Ireland, Day 2- Ring of Kerry

Our 2nd day in Ireland was spent touring the "Highlights of Kenmare & Killarney". Most of the tour consisted of the views from the bus windows as we rode around the "Ring of Kerry". Fortunately, we were the first 4 in line and we all got front seats on the bus! The views were green, hilly and full of sheep and cows... it was *just* what I hoped Ireland would be!

The bus driver dropped us off in the quaint little town of Kenmare to have coffee, but we opted to check out the shops instead.

 We took a photo-stop at "Ladies' View," a place where Queen Victoria thought the view was so amazing that she summoned to her ladies-in-waiting to check it out. QV knew her stuff... it was a beautiful view of the Killarney Lakes & mountains!

 Our next stop was Killarney National Park, where we had a view of one of the three Killarney Lakes. The park was very nice! Pretty flowers, big trees, nice paths, etc. And of course, beautiful views of County Kerry.

Muckross House is found within Killarney National Park. Distant relatives of Queen Victoria lived here at one time, but they went totally broke preparing to host Her Majesty and lost their house. It eventually ended up being a wedding gift, before it and its grounds were turned into a National Park. We decided not to pay the admission fee to go inside because we'd already seen the interior on Rick Steves'. And because I feel that if you've seen the inside of one Victorian-era estate house, you've seen them all. Unless you are into that sort of thing. I'm not. And I'm pretty sure that David's not either! :)

David enjoyed exploring the grounds at the park! I have no idea how he managed to get up this huge tree!

Muckross Traditional Farms are also on the park grounds. We paid admission for this, because I was really hoping to feed a baby cow with a bottle or shear a sheep, neither of which happened. Nevertheless, it was an interesting place to walk through.

There were recreated cottages and farms from the early 18-1900s across different "income brackets" The cottages were super-cute, their fireplaces were going and guides were warming bread for us to eat on our way through.

The guides kept telling us to watch our heads on the way through the cottages, but I didn't see the point! More proof that I'm not short, I'm just old fashioned!

Even though I didn't get to shear any sheep or bottle-feed any baby cows, (we did see horses, cows, geese, a HUGE pig, a goat, and sheep... just didn't touch them or milk them) I was thrilled to spend lots of time petting this sweet kitty. I wonder why!?! Doesn't she look familiar??

We headed to the town of.... I don't remember! Killarney, maybe! And had lunch before heading back to Cork City for the night. 

Ireland, Day 1: Cork City

At 3:30 a.m. on June 12, David and I hit the road to Cork. Well, we hit the road to London Stansted, where we hit the air to Cork. Cork is the 2nd largest city in Ireland, 2nd of course, to Dublin....which I didn't care for AT ALL. Dublin was just a dirty, nasty big city with a real lack of the Irish charm you see in all the movies. Cork itself is not much better (a city is a city, after all!) but it did seem less crowded, a bit cleaner, a little less touristy, and best of all, was an excellent jumping off point for lots of other places. We stayed in Cork 4 nights, but we only stayed in Cork 1 day. Follow?
The first day in Cork was a very unorganized day. I didn't want to terrify our cousins Lisa and Joe by completely revealing my insane travel quirks right on the first day. When it's just David and I, I'm able to take full control, highlight routes on maps, write lists and plan an exhausting itinerary for the day. (Just wait until you hear about our upcoming 5-day road trip to Scotland... I have it all planned to the mile and the minute!) But it is one thing to subject David to this behavior, every day of our vacation, and quite another to expose poor Lisa and Joe to "the cruise director" right from the start. So we had an unplanned, casual, go-with-the-flow afternoon in Cork City. And it practically killed me. :)

We went for lunch at a Mexican restaurant, which Lisa & Joe didn't really want to go to, and didn't really think was very good, but for people who haven't been exposed to Mexican food for at least almost a year, it was simply irresistible. (Great, now I will have visions of  very tall girls with their ponytails slicked back and bright red lips dancing through my head all afternoon!)

Anyway, then we headed to the tours office and picked up some maps, bus schedules, and tips. We went to a Maritime Festival and caught the very end of a boat race, and a very very very strange acrobat program. Then we headed to the Street Performers World Championships at a park very close to our B & B.

This was really creepy! This guy just floated there, hanging on to his cane with his eyeballs painted onto his eyelids. Weird! David and Joe knew just how the trick worked, but I was perplexed.

We went back to our hotel for a little bit and then went out in search of a pub (we ended up choosing Bob Fox's) where we could watch the US vs. England soccer/football game. And... David had his first Guinness.

