To the Tower!

"But not off with me head, I beseech you! ...I have a little neck..."

We received our tickets to the Ceremony of Keys on Friday! We got our first choice, Monday, 20th July - our first 24 hours in London.

The history behind the Tower is fascinating, especially the stories of Henry the VIII and his six wives. It gives us a whole different perspective when visiting in July, that's for sure! If you have a chance to watch the video in the link above, it's really interesting. The political and religious story behind Henry is much deeper than the dramatic sibling rivalry depicted in the movie The Other Boleyn Girl.

Our Ceremony of Keys ticket came on Friday. That was quick! We got our first choice, so we will be visiting on Monday, July 20.

Luck 'o the Irish

As if it weren't hard enough to find an affordable hotel room in Dublin at the height of the tourist season, U2 had to go and have a concert, (no make that two concerts!) in Dublin this summer. Hailing from Dublin originally, this is a REALLY big deal to Dubliners; the Holy Grail of concerts.

I love U2. They are the anthem band of my youth. Under a Blood Red Sky is one of my favorite albums. Any songs from War and The Joshua Tree instantly take me back to those first tastes of freedom in high school and college. In the words of William Wallace, "Frr-r-r-eedom!" (Ok, so he's Scottish... and do NOT confuse the Irish with the Scottish, or English or Welsh, for that matter; EVER.)

Now I've never seen U2 in concert. On their 2005 Vertigo tour, I contemplated going, until I calculated that it would cost approximately one month's mortgage payment to go see them in Toronto or Boston, then I realized that's why they named it the Vertigo tour. Ok, I don't live in a McMansion, but jeez! I don't even like The WHO that much. Well, ok, maybe I do.

As our luck would have it, they will be playing in Dublin July 24 AND 25 - the same time we're going to be there. Wow! Cool! Great! What better place to see U2 for the first time than in their hometown of Dublin!

Sure, us and 80,000 other fans; make that 164,000 fans. This is not just any venue either - but the Croke Park Stadium, which holds as many as a concert at Rich Stadium including field seats, and then some, and is the fourth largest stadium in Europe! Yikes, kiss any hotel room goodbye for that matter. Both concerts SOLD OUT in an hour...such swift sales that they will likely will be adding a third night...oh dear.

So, just in case they didn't make enough $ on their most recent "You're Not THAT Old Yet, Tour", U2 kicks off their second "Baby-Boomers and Gen X'ers Relive Your Semi-Punk Adolescence In Case You Missed It Last Time, Tour", this time officially dubbed the 360° Tour. Full Circle, I guess. To be fair about the grinding sound of the money making machine here:

"In keeping with U2 manager Paul McGuinness pledge to allocate at least 10,000 tickets at each venue at a cost of €30 each, the cheapest tickets will be priced at €33.50 which includes the booking fee.


Tickets for both concerts will range from €33.50 to €131.50 and are limited to six person/transactions."

How very thoughtful.

We were enlightened to this amazing clash in the time-space continuum when every and all hotel rooms, from every and all hotel search engines, were sucked into a vacuous black hole in a matter of minutes of plopping in our travel dates.

Our epiphany went something like this:
"Hmm...there must be something big going on in town that weekend, (understatement of the century) ....hmmm, hopefully the Pope's not in town, ha ha!... Ok, Google....Dublin...July 24. Uh, it's much worse than the Pope being in town. It's ...please tell me it's not...a....U2..... CONCERT?!? Aghh!"

I think it would be easier to find a hotel room in Dublin on St. Paddy's day - with the Pope in town.

Happy Traveling Rule #1 (aside from having a DVD player with earphones for the kids) -

Don't Panic!

We were able to find a really nice and CHEAP hotel (Bewley's, as recommended by Samantha Brown of The Travel Channel!) for the 27th, so that is booked and we can rest assured that we have at least one night in Dublin with a bed, pillow, and private bathroom (THAT is a whole 'nother story).

Happy Traveling Rule #2 - Be Flexible!

Our only travel restriction is to be back to to Dublin by the 28th for our flight out to Glasgow. Instead of visiting Dublin as soon as we come over and then heading out two days later, we'll pick up our rental car and bee-line it to a location halfway between Dublin and Cork before the masses infiltrate on the 23rd. When we come back and drop off the car, then we'll do the touristy thing in Dublin, when all the other "tourists" have gone...hopefully.

Oh yeah, and...

Happy Traveling Rule #3 - Always Google for events in the town you're visiting, just in case you need to avoid them!

The Master Itinerary - In Ink!

Yea! We've made our Master Itinerary!

....now we need to work on some of the other minor details; like accommodations!

The Planner, The Bookie, and the Financier

Hurray! Another major leg of the tour has been booked today...and what a relief it is, since now I have one less week of daily plans to make!

Mike says I'm the Planner, he's just the Financier. But he's also the Bookie, and so Mike booked the week-long Med cruise with MSC. I was a little apprehensive about this cruise at first because I didn't know much about some of the ports of call, and even though we would be spending three other weeks traveling at our whim, the thought of giving up places that I wanted to see (Tuscany!) for those I probably wouldn't otherwise visit, (Malta?) suddenly left me feeling...greedy! I took that as a sign and the perfect reason to book the cruise - at what other time would we consider Malta or Tunisia to be on our destination list? (it helps that I did a lot of research on Malta and Tunisia!)

So why not just book a Med cruise with all the ports of call we would want to visit? That's easy - Price. Kids 17 and under cruise FREE on MSC. That, and the itinerary fits perfectly into the plans. MSC also offers travelers the option of getting on the ship at different ports in the itinerary, which makes for more flexibility. So the Bookie/Financier found a cheap flight from Edinburgh to Pisa (Florence) and for $60.00/person we're not only to our embarkation port, but we're close enough to Italy's Cinque Terre to visit for three days before we cruise!

