, then his worked. Imagine everyone’s surprise when dead Uncle Sean sat up in his coffin an asked for a drink!

Once the now clear liquor has completed the triple distilled process it is ready for aging. It is mixed with purified water to reduce the alcohol content and placed into wooden barrels to age (pure alcohol would simply evaporate through the barrel during aging). At Bushmills they re-use barrels that aged other types of liquor to enhance the flavor of their finished whiskey. Bourbon, port and sherry barrels are used. Each wooden barrel was scorched on the inside prior to being used originally. The combination of which types of barrels are used and how long the whiskey ages in each barrel has a huge impact on the flavor of the finished whiskey.

We were extremely surprised to learn that many of the brands of Bushmills Irish whiskey use a combination of the barley mash made in Northern Ireland blended with a grain based “pot stilled” whiskey which is made in the Republic of Ireland.  Blended whiskeys are mixed according to the taste, and nose of the master distiller (who at Bushmills just happens to be a lady). Single malt whiskeys are not blended with other stuff and the taste difference comes from the types of barrels (bourbon, port or sherry) and how long they are aged. In order to be considered Irish whiskey it must be aged for a minimum of three years and 1 day. Scotch only has to be aged for three years, so the Irish must be one day longer.

There are 6 primary types of Bushmills whiskeys available today (and a few ‘reserves’ that you can only get if you visit the distillery):

  • The Blends
    • Red Bush: aged 4 years in bourbon barrels and then blended with lighter grain whiskey
    • Original White Label: aged 5 years in bourbon barrels and mixed then blended with a lower percentage of lighter grain whiskey
    • Black Bush: aged for a total of 8 years first in bourbon barrels and then in sherry barrels mixed then blended with a lower percentage of lighter grain whiskey (this one used to be Bonnie’s favorite – see below)
  • The Single Malts
    • 10 Year: aged for a total of 10 years first in bourbon barrels and then in sherry barrels. (George’s favorite)
    • 16 Year: Aged for about 15 years in a combination of sherry and bourbon barrels, and then finished for about 9 months in port wine barrels unique to making port wine.
    • 21 Year: aged for a minimum of 19 years in former sherry and bourbon-seasoned barrels, then married and transferred into Spanish (Madeira) wine casks for a further 2 years of aging and maturation. (Bonnie’s new favorite)

The basic tour comes with one glass of either the Original or Red Bush. However, you can also upgrade to a three whiskey tasting, the Steamship tasting. a single malt tasting or the premium tasting.We decided to go for the full Monty and paid for the premium tasting. After the tour our group was escorted into the bar for our complimentary tasting. We were asked to follow our guide to the private bar for our “tutored tasting”.

One closing thought, if there is any doubt that the Northern Irish are proud of the Bushmills distillery, you only need look at their money. On the back of each 5 and 10 pound note is an image of the barrel house on the distillery grounds.

Germany

Do You Speak English?

Imagine manning a booth in a trade show and talking about your company’s products and services for 12 hours a day, 6 days in a row. It would be exhausting. That is how we felt after a week volunteering at the “Englischhausen” program.

This program is for people who have a real desire to improve their English; to immerse themselves in the language. One way to do this is to travel to a country where only English is spoken. Another way is to become part of a program that offers immersion without the international travel.

In our case the students were German (and one Spaniard). Of course to control the environment we needed to be in an enclave of sorts, so we all jumped on a bus in Frankfurt and headed to a secluded country hotel (The Waldhaus) in the town of Laubach, Germany. For each student there was one native English speaker (or “Anglo” as we were called).

The 16 students included executive assistants, doctors, nurses, white collar workers two folks from the liquor and beer industry and one member of the European Parliament. The “Anglos” included people who live in the USA, Canada, Spain, England. Poland and New Zealand. Needless to say, we made some great contacts!

We were quickly provided with there rules:

      1. English only (no other foreign Language at all)
        1. That meant menus, interaction between students and the hotel staff, music etc
      2. Be on time for events.
      3. Have Fun!

The week started off with a round of introductions, in the form of a fun game. From there we proceeded to spend the next five days one on one, in groups, on teams,on phone calls with students and at meals speaking English. We sang, we danced, we played games, we hiked, we created an acted in small theater productions and we gave/attended presentations.

