The food And drink of Ireland (for us)

Since I'm a self proclaimed foodie, no trip would be complete with out food.  Good food that is. 

I'm sad to say that not every meal I tried in Ireland was the best breakfast/lunch/dinner I've ever had in my life.  Some of them couldn't even pass as good.

However a few of them were definitely something I want to eat again.

Since we most likely will not be returning to Ireland anytime soon, I plan on searching the web in order to obtain such recipes. 

I didn't get the chance to take a picture of every single meal we ate but here are a few I did manage to take some quick shots of before we devoured them.
I should also confess that I can't remember every detail of every meal (or even the name of the dish) so sometimes all there will be is a random picture.

Bon Appetit!



Fish and chips from the Royal Crown in Belfast. 



White fish combined with bell peppers, onions and a cream sauce.
Delicious!






Aaron's first burger of the trip.  He said it was good.





Sweet goat cheese tart with caramelized onions over a bed of greens with a sweet sauce.  It was delicious and I hope to make it again.





Kilbeggan whiskey from Locke distillery.  Sooo smooth and it went down easy.  Lovely.



Our first (and last) complimentary pint of Guinness from the rooftop bar at St. James Gate.



More fish and chips and the BEST dish I had: Guinness beef pie.  It had so much flavor and I would like to make it too!





Welcome summer!

As usual I am late.  Usually when I say this out loud in a group of women they get all wide-eyed, gasp and whisper "you're late?!! You mean you're pregnant?!"  So sorry to disappoint, AGAIN, but I'm not that kind of late (as if you even really needed to know that...) and really, you should all know better by now.

I'm just late welcoming summer.

So, here goes:

Welcome.  Summer!

In case you didn't study your calendar this year the first day of summer was supposed to be the 21st of June.

I misunderstood and thought it was supposed to be today because today it feels like summer.

I feel it, so it must be true.  'Nuf said.

Anyway, due to the fact that it is now "officially" summer, I want to do everything and nothing at once

(everything because it's beautiful outside and nothing because it's too hot outside)

Because I can, I choose to tell you some of the everything/nothings I plan on dipping my toes into this summer:

I want to work out in my yard and make it beautiful, or at least tolerable,  instead of weedy and trashy.  I would like our little yard to be an escape and somewhat of an outdoor room during the summer month(s).

Maybe a little like this:

from Sunset magazine

Since I enjoy reading so much, I'm always looking for the next book to read even if I'm in the middle of another.  I plan on doing a lot of reading this summer. 
On that note, I went to a favorite book store today and  picked up several new books in honor of summer since summer and all that it embodies is fresh on my mind (ie. gardens, beaches, sun).  One is "the Secret Garden"- a true classic about a garden....that is a secret.  Hopefully I didn't ruin it for you.  I plan on reading that book right after I finish another book: Under the Tuscan Sun.  Yes, it is an older book (1997) and a movie was made based on the book and I didn't love it.  However, a friend recommended it to me and I decided to pick it up.  So far,  I've thoroughly enjoyed it.  In fact, to me it feels like the ultimate summer read because every time I pick it up to read it is like taking a drink of a tall glass of ice-cold water after being outside in the intense heat all day. 
It's.......refreshing.

Speaking of drinking, I plan on drinking a lot of sweet iced tea...(you have to say that with a southern accent) and any other icy drinks that find their way into my "hot little hands," as a creepy, older man who works at Burlington Coat factory told me one day.  True story.

I hope to (try to) sew a few summery tops

a hybrid apron (I'll explain that in a later post),

and cut up and "re-fashion" some older clothes of mine.

I plan on cleaning my house by a) weeding out all of the unnecessary items or things I haven't used in over a year from every room in the house and b) possibly having a garage sale to get them out of the house.

I will buy and then consume an unhealthy amount of watermelon.

We are planning on taking a few weekend trips here and there over the summer to enjoy some other states' summers.

I'm sure I had some other plans or will have new ones over the summer but I just felt the need to share.

Hopefully some of our summer will be spent with some of you guys too!!

Have you ever...

Have you ever played a little game of "have you ever?"

No? Yes?

Same here.

Well.....let's not make this any more awkward than it already is and get things started, shall we?

Have you ever....

seen the movie "the Princess Bride?"

If the answer is "yes", then you'll (soon) realize what I'm talking about.

Have no idea what I'm talking 'bout? 

Just so you don't feel left out take a look at this and get caught up:

Okay, so the reason I wanted you to watch this little video was so you could see what we saw.

No more, no less.

If you want to see more of the movie, that is your responsibility.

Anyway.....Did you hear the little,bald guy mention "the cliffs of Insanity!?" 

Sounds great, doesn't it?

Well don't get too excited.  Last time I checked, cliffs by this name aren't really out there.

However, in real life there are some cliffs Ireland call the "cliffs of Moher."

And they are real. They can be found in County Clare on Ireland's west coast

In fact, word on the street is that the cliffs on insanity are actually the cliffs of Moher.

And they are a-maz-ing.  AMAZING!

Here is the insanity section that we saw:

Does it look familiar?

But wait!  There's more!

Here is the rest of the cliffs:

                                                and the tower that rests upon them....



Ireland- Day 3- Random nothingness with a little something

Not every day in Ireland was amazing, over the top fun.  Some days were pretty ordinary but still fun.  Like day 3 was. 

Let's start out with something that became pretty routine for us Aaron: driving the rental car. He initially decided it would be a good choice both size wise and financially to rent a small car and we became the proud foster parents of a Nissan Micra.