It was  very very hard to find a place to eat after the game! Everywhere that served food was either closed or had stopped serving already, but we were sent by a local girl to Liberty Grill and it was yummy. I had a Halloumi Cheese Burger, which was really a patty of cheese on a bun! With eggplant, peppers, etc. too, but I LOVED that cheese!!  I'm pretty sure we were all fat & happy by the end of this meal and we walked back to the hotel to get some rest for the Ring of Kerry Tour that was on the books for Sunday!

Look what we made!

A while back, I came across a link that changed my life... or at least my kitchen. Knock-Off Wood is a super-popular site where Ana, the blogger, provides plans & inspiration to build your own Pottery Barn (& etc.) style furniture for a fraction of the cost...and then you get to make it the color you want (if you and your significant other are fortunate enough to be able to agree on a color...) and modify it as needed (if you think ahead and wonder HOW on earth a 92" long table is going to fit in the kitchen...or through the front door.) and, most importantly, you get to love it and bat your eyes at it and hug it and take an extraordinary amount of pride in it because... it's YOURS. YOU made it! Not the Pottery Barn elves.

So, I've been totally stalking this website. Drawing diagrams of each room in my house and trying to figure out how I can incorporate one of Ana's projects around every corner.  It didn't take much convincing (in fact, it only took the idea of getting some fancy schmancy power tools) to get David on board. And once I realized that I had a willing partner, I made my list.

My lists are SCARY. Let's just say that this weekend, we accomplished 1/63rd of the list. *blush*
(but it was a big 63rd...a 38.5" x 92.25" 63rd, to be exact)

We used Ana's plans to make a Farmhouse Table a la Restoration Hardware. And we made it our very own. (We kind of didn't have a choice). And we made it for WAY less than $2725. (Although, admittedly, we spent quite a bit more than the $10 Ana managed to do it for!) In fact, we spent WAY less than $2725 (+shipping... and + all the headaches and frustration trying to get the darn thing shipped to an APO would cause!) and got the table AND the power tools out of the deal!  We were aware that wood in England would cost significantly more than wood in the good ol' US of A. And it did. We were pleasantly surprised, though, when our ticket got totaled up... the wood ended up costing us $168. Still not too bad... the cheapest rectangular table at Pottery Barn is $699...and two and a half feet shorter than our table. Even a table 22 inches shorter from Ikea (I like Ikea, but I think it's safe to say their furniture isn't the sturdiest...), would have cost $200. And you can't even argue that we spent lots of time on the table... just about 2 more hours than a trip to Ikea (2 hours in the car, 2 hours in the store, 2 hours coming home). And... we MADE it! All by ourselves!

British 2x4s aren't actually 2x4. I'm SO confused... when you buy wood, you buy in meters, or millimeters or something. But when you buy nails, you buy in inches. Huh? Why not just stick with one? And why not have it be inches so I know what I'm talking about?? So, David and I are following the plans and then I get antsy. I want to see what the table is going to LOOK like. Because I'm easily excitable when it comes to this sort of thing. So before we screwed the legs together, I decided to show David what our table legs were going to look like when they were all put together. This is one time when antsiness REALLY paid off... because we realized that cutting 3.5" notches for a 2x4 to fit in weren't going to work with British 4x2s, which are really... I don't know... BIGGER than a 2x4. I'll have to measure one tomorrow!

Anyway, the important thing is that the difference in that measurement made EVERYTHING different... lots of extra cutting that we weren't counting on. Including David cutting one looooooooong straight line down an 81" piece of lumber. It was scary! I got yelled at for squealing. I was just so nervous though!

Another little setback when we realized that the 4" wood screws we bought were flat not Phillips. This was a problem because we didn't have a flat bit. So we went to the hardware store. The very very overpriced hardware store. And there, David realized that he DID have a flat bit. But just in case, we bought some Phillips head screws. Then we went back home and David got all sweaty. Screwing the looong screws in was definitely the most intense portion of the building. The Phillips screws weren't going in properly (I think the bit wasn't the right size for them? or maybe the threading on them wasn't right for the wood?) but the flat were too hard to keep on the bit without a "sleeve". (Hardware store didn't have one). Finally David got all the screws sunk, but we hope nobody inspects the inner underside corners of our table. Because it's not pretty under there.

But you know where it IS pretty?  Everywhere else!

Tomorrow, we stain it... and add a little special something that I thought of all by myself. I am, after all, the brains in this operation.

And then... we attempt to get it through the door.