Through it all, the master of ceremonies (an old friend of ours from Ireland) kept the group on track, on time and in good spirits.

We emerged from the program a bit tired, but extremely humbled by the desire of the students to get better at English. Imagine subjecting yourselves to five days of constant correction!

Would we do it again? You bet, we have already signed up to volunteer for a version of the program in Spain!

England

Beautiful Oundle

House sitting, has so many advantages, and our recent stay in the lovely city of Oundle showcased them all perfectly. Of course, there is the advantage of costs savings since you are not paying for a hotel or Airbnb. This means that in many cases you may be able to spend extended periods of time in areas that you may not normally have been able to afford. But on top of this obvious advantages you also may find:

      • Finding new places: I can honestly say that we would have never found the lovely town of Oundle had it not been for the invitation from Lance and Adrian (Ady) to come look after their home and pets while they visited family in Canada. Lance is a landscape designer, so you can imagine how amazing the gardens around the house were. Adrian is a retired flight attendant with lots of great stories about his travels. They have a dog named Georgie and a cat named Alfie who are both amazing and full of personality.
      • Living like a local: when you are in a hotel you don’t typically get to enjoy things like grocery shopping (which is unique in every country). Oundle is a small town that sports 3 grocery stores, two butchers and a handful of pubs. By the time we left, George was on a first name basis with the butcher and while he was getting a hair cut the barber said, “so I understand you are house sitting for Lance and Ady”. Such is life in a very small town.
      • Meeting new friends: in Oundle, we were lucky enough to meet the gang, a group of friends who pal around, share dinners, support each other in ride sharing and projects and just enjoy each other’s company in general. While we were no substitute for Lance and Ady, we certainly had fun hanging out with their friends.

One great thing about Oundle is the myriad of public walking trails. Many of these are created in cooperation with local farmers. This allows you to take long walks through fields and along the river. You can never tell if you will be in the middle of a heard of cows (or sheep) or walking down a country road.

One thing we both enjoyed during the walk was watching the progress of the river boats as they worked their way through the locks on the river. The process was interesting!

Four weeks flew by, Lance and Ady came back from Canada and were nice enough to invite us to spend an extra night visiting with them. We shared some nice meals and then it was time to say goodbye to Oundle and head off to Germany…

England

Cooking Pulled Pork in England (or anywhere else)

We were very lucky to be invited to house sit in Oundle, England. Not only were we staying in a lovely home in a neat little village, but the place was tricked out with everything one can imagine, including cable TV (in English), Wi-Fi and a BBQ grill. It also came with a great dog named Georgie and a classy white cat named Alfie. The two guys who owned the house (Lance and Adrian) have a gang of friends who immediately took us into their fold and made us feel right at home. It only made sense for us to have the gang over to the house for dinner and drinks.

We decided to offer our new English friends some good Southern hospitality in the form of slow smoked pork BBQ. For those of you who have not yet created this delicacy, the rest of this article is dedicated to a detailed explanation of how George does it. Note that before we sold everything and headed out to wander the world, George had a large pellet smoker and could smoke 50 pounds (22.7 kilos) of pork at a time. In England, we had fewer people to feed and a regular gas grill, some adjustments had to be made.

The first task is to figure out how much pork you need. In general, you should plan for a half to a third pound of cooked meat (150 – 200 grams) per person. Remember that the meat loses about 40% weight during the cooking process. In our case we were planning on feeding 7 people, but we also wanted some left over to freeze and share with our hosts when they returned home, so we were looking for a 5-7 pound butt.  Once you know the size, then you need to find a piece of pork that is worthy of the time and effort that it takes to make this dish. After several stops, we found a local butcher in the village that said they could fix us up with a seven-pound (3.2 kilo) pork shoulder. It is worth noting that in the Southern part of America, we call this cut a pork butt, not at all sure why, as it does come from the shoulder area. The nice folks at Trendalls Butcher Shop in Oundle got us all fixed up.

