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...

Londen (ie, Dutch for London)

It had been so long since Michelle and I had heard a train announcement in English that I think we both forgot how nice it is to actually understand what's going on. We took our trip to England last weekend, a trip that was actually Michelle birthday present from me last year. It just took us this long to get around to actually doing it.


We stayed with Michelle's family friend Pam in her flat just south of the main city (about a 30min train ride), though we spent most of our time touring the city. It's quite a large place, that London is. We saw most of the sites from the outside: the shopping district, Buckingham Palace, The houses of parliment/bigben, the Westminster Abby, the many different markets, Hyde park/marble arch, etc. There are more, but I think the list is long enough.


Pam also showed us England on a more personal level, taking us out for some delicious fish and chips, and making multiple, mean cups of tea. We even had a cup at one of her friend’s houses, who is currently acting in a London stage show. She also took us to her posh gym, where I got to swim laps in the brilliant pool :)

Lastly, and I think most important in terms of this trip, is we all went to see Phantom of the Opera! Great show... I highly recommend it if you are ever in town :)


Oh, and Marcus stopped by too! (College exchange student/friend :) And we enjoyed both tea, and some English brews together.

Flu and Valentine's!

Due to an overwhelming flurry of requests, this is finally a post by me, Michelle. Ok, so perhaps there hasn't really been a request, but I like to think that you all would like to hear from me too! Unfortunately Chris writes most of the blog posts while I am at work so I haven't been as involved as I would like. So here it goes...

Poor Chris was struck by a nasty flu bug this weekend, leaving him pretty miserable. Luckily he had Monday off, as his tutoring students were still celebrating the Chinese New Year, and was able to recover most of the way. He seems right back to normal now! As for me, I spent the week trying to fend off the bug. Come Tuesday though I noticed my bike ride home was a bit harder than normal and figured I was weaken by the start of the flu. Wednesday came and the ride was ever more difficult and I was convinced the flu had really set in. Then Thursday the ride was unbearably tough. My usually nice ride home left me exhausted and my legs aching. Much to the entertainment of Chris, I brought my bike upstairs for Chris to discover I had been riding with a front flat tire and wasn't sick at all! Nice work Michelle, ha! Tonight I put some air in it and had a fantastic ride home.

'

Also this week was Valentine's Day and we were curious to see if/how it would be celebrated here. Contrary to the explosion of pink and red hearts seen in the US, things were a bit calmer. A few people mentioned the day, restaurants posted specials, but it wasn't much different than a normal day. As for us, we had a typical day too, doing our traditional Thursday night shopping (as the shops are open late that day). I was surprised by a beautiful bunch of tulips when I got home though (see above)! That Chris! Speaking of Chris, here are photos of his new favorite hobby. I'm starting to become convinced that he isn't actually teaching lessons when I go to work, but is learning new guitar tabs, as he always has a new song to play when I come home, haha!

'

Well I hope you have enjoyed my first blog post! I'll be sure to write more in the future. Hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day and enjoys President's Weekend (especially if you have Monday off!)