Around the Town Tuesday: Best Food

I missed two weeks of the Around the Town Tuesday blog hop (one week I was in Morocco...the other ????)
And now, the blog hop has been discontinued (at least for the time being), but I'm still going to post the two posts I missed...and try to come up with a few "topics" of my own. I like getting out in town & I like that you can see what you're missing by not visiting me. :)

On to the Best Food in town...

I've eaten at a few places in town and haven't really had a bad meal. There's a place called Marvela's that David and I like for breakfast. Next time, I'm definitely getting "bubble & squeak". I was intrigued by the menu item, but unsure what it was, so I decided against adding it to my breakfast. I've eaten at Tall Orders, a little cafe/sandwich place in town and had some chips from the kebab shop.

 Just this weekend, we went to The Bell for the first time. The Bell is a little bit nicer, a little bit pricier, and had yummy food! David wasn't that hungry (we'd been munching at the Cambridge Beer Festival all day) so we split "Chicken Wellington" which was served with a creamy leek and bacon sauce (although it was NOT as good as the creamy leek & bacon sauce I made last week!) and dauphinoise potatoes.

There's the Chase, where we used to go every Wednesday for 4.95 curry & a pint which I always enjoyed. We stopped going to the Chase (because it was always crowded & the guys in our dinner crowd wanted a more "pub-like" experience) and started going to the Dolphin.

The Dolphin had good food... but then it closed for a while and the staff from the Dolphin all moved to the Black Horse... so we did too! We eat at the Black Horse every Wednesday and my favorite things on the menu are the pies-- usually chicken & stuffing or chicken, leek & bacon...occasionally I'll have a seafood pie if they have it one the specials board-- and the bacon sandwich on a brown baguette. Yum yum!! Since we're regulars and pretty well-liked, the chef, Simon, makes us special appetizers not available on the menu and sets them out for us every week! On nice evenings if we're both home in time, we usually walk since it's only between 1/2 and 3/4 mile away from our house.

Our other "usual" restaurant is the Phoenix House Chinese Take-away place. We get delivery almost every Friday! We love it... David likes the Won Ton Soup & Vietnamese Spring Rolls and usually some kind of Chow Mein. I love the Singapore Rice Noodles & Shredded Chili Chicken!

There are lots of restaurants in town that we haven't tried yet... a few fish & chip shops, several Indian places, a Thai restaurant, etc. Unfortunately, between our Wednesday dinners & our Friday take-out, we don't get much chance to try other places in town!

(We don't have to try Subway in town... we've got one on base!)

BBQ Season has begun!

We've had some beautiful weather lately, and not just in Morocco! England is sunny and "warm" (although if I were in Okinawa, I'd probably consider these days "winter"!--temps have been in the 60s & 70s).  The sun shines from about 4:30 a.m. until at least 8:30 p.m. and last night, we went to our first bbq of the season. I know there will be at least one more this summer, because we're going to have on July 10 to celebrate David's promotion!

Last night, David's supervisor had a gathering at his house for all of the "leadership" in the office. The e-mail invitation said we didn't have to bring anything, but I can never resist an opportunity to hear how much people like my food, so I made an appetizer and a dessert. Had we not brought anything, we would've been almost the only ones, so I'm glad we did!

I saw this recipe for Congo Bars in my feed reader earlier in the day. I had plenty of chocolate chips (and an updated inventory of them, thanks to the ants that inspired me to clean out all of my cabinets!) I made them almost exactly as the recipe reads, with three exceptions---1. I had to guesstimate the amount of butter because we bought butter here in town and it doesn't have the same markings as my American butter. First I had to do some internet research to figure out what 250 grams of butter would be in cups. I eyeballed 2/3 of the chunk. 2. I didn't have a box of brown sugar, so I didn't know how much  a pound was. I guessed that it would be 2 cups, but then looked at a box of dark brown sugar and decided there were probably 4 cups in there. Only I only had 2 cups of light brown sugar in my canister, so I supplemented with 2 more cups of dark brown sugar. 3. No pecans. I prefer my nuts plain. The result was DELICIOUS! Our friend said, "you've outdone yourself with these"! Only one  row of bars remained at the end of the night and we happily brought them home!

I also made Greek Salsa and took along some multi-grain Club crackers. I used more of almost every ingredient- roasted red peppers (chopped), olives (halved--recipe called for Kalamata but I used black because I'm cheap!), feta (crumbled), cucumbers (chopped). I used a little less chopped fresh mint and chopped red onion than called for. The mint here looks terrible compared to the beautiful fresh mint in Morocco!! I bought the Greek vinaigrette dressing that the recipe called for, but it probably would've been okay with regular vinaigrette or even Italian dressing. This was also very good and got lots of compliments. David and I are snacking on it right now and it's better the second day!