In most cases the butcher will cut the outer skin off the pork butt for you, if they do, ask them to leave as much of the layer of fat (called a fat cap) between the skin and the meat as possible. The fat cap will help add moisture to the meat as it cooks down during the smoking process. Because we will be cooking this meat for many hours at a low temperature (low and slow) it is important to keep it from becoming dry. The fat cap will help, but there are also other steps we can take. This first is a process called brining, in essence, we will be soaking the meat in salt water. The salt helps the liquid be absorbed by the meat and it also helps add flavor (double bonus). In a large container, mix about 2 cups of kosher salt and a cup of sugar into a gallon of water. Stir until all the solids are dissolved. Place the pork into a large plastic bag, pour the salt water over it, then work all of the air out of the bag and seal it shut with a strong twist tie. If you have enough room in the refrigerator you can put it there. I did not, so I put the whole thing in a small cooler with bag of ice to keep it cold. Brine the pork for between 24 and 30 hours.

At some point while the pork is brining, you can mix up the rub you will be putting on the meat. There are a lot of different pre-mixed pork rubs on the market, but it is cheaper and better to make your own. Use the list of ingredients below to mix up enough rub for 1 pork butt, double if you are smoking two. Store it in a Ziplock bag, and save any leftover for the next time you cook any kind of pork.

George’s Butt Rub

  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sweet paprika (not smoked or hot)
  • 2 tbsp salt
  • 1 tbsp chili powder
  • 1 tbsp onion powder
  • 1 tbsp garlic powder
  • 1 tbsp pepper
  • 1 tbsp mustard powder
  • 2 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper

There are two other steps that can be taken care of in advance, one is to soak wood chips in a bowl of water overnight. We find that apple wood tends to taste the best when smoking pork. The second is to set up your grill. Regardless of whether you are using gas or charcoal, the objective is to keep the heat source on one side of the grill and he meat on the other (indirect heat). If possible, remove half of the grill rack on the heat side and leave the other half on the side where the meat will be. This will make it easy to place and refill a chip box and water pan. Place a metal pan on the grill floor below where the pork will be and fill it with water. This will not only help keep the inside of the smoker moist, but it will also catch a lot of the messy fat dripping from the pork, making clean up much easier later.

Once the meat is brined for 24 to 30 hours, take it out of the salt water, rinse it with cool clean water to remove excess salt and pat it dry. Next sprinkle the spice mixture (the butt rub) liberally over the pork and rub it in well. If you have time, it is best to do this in advance, then wrap the meat in cling film and let it refrigerate for 2 or more hours.

On the morning of the day you will be smoking the meat (remember this process can take up to 9 hours), fill the metal pan in the grill with water. Place a generous hand full of the soaked apple chips in the chip tray and either light the charcoal in a chimney or light one burner on the grill. In the photo below, you can see that we placed to the chip tray to the far left and we only used a single burner on the far-left side of the grill (indirect heat). Warm the grill so that the temperature of a gauge where the meat will be placed reads 220 degrees F (104 degrees C). Don’t trust the thermometer built into the top of the grill, it does not give you and accurate reading of what is happening at where the meat is. We recommend using an oven thermometer.

While the grill is heating, make a mixture of half (50%) apple juice and half apple cider vinegar. You will need about 4 cups (1 liter) of this mixture to complete the day. Unwrap the pork butt and place it fat side up in a large pan. Using a large syringe, inject about 1.5 to 2 cups (about ½ liter) of the mixture into the pork butt. Out at the grill, take the pork out of the pan, and place it (still fat side up) on the grates away from the heat source.

Set a timer for 3 hours, find a good book: George re-read an old Travis McGee book (by John D. McDonald) and relax for a bit. For the first hour and a half just make sure your temperature stays around 220 F. If needed, add more wood chips to keep the smoke going. After 1.5 hours, mist the meat with a spray bottle full of your apple juice/cider mixture. Do this on the half hour until you have been smoking for 3 hours total. At the three hour mark, wrap the pork butt loosely in heavy duty aluminum foil, add half a cup of the apple juice/cider mixture and seal the foil tightly, this will allow the pork to “steam” inside the foil. For the next two hours the butt should be kept at a steady 225 degrees F, this can either be on the grill or inside in the oven. In BBQ cooking competitions, this step is known as “the cheat” or “the crutch”, it really helps keep the meat moist.

