It's a grand old land so it is

Bon Soir everyone!

Last time I spoke with you, I had just cooked tex-mex style food in Paris, which was difficult because the small stores we went to didn’t have things that I take for granted like cheddar cheese, or any cheese besides brie or emmenthal. Our tostadas still turned out alright, however, and we left our host with an entire pot full of refried beans. We also had an awesome pear tart and I had AMAZING apricot ice cream the day before we left Paris and I intend to replicate them both at the earliest opportunity.

We saw some art museums but other than that we didn’t do much of note in Paris but relax and enjoy, I think we really baffled all of the Frenchmen we met because we treated France as much more of a meeting place than a destination. Although I loved the food in Paris I think I would like to see other parts of France because it reminds me a bit of New York City and it would be interesting to see smaller towns.

For breakfast the next morning we left we had a bread dessert (pain perdu) our host made for us with bread sugar and cream and egg and bean burritos which we ate on the way to the subway as the sun rose.

Our flight to Dublin was fine except for the Beauvais airport, which was a huge cluster of madness largely because of the fact that the airport had one security line and four gates. Also, French people have no idea how to queue, which is why I am glad to be back in the UK area.

Dublin was lovely, we had full days of activities all four days we were there, but we never had to rush around too much. We saw the national art museum, the national history museum (which had lots of neat old metalwork and some bodies of people that were recovered from bogs. Bog people, by the way, never just fell into a bog and died, they all were brutally killed and then thrown in)

After the museums we appropriately ended the day with a tour of the old Guinness storehouse. The building doesn’t function anymore except as a museum (sort of like the coca cola museum for you southerners) but it was interesting to see all of the old ad campaigns and we did get a free pint and a novelty pint shaped oven mitt to keep Courtney’s ghost oven mitt company. An oven mitt collection is really dangerous by the way, so we have restricted ourselves to only novelty SHAPES not just designs. Guinness here is much lighter than Guinness at home and very nice except for the slight burnt popcorn taste.

The next morning we saw the Oscar Wilde memorial and did a bit of shopping (I got an Ireland soccer jersey—I have discovered that I have very expensive taste in clothes except that I go for soccer jerseys instead of Louis Vuitton purses) and then we went to the Old Jameson distillery. This tour was a bit redundant because making whiskey is pretty similar to making beer except for distillation, but there was a completely ridiculous audio visual (video) about John Jameson at the beginning. It was about a ten minute video on a man that managed to give the audience absolutely no personal information about him, his business, or the process of making whiskey. We learned that he: was patient, awesome, wore a green jacket and shoes, and we saw a lot of shots of the old buildings in Dublin in sepia so we could imagine it back in “his time.”

We met Courtney’s high school friend Stacey on one night in Dublin and watched football and went to Messrs McGuire and someone I don’t remember’s Pub, where they had a beer that tasted like a pale version of Guinness somehow and a very odd dj, but the building itself was old with lots of carving and a huge wood staircase so it was still enjoyable.

Since that night we have been on a three day bus tour targeted at young backpackers so that you can see the countryside on a budget. It is nice because our days are planned for us and transportation to all of these small places would be difficult on our own. Plus the people watching in our group of fellow travelers is amazing. We have the odd couple (literally) the pretty couple, the American newlyweds, 80’s guy, and sandwich guy (who has since graduated to food guy). We have seen:

*Countryside in fair weather and not

*Another distillery

*An old monastery (Clonmacnoise) where there is an awesome whispering doorway that has carving that transfers sound from one side of an archway to another

*Lots of cliffs, lots of ruins, and lots of good Irish superstitious stories told in a very convincing fashion.

*The Atlantic ocean, which we put our feet in because the saying goes that when you put a foot in the ocean in Ireland you leave a little piece of your heart here (awwww)

Tomorrow we go to see the blarney stone and another castle before we go back to Dublin and on Monday we leave for a tour of northern Ireland, which is nice because people watching is getting boring with this particular group as we have already categorized everyone in it.

Pictures to be added on my return to the US July 16 or later, deal with it.

Slante everyone! (Pronounced Slan-sha, which is a Gaelic toast meaning good health)