Now to decide what to make for our July bbq.... David has made 2 requests so far: taco salad & pumpkin cupcakes filled with homemade dulce de leche. The cupcakes are labor-intensive, but it's a special occasion!

May 12 of 12: The (belated) Moroccan Edition

I'm really making an effort to participate in every 12 of 12 this year... but we didn't know if we'd have (free) internet access, [and we wanted to have a real vacation, not a "I'll be down at the pool as soon as I finish checking my e-mail, reading facebook status updates & catching up on blog posts" vacation] so we didn't take a laptop with us.

I definitely got 12 pics on the 12th, though... and here they are:
All pics were taken in Agadir, Morocco
(if you missed it, you can read the rest of the trip recap here.)

1. 07-something a.m., Riu Hotel Tikida Beach room 219, Agadir, Morocco---the view of the Atlantic from our room. 

2. 10-something a.m., poolside @ the Tikida Beach---one of our daily Scrabble matches. It's much harder for us to play without our handy Scrabble dictionary. We wrote all of the words we wanted to challenge & agreed to subtract double the regular point value from our scores if they're not actually words!

3. 2-something in the afternoon, Riu Tikida Beach Archery "field" (?)--- Robin Hood of Tikida Beach. David joined in the archery competition and was the 1st place winner... the plate he's holding is his "trophy"

4. 3-something in the afternoon, Le Olivio restaurant at the Tikida Beach---a delicious snack of crepes & chocolate (or strawberry) sauce. Our favorite afternoon snacks were the waffles.

5. 8:15 p.m.ish, Chelmsayour (?), Agadir, Morocco---This is our "Fantasia Arabian Nights" experience... the guards (?) on horseback welcomed us as we got off the tour bus.

6. 8:30 pm-ish, Chemsalyour---We're on our way to our tent for dinner.

7. 2040ish, Chemsalyour/Fantasia---sharing some fresh, hot, delicious Berber bread.

8. 21-something, our dinner tent---I bet you didn't know I could read Arabic, did you? I'll prove it... this says "Coca Cola".

9. 21-something, our dinner tent---I didn't know that "traditional Moroccan dances" used telephones, but for some reason, this performer danced around and had everyone hold the phone, wear his hat and pose for a picture.

10. 22-something, dinner tent---a photo with the creepiest performer of the night. "Personal space" was not her strong suit.

11. 22-something, the "stage" outside at Chemsalyour---fire jugglers. We were in the front row, so we really felt the heat when they blew on the flames!

12. maybe 22 or 23-something, on the way out of Chemsalyour---the performers sang, clapped & danced as we headed back to our coach. This guy was my favorite because he's old and he can balance a rifle on his head :)

Next month will be another delayed 12... we'll be in Ireland!

The Good Life, coast-of-Africa style

We had SUCH a good time on our trip to Morocco! Everything was perfect and fabulous! The weather, the food, the pool (well, okay, the pool was a *little* cold!).

We left our house at about 11 a.m. on Monday, and arrived in Agadir at around 1 a.m. And there's no time difference! It was a long day of travel (to base, to the airport, to Morocco, and to the resort) and we were getting a little tired and cranky by the time we got there. We decided to go straight to bed and start our vacation off on the right foot on Tuesday morning.

A typical day on my vacation: 
We would put on our bathing suits & cover-ups and head to breakfast, where we were the most under-dressed people there. That will happen when you are vacationing with about 60% French people. Beautiful, stylish, perfectly coiffed French people. Breakfast was pretty good... they had English breakfast stuff--eggs, "bacon", beans, potatoes, what I consider "European" breakfast stuff-- granola, yogurt & dried fruits, a big selection of pastries & donuts (but not jelly-filled ones!), a variety of fresh fruit, tons of tea that looked & smelled beautiful, but I wasn't sure how to make it, crepes every day and one other option--my favorite were these cornmeal (?) pancakes. You could ask for an omelet and there was another station where you could get fresh fruit juice---my favorite was apple & banana, which is strange, because I bought some apple-banana juice at Aldi a few weeks ago and I think it tastes like baby food. The fresh was SO good though!

After brekky, it's time to head to the pool!