After two hours, unwrap the meat and put it back onto the rack on the grill. Continue to cook at 225 F and spray with your cider/vinegar mix every the half hour. After two hours, start checking the internal temperature of the meat when you spray. You are looking for an internal temperature of 169 F (76 degrees C) in all areas of the butt. Don’t worry if some areas get warmer, you will not overcook the meat. This final part of the cooking can take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours. Be patient, and do not be tempted to take the pork out before it reaches temp. If you do, it will make it nearly impossible to shred in the next step.

When you finally reach the desired temperature, remove the pork from the grill, place it on a pan and cover it with aluminum foil. Allow it to rest and cool for at least one hour (preferable two) before removing the bone and shredding the meat. The shredding (or pulling at it is called) is easiest with a pair of forks. If you are planning on smoking a lot of pork, you may want to invest in a set of “bear claws” to make the process of shredding faster and easier.

Once the meat is completely shredded, mix in a liberal amount of your favorite barbecue sauce (George likes Sweet Baby Ray’s)

Pro tip: most commercial BBQ sauce is way too thick to use and much too sweet.
Mix it down half and half with water for a better consistency and taste.

We have found that the pork tastes better if you refrigerate it overnight after it is shredded and mixed with sauce. Just pop it back in the oven for an hour at 250 F to reheat.

Last step: make up some side dishes, invite some friends over, pour a cold beer and bask in the glory of the compliments over your amazing pulled pork BBQ!

Romania

A Romanian Wedding

For many years Bonnie worked as the program coordinator for the Hansen Summer Institute where she was able to form long lasting friendships with young people from around the globe. As a result, as we travel, we are sometimes able to meet up with Hansen Alumni (or Fellows as they are called), and we have also been lucky enough to have been invited to several weddings. We recently attended one wedding in Israel (Shelly and Brian)  and then one in Romania (Ramona and Jason).

Ramona has vast network of friends and colleagues, and as a result there were a lot of non-Romanians at the wedding. Lucky for us several of them were Hansen Fellows, and we got to hang out with lots of folks we know and love like Martye, Michelle, Leini and Allen. As a matter of fact, the whole gang was all in the same hotel with many of us sharing a giant suite. We also got to meet Allen’s wife Nina and Martye’s friend Rosanna. You can be sure there was lots of fun, home cooked meals and laughter. In keeping with our attempt to watch locally relevant films (the King and I in Thailand or Fiddler on the Roof in Israel) we watched a movie perfectly suited to Transylvania…The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Yes, we got to Do the Time Warp Again!

Bonnie, George and Michelle all arrived in Hunedoara  (Ramona’s childhood home) late due to some weather issues affecting air travel.  Despite the late hour, we were invited to Ramona’s parents’ house for a “bite to eat” which turned out to be a four-course meal of home-made delicacies. George started falling in love with Ramona’s mom, Rodica’ at the beginning of the first course and became a life long follower by the time dessert was served. We waited until the next day for the rest of the friends to arrive (poor Leini took two days to complete a simple flight from Norway).

Ramona and Jason’s wedding ‘extravaganza’ was like no other we have ever attended, it was so big it could not be contained in a single day, it took two very full days to pack it all in…

On the morning of first day of the wedding we were invited to tour Corvin Castle  where the formal ceremony would take place the next day. The three-hour guided tour included a view of the torture chamber which once housed Vlad The Impaler (inspiration for the Dracula stories) and a bear pit where prisoners who had received a death sentence where thrown. Despite the ghoulish aspects,  the castle itself was quite beautiful.

After the tour buses took everyone to a very small town called Lelese, where Ramona’s grandmother lives. While waiting for the bride and groom we were treated to hand made doughnuts and cheese breads. We all crowded into a small country church, which was covered from floor to ceiling with amazing, hand painted bible scenes. When the couple and their chaperones arrived, we were all pleasantly surprised to see that they were dressed in traditional Romanian outfits. Ramona’s uncle, newly retired from his post as the villages’ priest, returned to the church to perform the engagement ceremony which was as filled with as much pageantry as most weddings.

With the engagement ceremony complete, everyone walked from the church through the village to Ramona’s grandmothers house for an amazing picnic lunch, full of hand-made food, home crafted brandies and liquor and a series of different meats grilled to perfection by Ramona’s dad, Vasile and his friends. We are told the party went on well into the night, we snuck off after several hours to greet the late travelers who had finally arrived at the hotel suite in Hunedoara.

