Amy and Brandon's Visit to Ireland

Amy and Brandon (friends from Tennessee) visited us in Ireland for a few days, and are now traveling in England and Scotland for a few more days before coming back to Dublin for one last night next week.

The first day of their visit Amy and Brandon wanted to visit their long-lost family castle, the Crowley Castle, in a tiny town in County Cork.  The highlight of the trip was Brandon's distant relative, Liam Crowley, a Cork native who drove with us to the castle and gave us a local tour.  Liam was great and drove in our car with us for about four hours, showing us various historical sites in Cork, and then took us to a great little pub in Ring to dry off and drink some Guinness (we were really soaked from rain).  Liam was so passionate about his heritage and the history of his family and country that he almost teared up several times while telling us about his hero, Michael Collins, the great Irish leader and freedom fighter.

That first night we stayed in the coastal town of Kinsale at the The Old Presbytery B&B.   The second day we visited the port town of Cobh to see where the Titanic left from before it's tragic trip, then went to the Rock of Cashel and Kilkenny to drink Smithwick's in the town where it's brewed.

The next two days Amy and Brandon did some sightseeing in Dublin during the day while Richard and I worked, then in the evenings we hit the town for some Irish music and visited the town of Howth for the cliff walk and dinner.

Getting soaked while Liam tells us the Crowley history

More history from Liam at the birthplace of Michael Collins

At the pub in Ring

Drying off by the fire

Titanic monument

Lunch at the Rock of Cashel

Rock of Cashel - 11th Century

Carvings in the Rock of Cashel cathedral

Kilkenny Castle

Smithwick's Brewery in Kilkenny

Tasty Smithwick's

Bilbao and San Sebastian

To celebrate 30th birthdays we travelled to Bilbao and San Sebastian.  MacKenzie, Richard and I stayed in Bilbao the first night, then met Holly, Jeff and Jesse for the remainder of the week in San Sebastian.  We stayed in a great apartment a few minutes from the beach and had fun practicing our Spanish skills.

The highlight of Bilbao was visiting the Guggenheim museum.  In San Sebastian we hiked Mt. Urgull, drank sangria during sunset, visited a neighboring small fishing village called Hondarribia, and ate pintxos most nights.  San Sebastian is known for it's good food and night life, so most nights we would go "pintxos-hopping", eating small plates of food at four to six different bars where food is eaten by patrons at narrow bars while standing up.  Pintxos is the Basque version of tapas, which are often drank with small glasses of txakoli, Rioja wine or beer.  Txakoli is a regionally produced very dry white wine that's poured from high to make it slightly bubbly.  Our most common sentence we said in Spanish was most likely, "Seis txakoli, por favor!"

The other big highlight of the trip was when Jeff proposed to Holly on the beach during sunset.  It was such a great surprise and so special to witness.  Congrats Holly and Jeff!

Cathedral in Bilbao

.

Our first pintxos and txakoli in Bilbao

Mack and Richard drinking Rioja outside of one of the pintxos bars

Jeff Koons "Tulips" at the Guggenheim in Bilbao

Jeff Koons "Puppy" made of flowers and soil

Guggenheim designed by Frank Gehry

Mack and Richard enjoying coffee and pintxos for lunch

The beach in San Sebastian with Mt. Urgull in the background

Spanish style lunch in our apartment

view from Mt. Urgull

Celebrating Mack's 30th birthday with sangria

On Playa de la Concha at sunset

Typical Basque lunch in Hondarribia.  For this lunch we had sangria, fried anchovies,
tortilla de bacalao, grilled shrimp, clams, squid in their ink and albondigas.

In the medieval walled section of Hondarribia

She says "YES!"

On the beach in San Sebastian

Going for a swim

Camping into my third decade

I've entered my third decade.  For celebration number one, Richard and I went camping on Lough Ree in County Roscommon.  The camping was not very rustic but fun nevertheless.  The only campgrounds we could find were also caravan parks so were complete with bathrooms, hedges and plenty of other campers. 

The second (and more blockbuster) celebration will be in a few weeks in the Basque region of Spain.  Stay tuned!

Birthday cake at book club made by Carrie  

Our proud camp site

Camping dessert, chez Steve Adams (butter crackers with butter and Mom's jam)

Lough Ree

Lough Ree

traffic

April

April was very nice here in Ireland, and we tried to use the good weather wisely. Here are some things we did.

Rode bikes along the Liffey and saw Frida Kahlo at the IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art).

Went hiking in the Dublin Mountains, just west of Enniskerry.

Found an old Triumph.

Went to Howth Harbour.

Saw some tempting offers at the harbour restaurant.

I biked to Wicklow Head. Needed some recharging at destination.

Kelsey had her book-club in town. The books feature prominently.

I went surfing off the Clare coast.

We managed to have two picnics in one day. First, beach on Bull Island.

Then transformed the cheese into sheer speed.

And then an Easter special picnic with help from Mops in Merrion Square. It was great, you should have been there.