We tried to get a super-comfy lounge bed every morning. We only ended up on  lounge chairs once, and only moved to a different bed location once too (because someone "stole" the bed we had put our towels on...at least they gave our towels back though!) That was a single bed, but David was only around for a short part of that day anyway. And even the single beds were big enough for two.
Here's where we could normally be found:

The double beds were comfortable, had pillows (our favorite day was the day our bed had three pillows on it!) and had plenty of room to play Phase 10 or Scrabble, and we did one or the other every single day (except Thursday, because David golfed on Thursday).

After lounging in the sun (or under the big umbrellas) for 2 or 3 hours, we went up to lunch. Most days, we ate pizza, with a large side of olives, cucumbers & tomatoes. There was also pasta, panini, and a different restaurant where we had grilled meats, tagines, different pasta, meat & vegetable salads. We preferred the pizza because it was delicious, closer to the pool, and we could sit outside.

Sometimes in the afternoons, we got involved in the resort activities...David was practically the Tikida Beach MVP winning Archery & Darts competitions and I held my own and scooped up 2nd place in darts one day. The darts contests were pretty silly, with three different throws-- sometimes it was throw regular, throw with your left hand, throw all 3 darts at once, throw blindfolded, throw blindfolded while sitting in a chair. I went to belly dance lesson one day (I learned that I'm not a belly dancer, ha!), to a traditional tagine cooking workshop (which was delicious!!) and to learn to make Mint Tea in the Agadir region way. Yum yum! I looooove the mint tea, it tastes like liquid gum!!

And we spent a little time in the pool almost every day... it took up a lot of courage to get in, because the water was freezing! We felt bad for Omar from the "Animation" team who had to jump in every morning at 10 for "AquaGym"/water aerobics, so we joined him on our last day.

Other than that, we stuck to the sun beds for more Scrabble, reading, Phase 10, naps and relaxation until about 5 when we would pack it in, give up the bed and go shower and get ready for the evening.

After dinner, we always went to the "Bar Cascade" to enjoy the lounge singer & evening entertainment. There was a show every night at 2130... a magician, a very strange dancer who spun around and around for at least 8 minutes and had a skirt that lit up, a belly dancer, a bird show, and a "Moroccan evening"--which we missed because we had to go to the airport. We had a few drinks & played card game after card game (Three-Thirteen, King's Corners, Golf, Poker) until bedtime.

 (this is the twirling dancer! he looks like a spacecraft!)

That photo is a little misleading... we usually sat indoors & I usually had mojitos instead of mint tea!

Changes in our daily routine:

Tuesday--On our first full day in Morocco, we were given a time to meet with a guy from our tour operator. We went into the lobby at noon and listened to him tell about all of the excursions we could sign up for. We chose two-- Agadir City Tour & Fantasia Moroccan Experience. The Agadir City Tour left that afternoon!

On our Agadir City Tour, we met Peter & Doreen, an older couple from Yorkshire. They were beginning their 2nd week in Agadir and had already done another tour or two.
On the bus, we learned that Agadir had been just about completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1960. It was Feb 29, and they wanted to do something to commemorate the 50th anniversary this year, but half of the decision-makers thought the ceremony should be on the 28th and the other half thought it should be on March 1, and by the time they finally agreed to a date, there wasn't enough time to plan it!
We stopped in a museum where we learned a lot about the symbolism in Berber jewelry & rugs. I thought it was very interesting.
Then we went up to the Medina/Kasbah. I had bigger expectations of the Kasbah, and it really fell short, in my opinion. The views were great and I loved the way the building looked like a sand castle, but #1--it was really stressful up there as people immediately swarmed you trying to sell you jewelry, make you pet goats, take you for a camel ride, put a snake around your neck, etc. and then demand money even though you kept saying "NO" (or "NON" I suppose, since they parlent francais.) and #2--we didn't actually go IN anything or walk around the building... just looked at the view and got back on the bus and #3--I still don't really have a clear understanding of what the Kasbah is, any of the history behind it, or why on earth we should rock it.

After the Kasbah, we drove through the marina, which was stinky and a little depressing... 

Then on a little walk to see something... I'm not sure exactly what... something about the earthquake. But I think it was really designed to take us to the tour leader's buddy's store. :) No matter where you go, some things are the same! 

We made a quick stop at a Mosque named for Muhammed 5th. We couldn't go in, but took some pictures outside and learned that there are 5 doors to the Mosque--one for men, one for women, one for dead people, one for officials and one more...didn't hear who that one was for. And also that there are 69 mosques in Agadir, as well as 2 churches and one synagogue.

