JennyAndJames.com

Today 7 kids from the Czech along with their leader, Barb, arrived at the airport.  We got there an hour early, so we wandered to an internet cafe to make our Cique Terra reservations for the last part of our trip.  We picked the kids up in a taxi/van after greeting them and headed back to Dingle.  The kids were very excited to stop at Inch Beach along the way (many of them had never seen the ocean until today…they were beyond excited).  Tomorrow morning we leave for our 4 day trek along the coast.  We will be back on July 5th.  Sorry we haven’t posted pictures yet…we will have time to try to do that when we get back from our hike.  We love the Czech kids!  They all speak English really well (Lukas and Vera especially).  They all have great personalities and we are looking forward to getting to know them over the next 5 days.  Can’t wait to tell you more when we get back.  Make sure to root for Czech against Greece in Euro 2004 tomorrow night!  We will try to find a pub tomorrow when we set up camp so the kids can watch it…it may be a sad trip if they lose.[@more@]

Yesterday we ended up wasting away most of the day sleeping in until 1:30pm.  Wow!  That jet lag is a killer!  Once we got our barrings, we walked to downtown Hertford for lunch.  Downtown Hertford is a quaint town full of inviting restaurants and a surprising number of salons.  At night we went to a church service with Jenny, which was only a 2 minute walk from her house.  We really enjoyed it!  It was great to worship with people from a different country.  We then went to an Italian restaurant in town and enjoyed Jenny’s company while eating a very good meal.   We got up at 4:30 this morning and hopped in a taxi to the Stanstead airport.  After an uneventful flight, we arrived at Kerry County airport in Ireland around 9:00am.  Greg met us around 9:30 and drove us to the small and charming town of Dingle.  We checked into the Grapevine hostel, where we will be staying for the next 3 nights.  The buildings here are very colorful and full of life and people are delightful!  We are enjoying soaking in the sights, walking around town, eating lunch, and catching up with Greg.  This afternoon we drove to the spot where we will be dropped off for our trip with the Czech kids, who will arrive on Wednesday morning.  We saw many sheep and beautiful grassy hills along the northern coast of the Dingle Penninsula on our drive.  On the way back we picked up a couple from Spain who now live in Germany and are on vacation here.  We are almost ready for bed.  Tomorrow we have to buy our food for the week, find some fuel for our stoves, and wrap up some other details.  Hopefully we will have a chance to upload some pictures of this beautiful place tomorrow.  Thanks for your comments!  Jason…no more rubbish (aka trash) posts…we know it’s you![@more@]

Well, here we are in Hertford England!  We arrived at the Heathrow ariport a little past noon London time after an uneventful 9 hour flight from Denver.  Just as the flight attendent had said before we arrived, the weather was "dull."  After retreiving our 3 backpacks and giant North Face bag, on our second attempt, we made contact with Jenny, a Young Life intern from the states who lives here.  The first of our treks began after Jenny gave us the name of the train stop where she would pick us up.  With all our 200 pounds of gear we headed for the Tube (London’s underground subway).  At the Tube we stood clueless of how to get from the airport to "Hertford East."  Two nice people gave us tickets to use on the Tube, but that didn’t solve our problem.  We resorted to buying another ticket at the ticket counter so that we could get the needed directions.  (Later we relized that we don’t need to buy a ticket to get advice.  Oh-well.)  So we hopped on the Tube and headed for Hertford.  After an easy switch to a different Tube line we arrived at a train station where we boarded yet another train which actually stops at Hertford East.  Everything went smoothly and we arrived at Hertford East.  A few minutes later Jenny picked us and our 200 pounds of gear up.  Good thing she had a big (on European standards) car!  She drove us to the place where she lives with a Young Life comittee family and showed us where we will be staying for the next two nights before we head to Ireland Monday morning.  After a shower and a nap we got to eat a wonderful dinner with Jenny and her friend Sarah.  Things are good.  Tomorrow we might go see some sights.  Check back tomorrow for (possibly) some pictures.  It’s 11pm London time (4pm Denver time), so good night.[@more@]

Tomorrow at this time we’ll be weaving our way through the London tube trying to find a place to stay. We’ll be meeting up with a Young Life leader named Jenny and then flying to Ireland Monday, the 28th. Our first, and possibly only, backpacking trip will be on the Dingle Penninsula beginning July 30th. We are taking 7 kids from the Czech Republic (4 girls and 3 guys) and their Young Life leader, Barb. From what we’ve heard, most of them speak decent english, but we will try to brush up on our Czech just in case. We will have 4 extra days in Irleand due to a small ticket booking mistake, but don’t know yet what we will do…probably just explore Ireland. July 10th, we fly to Zurich, where Greg Fuchs, the brains of Eurotreks, will meet us and take us to his home in Germany. From there we may head up to Poland to help with a camp (we don’t know too much about this yet). Then, we will get to spend some time resting in Italy for a little over a week…at least that is our tentative plan. Keep checking our site for updates![@more@]