Little Mr. Micra liked to be driven on the left side of the road, so Aaron obliged and I came along for the ride.

We saw signs printed in words we could not pronounce,

at speeds we (originally) couldn't comprehend.

Then, we saw sheep and they saw us. 

Good times.

But that wasn't all we saw that day.  We also payed a visit to Castle Coole. It was built in 1798 as a summer house.  House?   Don't be fooled by the name, it's actually not a castle but a VERY large, very "grand house".  I fell for Castle Coole because, A) It was the first ridiculous/grand house we took a tour of, and B) I kept imagining one of Jane Austen's characters visiting or living in a house just like this.  It was impressive, gaudy....and pretty wonderful. 

I decided that it should've been mine.

But unfortunately, it wasn't for sale and a little sheep told me that even if it was, I wouldn't be able to afford it.

So we decided upon something else we could afford.

It was good.

The end.



Northern Ireland- Day 2

Did I mention the previous night in Belfast we got home close to 11 pm because we literally could not find a time OR place to catch a bus home so we walked for over an hour?

And I had to pee SUPER bad (as in def com 4).

And there were no toilets to be found?

No?

True story.  But enough about that distant memory.

The next morning we woke up early, had breakfast prepared for us and it was amazing!!  I had french toast with cut up Irish bacon and cheese melted over the top of it...AND syrup and Aaron had an omelet.

From breakfast we decided to take off and head drove further up north.  On our way out of the B and B's driveway, we saw two people who were really dressed up and going door to door.  We decided they must be out in service so we stopped in the middle of the street and waved them over. We asked if they were Jehovah's witnesses and they replied "Yes," so we said, "us too!"  We had a brief visit and were so happy to start our day out with that!

The B and B owner recommended a castle, Carrick Fergus to start with. 

We did.

It was fairly interesting but a little too touristy for our taste.

So I talked to one of the tenants but he didn't have much to say back.

So I stared him down....still nothing.

Take a look:

 

Did I mention it rained and rained for the entire first week? 

Yes, so things were a bit moist and we had a bit of difficulty keeping water off the lense of the camera as it was blowing right into us. So my apologies for any water spots.

One of the places I wanted to see the most was the Giant's Causeway.

Legend is that a giant named Finn McCool built it.

You can read the rest of the legend here Giant's Causeway legend 

Others (as in scientists) say it is a lava flow from a nearby volcano.

Even though I think the latter is more like it, I do like the legend as well.

Regardless, the place is amazing and should not be missed.

We moved on and eventually out of the north.  We had no plans as to where we were staying that night and figured it would be fairly easy to find a hotel in one of the bigger towns.

We were wrong. 

We drove in circles, back and forth with very little help from the GPS.

We finally pulled over, asked someone where a place to stay could be and then drove in circles again.

The place we were told to drive either didn't exist (not likely)

OR the directions were awful (we're betting on that one).

We finally settled on a B and B that the GPS recommended.  By this point, it was 10 pm and Aaron was brave enough to knock on the door and ask if there were any rooms available.  It turns out there are very few hotels and that B and B's are actually Ireland's version of hotels.  It was okay that we had no reservations and the couple was so warm and inviting that they even served us tea and cookies in their sitting room.

One of the things we discussed was this amazing, "derelict" structure in the middle of a farm field.  They told us it was called the Ogilvy mansion.  Derelict or not, it was breathtaking and almost like it was straight out of the movies.

Since the last post on Tuesday, I've saved then deleted 3 different posts.  It appears my blog is "broken".  I can't get my blog on.  Uh-oh.

Maybe it's a side effect of jet-lag (probably not....but it's easy to blame). 

AND I got sick, AGAIN and my will to do anything other than breath through both of my nostrils is all but gone.  Maybe that's it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm trying....

So while I try to figure out what to blog about next, I figured I'd share two more songs that are new to me since we heard them in the car driving around Ireland.

First one up:

Imelda May- Inside Out

She's from Dublin and I like her style.

A lot.

Then there is this one from Lykke Li- I Follow Rivers... (what is with these names?!  I love 'em!)

The video is bo-ring, but if you do something else while you listen, it's not bad.



Ireland- Day 1

We heard the best way to adapt to time change ( 8 hours for this pack of Worcesters) is to go all day until evening then get to bed a bit earlier.  That was the plan.  So with no sleep for over 24 hours, we (meaning Aaron) drove out of the Dublin airport, heading further north to Newgrange in the Boyne valley. 

On the way there I saw an old tower and old, old, old stone houses.  Unfortunately, no pictures were taken because we sped by them before I could even register what I saw.  But back to our next destination. 

Word on the street is that Newgrange is one of several burial sights for a culture of men that historians know next to nothing about other than they picked a beautiful spot to build and they were farmers.  They (meaning historians I suppose) feel it was constructed over 5,000 years ago making it older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

No matter who built them or what they were built for, I have to say it was impressive and rustically beautiful.

these are ALL stones...all of them!



From there we drove to Belfast to find our B and B, Roseleigh house.

But it wasn't as easy as we thought it would be to get from point A to point B.  Since there are very few visible street names OR numbers, it became more difficult to reach our destination, as Belfast is a pretty large place.  Even our GPS couldn't tell us the exact place.  So after circling around the block where this place was supposed to be 4 times or so, Aaron pulled over on the sidewalk.  Not beside, but ON.  I was semi-freaking out about the parking job but as we sat in the car and looked around- voila- we saw the sign for the B and B across the street.  Oh and it turns out that however and wherever you want to park in Ireland is allright with them.  And allright with me.....'cause I was ready for a little down time.