After the mosque, we headed to the souk. The souk is a market, closed in by sandcastle looking walls. My goal for Morocco was to buy a tagine and I entered the souk on a mission! I feel like I've been through a souk-like market when we were in Tokyo/Asakusa. It's kind of over-stimulating, and there's one that's more than triple the size of the Agadir souk in Marrakech. I'm glad we didn't go there...this one was crowded, confusing & crazy enough! There were spices, fruits, chickens (killed fresh to order...ew!), housewares, clothing, and touristy stuff. We bought 3 items--a tagine, a little "treasure chest" and an ash tray that got thrown in with the tagine in our "haggling".

 The spices smelled soooo good, and so did this little block of amber that the salesguy rubbed on our wrists.
After the souk, we headed back to our hotel, where we had dinner reservations at the Moroccan restaurant. The inside of the restaurant was so cool! Everything was covered in gorgeous burgundy and gold fabrics, we ended up seated at a table with chairs, but some seats were at couches with tons of cushions. The soup we had was so tasty. We also had dates. Then they brought each of us a plate piled high with "Couscous Royale"--couscous with tagine meats & veggies and golden raisins. So good! David ate all of his food, but there was no way I could finish 2/3 of mine!  Dessert was also very yummy, Moroccan pastries. Our favorite one was a rolled dessert that reminded me a little bit of baklava......if the layers were made of ice cream cones instead of phyllo! My first taste of Moroccan mint tea---liquid Wrigley's Doublemint-- with dessert.

Wednesday-
We deviated from our regular routine on Wednesday night, too... we left the resort at quarter til 8 pm for an evening of traditional Moroccan dinner & entertainment. On the way to our dining "tent", we heard music, ate dates, drank milk, saw snake charmers, ate freshly baked and delicious Berber bread, and took pictures. Once seated, we had veggies as a starter, then some little stuffed triangles, followed by a huge platter of basically the same thing we had eaten the night before at our Moroccan restaurant! A DELICIOUS pastry with some kind of almondy-cream over it for our first dessert, and other pastries with mint tea while waiting for the entertainment outside were all delicious. At our dinner table, we met another (older) couple staying at our resort, and a British woman married to a guy from Peru. In between each course, the entertainers came in singing, chanting, playing instruments, dancing. They did this wild dancing where they were bouncing while squatting low to the ground and would then jump super-high from the squat position. It was really impressive. It was also impressive when David (and other tourists!) joined in the dancing toward the end of the evening.

We moved from the tent to the "stage" outside, where we sat on red carpets and ate our pastries & drank tea while watching a horse show, acrobats, fire jugglers, and a belly dancer. It was chilly out there, so I welcomed the heat every time the fire guy did his fire breathing thing!

We got back to the resort around midnight and were exhausted!

Thursday- The last day that things weren't all swimming pool & bar Cascade was our third day there. David went golfing & I stayed in the shade all day because I was sunburnt! David came back about 3 and we sat in the shade for a little while, then got ready for our dinner reservation at the seafood restaurant. The buffet lunch is served in the same place, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, but for tonight, the set menu was a salmon carpaccio (I think?) to start and then seafood paella! It was pretty good... and we weren't the only ones who thought so:

The resort kitty, who I decided to call "Tiny Moby" made himself at home in the restaurant, and everyone took their turn feeding him bits of seafood when he went to each table!

Monday-
Monday was our last day in Morocco... although I had begun to believe otherwise. The volcanic ash cloud couldn't decide what it wanted to do about closing Heathrow & Gatwick. I was hoping for another day by the pool, or at least to stay one last night so we'd get to see the Moroccan evening entertainment! I kept holding out hope that our flight would be canceled, but no such luck! David stayed in the shade all day on Monday, but I took in my last doses of sunshine 20 minutes at a time. We left the pool around 4 on Monday so we could be showered, packed, dressed before checking out at 6. We went to the lounge and spent time with the friends we made on our tours after a few last card games. Then we all went to dinner together and it was all Moroccan food-- delicious tagines, couscous, Berber bread, pastries... it was the perfect send-off! We took pictures with the Animation staff, Uni, Omar & Neeza, who had been so friendly all week and really made our vacation even more special!

Then we rode the coach to the airport, hung out with our old English pals a little longer and made our way to the gate, where we were delayed about an hour. The flight home wasn't too bad... but poor David didn't get to sleep as much as he would've liked to. We landed at about 3:30 a.m. and then had a 2/2.5 hour drive home from the airport. We went straight to bed when we got home at around 6!

We LOVED our vacation!!!