Irish Easter

Michelle had a 4 day weekend for Easter this week, so naturally we did what anyone would do, and went to Ireland. After a very long day of travel, Michelle and I finally arrived at our Hostel on the Dingle Peninsula, right on the edge of Ireland’s largest national park

The hostel was a really cool place, with very relaxing and beautiful views right outside of the window. While I think we were the only ones there who didn't have a car, the guy in charge was nice enough to drop us into town (about 2km away) and bring us back on almost any occasion.

Saturday, we got up early, and decided to test out our Dutch bike riding skills on some Irish landscape, and took the 20 km ride into Dingle town, the largest town on the peninsula at about 1500 people. It was a very cool place, both in temperature and in metaphorical sense.

A local shop keeper recommended a route for us to take, as we went on down the peninsula.
Here is a picture of him outside of his shop:

So Michelle and I continued on, stopping first at a beach for lunch

and then later for some photo ops, and to look at some sheep.

We eventually headed back to our small town of Annascaul, completely knackered from our 50km bike ride. So naturally, we decided to check out some of the town's 8 pubs (note, the town has a population of 350 people...I don't know the math on that, but I'm pretty sure that’s higher than almost any town's bar/person ratio...). The South Pole inn, with its pet dog was our starting point. It was the originally opened by 1900's South Pole explorer Tom Crean. We stopped next by the second pub pictured for a quick pint, and then on to Hanafin's to blend with the locals, listen to some live tunes, and drink a night cap.

The next morning, Easter, Michelle and I walked down to the small church for our first English service in since August.

We discovered in our time at Annascaul that Michelle is really becoming an "animal whisperer."


After we left, we spent some time in a proper Irish town...or at least a larger one; Traleé

And lastly, we took an interesting bus ride back to Shannon for an early morning flight on Monday. I have no idea how the bus made it on the road for over 30 minutes, but then again, I'm sure there are plenty of things out there I don't know...

Oh, and so much for the first day of spring... we were welcomed back with snow!

***Gross Content Warning***

In an effort to combat the disaster that has become living in Europe and earning US dollars, Chris embarked on a project this week. I'll just start out with some pictures and explain it all later.

So yes, this is Chris. The tube you are looking at entered his nose and was fed into his small intestine. All 1.8 meters of tube, all the way to his intestines. To make it even more appealing, things such a riding his bike made the tube retract back up and later Chris would have to fed it back through his nose again.

Probably about now you are thinking Chris is crazy, but he was part of a very lucrative study at my university. The tube entered on Monday was removed on Friday, and 450 euros will be deposited into his account shortly; pretty good for a week of work, especially since the euro exchange rate has skyrocketed to $1.56. Actually the study itself was quite interesting, looking at the effects of meal replacement shakes on hunger. In some of the pictures you see Chris hooked up to some pumps. These pumps are pumping fat directly into his intestine to see how this affects his hunger. Today when the tube was removed I met Chris just in time to watch. It was a process like nothing I had seen before...much like the never-ending scarf trick performed by magicians. Chris commented about how the tube tasted just like the lunch he had eaten and I just about lost my own lunch. Luckily it was removed sucessfully and Chris feels fantastic to be free of it!

Oh yes, the city is really gearing up for the Easter holiday here. Even the cheese is ready to celebrate!! Hope you all are well!

Panic!

Michelle and I took a trip last night to Tilburg, a fairly big town just a ways north from us. However, we didn't go to sight see, or take care of any official business or even to visit anyone. We went to go see Panic at the Disco! (a band from the US for those that don't know.)

On our way up, we had a classy dinner of a loaf of French bread, salami, cheese, crackers, nuts, chocolates, and some fine AH Italian wine. Quite yummy.

We found the venue just around the corner from a pretty cool old church. I'm sure it looked very nice during the day, but after the concert, it actually looked very similar to the photo below to Michelle and I. (In other words, it was a very late night)

However we did have a grand time! Michelle and I were getting warmed up as some of the early bands played.

Then finally Panic! came on around 9:30 and played for about an hour and a half. They did play quite a sweet show.

Sadly though, we still had to ride the train home afterwards, and then the bikes home from the station... we finally got to sleep around 2:00. I guess we feel older when that sounds like a late night for us...