While the engagement ceremony and picnic was very informal, the second day of the wedding was full on formal. I think everyone enjoyed getting spiffed up in suits and lovely dresses. The bus picked us up around noon and took us to the family home (where we had dinner two nights before). All the guest filled the street and generally stopped all traffic on the road in front of the house. Then we experienced another of the unique Romanian wedding traditions. The groom’s party, along with his male chaperone and his “spokesman” proceeded down the street, stopped at the house and knocked at the front door. The door was answered by the “spokesman” for the bride’s home. There is an initial exchange facilitated by drinking some very strong homemade liquor and then the formal negotiation. We will try to paraphrase the negotiation but please know that it was all in Romanian, some license may have been taken:

      • Groom’s Side: “we understand that you have a bride in this house, bring us something lovely with flowers”
      • Bride’s Side: disappears into the house and comes back with a nice hat adorned with flowers.
      • Groom’s Side: “That is nice, but we really wanted something in a lovely dress”
      • Bride’s Side: disappears into the house and comes back with a small doll in a dress.
      • Groom’s Side: “This is cute but we really want a girl that can dance…”
      • Bride’s Side: disappears into the house and comes back with a young girl (the flower girl from the wedding).
      • Groom’s side: twirls the girl around and everyone agrees that she is lovely, has on a nice dress can indeed dance “But she is too young, we want a bride, not a child.”
      • Bride’s Side: disappears into the house and comes back with Ramona looking amazing in her wedding gown. A collective gasp and cheer is heard from the crowd, the grooms representative spin her around to verify that she can dance, when he is satisfied, he hands her off the chaperone who also spins her around and finally she is passed to the groom who also spins her around. When everyone is satisfied with evidence of Ramona’s dancing skills she is accepted, the deal is stuck and the wedding party gets in a car to head to the chapel.

The wedding itself took place in the Chapel of the Castle, despite the small size of the chapel, the ceremony was quite grand and included crowns for both the bride and groom. After the ceremony there were many photos on the grounds of the castle, and then onto the buses to head to the reception.

As we entered the door we were greeted with glasses of champagne each with a small dot of dry ice (the solid form of carbon dioxide) which made the champagne bubble and mist. This champagne was the first of many, many well thought out delights that added up to an amazing wedding reception. Other accents included a meal of five extremely robust courses, each was a treat all its’ own. In the hour or so break between each course there was traditional dancing, a photo booth, a clown and entertainment for the children, displays of sweets and nibbles and a full bar with a wide selection of mixed cocktails. After a cake cutting ceremony out in the courtyard, at almost midnight, the guests were treated to a private fireworks. All in all an amazing two days of celebrating the matrimony of Ramona and Jason.

We would be remiss if we did not mention the gift bags that were given to each guest, one at arrival (full of all kinds of handy items and snacks) and one at the end of the event. Included in the bag that was handed out at the reception was a small bottle of brandy. It would be impossible for us to tell the story any better than the label on the bottle, so we have transcribed it below:

When Radica and Vasile Dragomire were blessed with Ramono, Rodica’s father created a special batch of Tuica, the Romanian national drink of plum brandy, which has been aging ever since in an oak and mulberry barrel hand built by Vasile’s father, patiently waiting to be shared in celebration this day…

After the wedding we packed up and back to Cluj where we spent a few more days exploring the local sights such as the amazing salt mines of Turda and a hike up the Bridal Veil waterfall.

Next up, we head to Oundle England, a small town outside of Birmingham where we will spend a month house sitting  and looking after Georgie the dog and Alfie the cat. More on that later…

Israel

Mazel Tov!

There is so much to tell about our trip to Israel it is hard to know where to start, so let’s just take things in the order that they happened so we don’t miss any important details.

We arrived at the Tel Aviv airport and getting through customs and immigration was a breeze. This was Bonnie’s first time but George remembered a much more laborious process a few years ago. We grabbed a cab at the airport (we were told that the taxis upstairs offer a discount). UBER does not work here, there is an app called “Gett Taxi”, but it calls the same taxis as you hail on the street and adds a booking charge; you are better off just hailing one.