The last little bit of the frame will be figuring out how to get from Italy to Paris to catch our flight home on August 18. Most likely we'll take a train, winding our way through France, but now that the majority of the skeleton is in place, filling in the blanks feels like a cinch!

Valetta, Malta, Maltese Islands
An ancient city


Click for a live web cam shot of Valetta Grand Harbor









This is a nice little video describing Malta and the Valetta Water Front in particular

Have You Ever Seen an IRC?

The Secret Life of IRC's

IRC's are a well kept secret. In the US they are called International Reply Coupons, and are used when you need someone from another country to send something to you in the US, without them having to pay for the postage to send it. Here we call it a self-addressed stamped envelope, and being that I needed something sent to me from England, they don't use our stamps. You'd think you could just send them a bunch of their stamps on an envelope, but that won't work either...thus, the IRC's. Simple enough, you would think.

Now why would I need these things anyway? My quest started when I read that you could request *free* tickets to a *very special* and *exclusive* ceremony that takes place at the Tower of London every night, called Ceremony of the Keys. (How special could it be, if it's every night?...)

Promptly at 9:30 every night, for the past 700 years, there is an official locking up of the Tower. Turn the lights out and lock the door, it's time for bed! At one time Ceremony of the Keys was public, but now you have to request tickets in writing many months ahead of time, especially if visiting in July or August (...so that's what makes it special!).

First you must submit your letter to the Resident Governor and Keeper of the Jewel Tower with your exact date of visit (with a back up date, just in case!), include all the names of those in your party, include a SASE, or in the case of those living outside of Britain, 2 IRC's, send it off and hope for the best.

Well trying to find a "Coupon-Response International" was a small adventure on its own. After my fair share of Googling, I finally found some information on what it was, and was fairly forewarned that many-a-post office clerk would not know what it is. If they did, then be prepared to be told that they are no longer being sold, and haven't been for years. Bollocks! (practicing my cockney there...) I'm here to tell you the USPS does still sell them, you just have to do some digging. Oh, and it helps if you ask for the right thing...

And from the US Postal Service

What are international reply coupons?
International reply coupons (IRCs) provide a convenient method for you to prepay replies from foreign countries. You can send your correspondent one or more coupons. Your correspondent exchanges the coupon for postage in his or her country. One coupon in the United States is exchangeable in any other participating member country for a stamp or stamps representing the minimum postage required for an unregistered airmail letter. If you are sending something that requires more postage than a standard letter, you should inquire with the appropriate foreign postal administration about how many IRCs will be needed to complete your transaction.

For a very funny take on the whole matter of IRC's, you must read this thread. I find British humor very entertaining!

So after making 5 phone calls, talking to 4 different people, 2 of whom had no clue as to what they were, I was able to get them from the HUGE main PO distribution center on Henrietta Road. It didn't help that I was calling them "Coupon-Response International", as is stated on the Tower of London website and clearly on the coupon itself, but go figure, we call them IRC's in the US. Had I Googled IRC, I would've found the info right away. I hightailed it over to the BIG Post Office before they changed their minds about having them, and $4.21 later I have my two IRC's in hand and I'm feeling mighty smart for having figured it all out!

They are very pretty, these IRC's, and remind me of the beautiful foreign money you see in other countries. So I thought I'd scan it to show you. Now you know what to look for. Hopefully I've saved someone else a little time.

Sidebar: Ironically enough, the term "Ponzi Scheme" was coined in the US after the "investment" in IRC's in the 1920's.

I've drafted my letter to the RG and KotJT, and shall be sending it off tomorrow. With any luck, we'll be accepted and get our tickets...now I'll just need to remember to pack them...

Travel Agents...Our Second Career, perhaps

Me thinks by the end of this trip, both Mike and I could be travel agents. Not that Mike doesn't work in this capacity on some level already - he's the go-to man whenever friends or family need a cheap airline ticket.

The latest development in the itinerary has the last fourth of our trip sketched out, and fits in perfectly with our schedule. We're looking at a week-long cruise of the Mediterranean, starting in Genoa and hitting ports in Marseille (France), Barcelona, Tunisia, Malta, Sicily, and Rome - a port a day! We found a cheap flight out of Edinburgh to Pisa/Genoa, which allows us to roam the Cinque Terre (oooo!) for a few days before departing from Genoa.

We cruised with MSC and rang in 2008 on their ship, the Lirica. Most Americans haven't heard of MSC, as they cater to the European market, but it's one of the biggest and fastest growing cruise lines and is just beginning to target the US and Canada. They have a brand new ship being launched in July, the Splendida. It's the sister ship to the Fantasia, which launched in Fall 2008. The Spendida will be right out of the wrapper - by the time we board the ship on August 8, we'll be the 5th public sailing. Not sure if that's a good thing....

The thought of a week of (relative) relaxation after 2 1/2 weeks on the road makes me absolutely giddy! Even though there won't be any relaxing days "at sea", and the cruise itinerary is a busy port-a-day, not having to drive or ride a train to get to a hotel will be great! Dinner will be ready, the beds will be made, the towels will be clean, and we'll have the best views of the coast you can have. That, and we were really confounded as how to visit all the places in Italy we wanted without a bunch of back-tracking. Not sure yet if we can get a reasonable flight from Genoa to Paris, but we can always take the train to the City of Love before our flight home 3 days later.

However, it's not booked yet...I'm having a tiny anxiety attack over whether the ports are worth visiting. So with that being said, I'm off to do some research on Tunisa. Now, have you ever heard of La Goulette?