On the Road Again...

The Catechist Café will be hitting the road for the summer, and you will be welcome to come along. In a few days we are heading across the Atlantic to Amsterdam for a quick visit to a city we are very fond of. About ten years ago we rented a houseboat moored near a centuries-old windmill. Amsterdam’s tram-rail service ran close enough to our location so that we could get from our houseboat to the transportation hub downtown in about thirty minutes. It was the best of both worlds.
 
But this time our Amsterdam visit will be brief, and we will tote our bags from the hotel to the Celebrity Cruise Line boarding center. [They are next door to each other!] Celebrity will spirit us off for some [very] new adventures: for a week we will be circling and exploring Iceland, including two days in Reykjavik and several straddling the Arctic Circle. We will be there before Iceland experiences a total eclipse of the sun in August, but we witnessed a total eclipse in 2017 from Clemson University’s golf course in South Carolina, of all places. Iceland is expecting an onslaught of tourists later in the season.
 
I know nothing about the country, per se, so I am looking forward to investigation the nation’s religious heritage. It is not covered in ice; it is thermally active with some sites offering the opportunity to take hot water baths from springs. There are beautiful landscapes resembling Ireland in some places. There is a place where you can cross a walking bridge between tectonic plates, North American and European. So, we expect to learn a lot. The cruise continues to Edinburgh [my first visit to Scotland] and several British islands before returning to Amsterdam and an immediate flight to Orlando.
 
After a 10-day break at home to do laundry, take a physical, and pay bills, we hit the transatlantic route again, this time flying to Shannon Airport. Ireland is our home away from home, and we will be there for six weeks, including two weeks each in both Galway and Valentia Island, and prolonged visits to Killarney and Dingle. On Valentia, we expect a lot of company as my in-laws and Margaret’s cousins from the area will be joining us in a large rental at Knightstown, a tiny port town overlooking the Atlantic and the Skellig Islands. The Catholic Church is open every day [Mass every other Sunday]; there is a fine bookstore for an island of six hundred residents, a little market with fresh baked goods every morning, and a countryside rich with relics of the good, the bad, and the tragic. I developed my love for the aroma of peat logs in the fireplace on Valentia Island.
 
My goal for the next ten weeks is to post as close to daily as possible, providing commentary, particularly on the religious settings and the scenery that touches the soul. Unfortunately, I can only do the posts on the Facebook and Linked-In sites of the Café [both sites named “The Catechist Café.”] The “technical base” will be back in Florida and unavailable on the road. I hope all of you can connect, though, and if you have questions or commentary, send them along and I’ll meditate on them as I meander my way across the countrysides.