After a of bit of a mix up on the address for the Airbnb we managed to get settled in. It was a small but cute apartment with a loft bedroom (bath and shower upstairs). Downstairs was OK for George, but upstairs had exposed ceiling beams at about 5’10” (178 cm). We managed to make it through this trip with no serious injuries.

The whole reason we were in Israel is for the wedding of one of Bonnie’s Hansen students. We wanted to see Shelly (and Brian) as soon as possible so we decided to meet them at a beach bar a short walk from our place. Shelly was nice enough bring a box of wedding clothes (a suit for George, dress for Bonnie and nice shoes). Thanks again Becky for packing these up and getting them to us, we will send them back after the second wedding!  After meeting the wedding couple and several of their friends, we wandered back to our place, hit the local supermarket and settled in for a quiet evening of dinner and Netflix at our flat.

This would be a good time to mention the Lightening to HDMI adapter. For those of you who have an iPad or iPhone, this handy little adapter will allow you to stream anything you can watch on your apple mobile device onto the screen at your rental (assuming there is a HDMI input). Perfect for travelers, when you combine this with a VPN service and a HDMI cable, you are set for almost any hotel or rental that has a TV. Especially since most rental places do not have smart TVs.

The next day (Saturday) was a free day for us, so we decided to walk along the amazing path that runs from the start of the beaches near Jaffa and works its way all the way down to the far end near the Hilton beach. One fun thing about this 6 mile walk (5K each way) is that the various beaches are all unofficially designated for different use groups. The first is a general use beach, followed by a family beach, then a beach to bring your dogs to play in the surf, followed by an ultra-religious beach and then finally a gay beach. Movement from one beach to another is casual and there is no real way to know you’ve moved from one to the other, except for the religious beach which is walled off and segregated.

Sunday was the day for the big wedding. Since it was not until the evening, we started the day with a wander through Jaffa, this is a mostly Christian (with a lot of Muslim mixed in) section of Tel Aviv and the sidewalks are lined with shops selling food, sweets, clothing and everything in between.

If you have never been to a Jewish wedding (we had one 35 years ago), then you should make an effort to get invited to one. There is so much symbolism and pageantry to it. The bride and groom stand under a canopy, known as a chuppah (pronounced hoop-a); this represents the home that the couple will build together. The rabbi or cantor “sings” the most of the ceremony in Hebrew, with many of the phrases beginning with “Barukh ata Adonai Eloheniu”. The couple start out drinking wine from two glasses, then during the ceremony they drink together from the same glass. At the end of the ceremony the glass is wrapped in a cloth napkin* and the groom stomps it with the heal of his foot. The breaking of the glass symbolizes that no one else will drink from the cup they have shared. Upon the sound of the breaking glass the crowd shouts “Mazel Tov!” (which indicates a lucky thing has happened, in other words congratulations) and this typically kicks off a party. And a wonderful party it was: a delicious dinner, with lots of wine, with speeches and dancing afterword. While the whole event was relatively casual (not suits and ties for the guest); Shelly looked amazing in her wedding gown and Brian handsome in his suit!

(*Spoiler: in modern day weddings, a glass light bulb is slipped in to replace the glass. This leads to fewer trips to the hospital from cut feet and the bulb makes a much better popping sound when it breaks…)

The day after the wedding the family was kind enough to invite us for a us for a guided tour of Jerusalem. Your religion (of lack thereof) doesn’t matter. There is enough history and culture here to overwhelm almost anyone. We started at the Mount of Olives and looked out over the old city.  There is a huge graveyard just outside the walls of the city. The Jews believe that when the messiah comes to earth he will walk though of the gates into the old city and the dead everywhere will rise and follow him into eternal life.  So religious folks spend a small fortune to be buried close to the gate with their feet facing the old city. This makes it some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

Inside of the walls, the city is divided into four quadrants (or Quarters) these include the Christen Quarter, The Jewish Quarter, The Muslim Quarter and the Armenian Quarter. Each group considers their part of the old city to be hugely important, if not central, to their religion. Each Quarter with the exception of the Armenian area is open to the public.  The Christian Quarter houses the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and is built at the location of Calgary (or Golgatha) where Christians believe Jesus was crucified. It is possible to kneel at an alter at the top of the church, stick your hand through a hole in the floor and touch the top of the Calgary stone, and on the ground floor there is a slab of marble that is said to be the final resting place of Christ’s body. Deep inside the church you can see the tomb of Jesus along with many other sacred relics.

