Bye Jess and Brian!

Here are Jessica and Brian in The Phoenix Park.  The park has heards of wild deer (but they are kinda used to people)  and is the largest city centre park in all of Europe!  Luckily when we took a little visit we were able to find the deer straight away! 

Well today Richy dropped Jessica and Brian back to the Dublin Airport!  Wednesday we met them up in Belfast.  They had been traveling in England and Scotland the previous week after leaving us! It was so nice to get to hang out one last time before they headed home.  We loved hearing about their travel experiences.  We were able to have dinner with some of Richy's best friends, Colly and Linda, who live just outside of Belfast, tour the city, and squeeze in a few more pints and bangers and mash!  We then took a tour of Armagh and Madden (where Richy grew up) before heading back to Dublin!  I was happy they got to meet Richy's Dad, Mom, and Brother!  We ended the trip going to pubs with traditional Irish music!  Great and LATE fun! 

Sad to see them leave but I have a sneaky suspicion they will be back one day.......

Up next is Crisitn's trip to Ireland!! Really looking forward to this trip as well! :)

St. Patrick's Day in Dublin

Paddy's day in Dublin was fabulous!! Couldn't have asked for a better day! to recap...we started the day off by driving to south Dublin to take a dip in the 40 foot swimming hole.  Think this is kinda a local thing, but every Christmas day hundreds of brave people take a dip in the Irish Sea...Jessica, Brian, Richy and I thought we'd give it a go! All I can say is brrrrr and we saw far too many old men's bums...ha! Good experience I have to say and it sure woke me right on up!

Then it was home for showers and a traditional Irish breakfast..toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled tomato, beans...yum! 

Off to the parade next.  People in green were everywhere...it was shoulder to shoulder and at that moment I was so happy stores couldn't sell alcohol until 3. After we got tired of the crowd we nipped into the first of many pubs!  

Later that afternoon we headed to croke park to watch a football match then headed home stopping off at pubs and a quick bite to eat along the way!  What a fun and eventful day!  I had mentioned earlier in a post that I had been warned about horrible drunks, but we managed to avoid all the crazy people!  Towards the end of the night we had fun dancing in the street with randoms!  Some man had a tin whistle and this girl who was organizing everyone to do Irish dancing!  Too funny...Of course we all joined in! It will be a hard day to top!  So much fun!

Ireland = Beautiful... visitors part 2

After the failed stone kiss attempt...we headed to another fishing town called Kinsale on the south coast.  After wandering in and out of little stores, lunch of fish and chips and oysters, we headed out to the country side to see what we could see.....what a discovery we made!!!  This area was so natural and untouched!  WE LOVED IT!  Enjoy!

Visitor Highlights part 1

After our stop in Cobh we stayed the night in Cork, the second biggest city in Ireland.  We had a fun night out on the town with some of Richy's friends who live there!  We also got to stay in a fancy hotel that Richy helped designed!  Very swanky!

More of the little town.

Brian and Richy by all the big fishing boats!

Jessica and Brian had heard of this statue of a woman called Annie Murr, who was the first  immigrant to go through Ellis Island in NYC.  This statue points in the direction of NYC! Who knows..maybe we'll be pointing our way there next!!?!

This is a little fishing town called Cobh (pronounced Cove) This is just outside Cork on the southern coast.

This is an awkward picture is of me attempting to kiss the famous Blarney stone..legend has it, if kissed you will receive the gift of gab...funny story in the trauma of being practically baptised into wall by the random man, I ended up kissing the wall of the castle instead of the Blarney Stone...I mean I kinda thought the stone would be on a stand and you walk up and kiss it normally...not back bending to kiss a stone that isn't in sight! haha
Waiting in line to attempt to kiss the stone!
not all together sure why this pic is sideways, but my friends Jess and Brian waiting in line...they both kissed the stone!
In front of the castle!  We thought we had too many pictures of the same so decided to shake things up!

Well Jessica and Brian made it  to Ireland from Conway Arkansas!  Richy and I had been looking forward to this trip for months!! I took some 367 pictures so I'm just putting up a few highlights!  Separate Paddy's post (note Richy said why do all you Americans write Patty's day and not Paddy's day?!)  Anyway we had a BRILLIANT time with Jess and Brian!! Couldn't have asked for better weather too by the way!  It was sunny and actually kinda warm!! sunny and warm aren't usually words I put with Ireland! ha!

Friends are here!

Well today I picked up a very sleepy Jessica and Brian at the Dublin Airport!!! I'm so excited they are here!  Let the fun begin.....Blog posts to come soon! :)  Oh and happy Paddy's Day!! I'm told Dublin is a mess of drunken Irish teens, so we'll more than likely go to the parade early, hit a football match, and finally the pubs closer to our house! :) CHEERS!

Swans

As I may have mentioned before we live very close to a canal!  It really is nice on a sunny day to take walk around it and observe the swans.  They are curious creatures that's for sure!  We watched two male swans approach each other with their feathers puffed up...One decided it was a bad idea and began to retreat, but the bigger meaner swan was having none of it...he chased the swan down the canal, before both took off flying!  The mama and babies are nice and just go about their own business!  Here are some pics of our walk around the canal.

The OxFam Shop

As I think I mentioned before I help out one morning a week in the OxFam Charity shop down the street.  They have me organizing the donated items so they look nice.  I also do the window for the shop.  Working with limited inventory is changeling but I enjoy helping out!  Usually by the end of the day the window is in shambles (annoying) but at least people are buying what I stick in it! A nice little creative outlet for me during the week and for a good cause as well!

www.oxfamireland.org/

Panicake Tuesday! aka FAT Tuesday!

I look horrible here!  We'll blame it on walking home from my night class in the rain...notice the crazy hair!

Well the Irish know how to do Fat Tuesday!  Called Pancake Tuesday over here you can guess what we pigged out on!  Richy was the chef as I wasn't certain pancakes could be made without the help of Aunt Jemima! The pancakes were excellent...more like what I would call a crepe, but very yummy!  After the first round of pancakes with bacon and an egg, we moved on to dessert.  Pancakes with chocolate and ice cream!  Funny that the USA is the only country that gets a bad wrap for being overweight! ha! 

Good time to travel!

I came across this blog and thought it was interesting.  Especially the article on European travel!  Check it out and book your flights!  I have mentioned that my friends Jessica and Brian are coming in March and  now my friend Cristin is flying over in April!  So excited for both trips!  

http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/flight-patterns-europe-on-sale/