Playing some catch-up

Although I will be heading back to my home country in just a matter of days, I figured I might as well put a little update of my last 3 months since that little Rome trip.

So, my first stop was in late April when I accompanied the Luxembourg Gaelic Football Club to Amsterdam for a Gaelic football tournament. Gaelic football is like a combination of soccer and football (the American kind of course), and I had intentions of playing with the 2nd team but my perpetually injured self and my lack of cleats to play in relegated me to team photographer. That's right, my athletic career has been reduced to photography.

Tt was actually quite a bit a fun to play the photographer, but unfortunately the good guys (in red) from Lux lost to the bad guys (in yellow) from Den Haag in the championship. Luckily there were places in Amsterdam that allowed everyone to drown their sorrows that night (and don't worry, Lux got their revenge in the next tournament and is on pace to repeat as the European champions).

Next up was a trip that came on the spur of the moment weekend getaway to Edinburgh. We lucked out with the weather, and although we did get a little rain, we were able to see the castle:

This was a very cool castle for sure, sitting right in the middle of the city:

We did all the Scottish stuff, from drinking whiskey to listening to bag pipes, and made a stop in tourist shop that specialised in Scottish clan memorabilia. It was all I could do to keep Secil from buying everything that said Mackay on it. Anyway, this did lead to one of my most disappointing moments so far in Europe...the Clan Mackay postcard I sent myself in Lux never arrived. The shock! The horror! The first postcard I have sent on my travels that did not make it to me, although I guess that ensures I will just have to go back and do it again.

Anyway, while the castle was great, I found what is now my favorite museum in Europe (well, one of my favorites at least). First of all it was free. Secondly, it was nearly empty. Thirdly they had great (free) tours and audio guides (I can't emphasise how great free is for all these things). Plus the roof had an amazing view:

But most of all it had a lot of cool stuff and even more importantly there were many 'hands-on' exhibits (that I think were geared to a younger audience):

Good times. Plus, there are Starbuck's in Scotland. Can't go wrong there, just like being in Seattle except no one speaks english.

In early May there was a quick trip to Brussels for my first wedding in Europe. The ceremony was good, judging by the laughter there were some funny things said (yeah, my French is really lacking), and otherwise it was like any other wedding except that afterwards I got to eat the best pommes frites in the world yet again:

At the end of May I made my way to Paris for work for a few days, and Secil joined me for the weekend so we could celebrate her birthday in the city of love and whatnot.

After consulting Rick, we saw a few of the sites that were missed in my first visit:

and best of all we did not have to go to the Eiffel Tower and stand in those lines, but we could still see it: Work then brought me to London for a few days, but sadly work kept me busy and the best part was getting an update via telephone from the US about Tiger's victory in the US Open (as all the tv's were tuned to the European Championship soccer tournament).

Our last big weekend was for the Duke's birthday. It is quite the celebration here in Luxembourg for the Duke (and apparently every worker in Luxembourg has 12 Euro taken from their paychecks in March to pay for the party). The early highlight is a festival-style concert that unfortunately did not rock as much as I did:

And the next night the big fireworks show went off with a bang! Really we only do fireworks once a year in Seattle, but I have seen 5 large scale shows in my near 2 years here and I have to say that the more the better.

Oh, and I also spent a week in Alicante, Spain for work just after the Duke's birthday, but most of my time was spent at the hotel and by the pool which was nice but not too exciting except for being in Spain for their upset victory in the above mentioned European Championship. Don't worry, I still found a way to have a good time but alas I did not have a camera with me. Oh well.

Alright, that is it from me. I can't wait to see everyone and actually get to visit both one of my favorite places (Vegas) and a new destination (New York). This will be fun.

Cheers!