One of the most important points of the Jewish sector is the “Wailing Wall” (or Western Wall), which is not technically part of the wall around the city, but it is physically as close as the Jewish people can get the Temple Mount. People come from around the world to pray at this extremely sacred place. Access to the wall is segregated so after a ceremonial washing of hands men and women approach the wall in separate areas. A common custom here is to write a prayer or wish onto a small scrap of paper and wedge the paper into the cracks of the wall.

We got home from Jerusalem tired but thrilled with our day grabbed a pizza and relaxed. The next day we headed back to the Jaffa in search of the best Shawarma, which is typically made with roast lamb sauces and lettuce wrapped in a pita. We found an excellent one and washed it down with a cold Israeli beer.

All too soon out trip to Tel Aviv was over, but we get to look forward to another wedding for another Hansen student…off to Romania!

France

A Rising Tide Floats All Boats

We were lucky enough to visit friends and stay in their lovely new home in Brittany, their hospitality was amazing. Brittany is in Western France, it is bordered by the English Channel to the North and Normandy to the Northeast. It was especially poignant for us to be in this region on D-day, the anniversary of the day on which the allied forces landed in France to push back the Germans during World War II.

Our friends house is in a small village called Locmariaquer, which is situated on the shores of the Golfe of Morbihan. One of the first, and most noticeable, things about this area is the dramatic change of tides. Most areas are used to a tidal change of 3 to 4 feet (one meter or so). In the area around Locmariaquer the tidal changes can be up to 18 feet (6 meters). As a result, at high tide the water is lapping at the sea walls and the boats bob happily on their mooring balls. But at low tide there are many kilometers of exposed sea floor and the boats end up resting in the mud, waiting to be floated again as the tide flows in.

  In addition to the boats in the mud, at low tide you can also see row after row of oyster beds, (more about the amazing oysters later). This scene is surreal no matter how many times you see it.

The small village had two bread shops, or boulangeries as they are called in France. Each morning, we enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the “customs walk” (a small path previously used by customs inspectors to review the contents of incoming boats) into the village. In the bread shop we would purchase fresh baguettes, croissants and, George’s favorite, pan du chocolate. The village also has a small convenience store, several gift shops, restaurants, creperies, a library and a small neighborhood bar. We visited the bar which included several different types of musical instruments: guitars, a piano, hand drums, a fiddle and an accordion. Guest were invited to pick up any of them and start playing or join into whatever music was happening. George had fun playing guitar with a local piano player, the only language they had in common was music, but they had lot of fun with it.

Just around the corner from the house was a small shellfish store. In this store you could purchase oysters or many different types, muscles (moules), lobster, crabs and other shellfish. All were extremely fresh, clean and very much alive. Oysters were €4.50 per kilo with about a dozen per kilo. That works out to about forty cents (U.S.) per fresh delicious oyster. You can be sure we ate a LOT of them!

Brittany, or Little Britain (as opposed to great Britain) was once an independent nation with its own Duke. We visited the Domaine de Suscinio that was previously home to the Duke of Brittany from the Middle Ages to the 1800’s. In the 1960’s it was declared a historical site and has been painstakingly restored to an amazing showpiece with lots of interesting displays and educational areas. This castle is well worth a visit if you get to the area.

We thoroughly enjoyed our relaxing visit to this charming coastal town, so much so that we were sad to leave. But we took heart in knowing that we had a great adventures ahead, so we packed up and headed off to Israel to attend the wedding of one of Bonnie’s students from the Hansen Summer Institute.

Misc Info

House Sitting

By house sitting, we are able to stay in many amazing locations that we might not have been otherwise able to afford. It also allows us to experience life from the viewpoint of a “local’ and also hand out with some pretty cool furry friends (like “Cuddles” from Australia, pictured above).

The group that we use to find our house sits is called trusted house sitters. You can read more at their site and by using the link below, you can get a discount when you sign up and we get some benefits as well 🙂

Click here for Trusted House Sitters