Snorkeling in the Low Isles

Mom got sick in the middle of the night, the same thing happened to her when she recently took a trip to visit my brother, so at least she knew what to do about it.  In the morning she was still feeling bad, so I ran down to the shop to pick up some supplies for her.  By the time we had to leave for our afternoon snorkeling trip, she was feeling pretty good, so we went ahead.  We got on this nice catamaran and sailed from Port Douglas to the Low Isles, and everything was fine until about 1/3 the way out in the boat, when she stared to feel sick all over again, and not sea sick.  She still marched on like a trooper, since it wasn’t quite as last night, but we were only in the water for about 15 minutes before she had to head back to shore and relax on the not-soft-in-the-slightest sand.  

Sick as she was, she still looks adorable!

We wore Lycra "sting suits" to protect us from any jellyfish.  We didn't see any, but it was just a precaution and protected us from the sun as well.  When you had your mask and fins on, the only skin exposed was a little bit of face.

I continued on the snorkeling tour, and saw some amazing things, even though the water was a bit murky.  In addition to the normal corals and fishes, which are amazing in their own right, I saw a giant snake sea cucumber, and sat and studied him, fascinated, for a bit.  That was definitely my favorite part, even though I guess that seems a little strange, I think it was the novelty of it I loved, and being able to sit and watch how he used some appendages around his mouth to grab bits of dead coral, like an elephant grabbing hay with his trunk, and bring it up to his mouth.  Then I could watch the contractions in his body as he passed the food through.  He kind of looked like a 5 foot piece of intestine,with markings like a caterpillar and I imagine intestines move in the same way.  

We snorkeled from the beach of this small island.

I also go to see a giant mollusk.  Our guide pointed it out, but I had trouble seeing it at first.  When I finally saw it, I did a double take.  It wasn’t at all like I was expecting.  First of all, it was huge, I think it could have easily closed around me.  Second, it wasn’t empty in the middle, like you imagine it would be after seeing the painting of Venus.  It had a membrane/muscle that filled edge to edge, with a couple of stovepipe type holes that he uses to pull water in and out.  Lastly, it was so colorful!  Turquoise and white around the edges, purple and black on the inside.  It was beautiful.  

The ride back was awful for Mom from start to finish, and she spent most of it with her eyes closed.  We picked the afternoon trip specifically because we were supposed to cruise back during sunset, but that’s pretty hard to enjoy with your eyes closed.  Just as well because there were too many clouds to see a proper sunset.  It did, however, create some really cool shadows that one cloud would cast on other clouds, and some lovely light beams shining through.  

It was just coming on dark as we pulled into the marina, and it took me a second to realize that the big birds flying overhead in a massive group were not birds at all, but bats!  The captain confirmed this for me, he said they live in the bushes and come out at night to hunt in the nearby rainforest.  There were so many of these things, there had to be millions.  I stood and watched and clouds of them just kept coming and coming and coming, and were still coming with no end in sight when we docked.  I thought it was pretty awesome and sad Hubby missed it, as we are both bat fans and it’s hard to take proper pictures or video of that kind of thing at night.

Best shot I could get of the bats.

Tomorrow we have another snorkeling trip planned.  Let’s hope mom wakes up feeling better, like she did last time this hit, so we can go out and enjoy it together.

Australia adventure begins

When I was about 13, my parents took us on a trip to the Bahamas.  While there, my Dad and I did the one day resort course to learn how to scuba dive, and then we went on about 3 dives.  I loved it, and someone said to me that if I liked that, I ought to see the Great Barrier Reef!  So ever since I was 13, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef have been in the top 3 of my must-visit list.  Over the years I always felt like I never had enough time or enough money to make the trip, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to the super long flight, so I never went.  Now, more than 20 years later, I finally decided there’s no better time than now (the time is never “right”), and went for it.  Hubby had no interest in visit a place where “everything tries to kill you,” and is definitely not a fan of heat or long flights, so I decided to go alone.  When I told my Mom this, she suggested we make it a Mother-Daughter trip, so now here I am, on day 2 of happily traveling around Australia with my Mom!

The flight was awful.  Not as bad as I expected, and somehow also worse than I expected.  I am not looking forward to the return trip, but luckily I have plenty to distract me in the meantime.  From the time I left the house to the time I landed in Australia was 30 hours.  Granted, a good chunk of that was waiting around in airports, but I’ve still been in the same clothes, dragging baggage, breathing recycled air for 30 freaking hours straight.  I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep, but that’s all I could manage.  I feel surprisingly good, considering the sleep thing, but I think I am just too excited to care. 

Luck was with me from the start, breezed right through border control, and my bag was dropped onto the belt right as I walked up to the baggage carousel.  But next was customs and I was worried.  I’ve been watching that Border Control show, where they tape the guys here busting people trying to sneak stuff in.  It did teach me a few things to avoid, but also made me very paranoid.  Turns out, it was super easy!  Not only did it go really fast, but they didn’t even make me open my bags and they let me keep all my food!  Score. 

Right outside baggage claim was a man with my name on his board.  I should have taken a picture, I don’t think I’ve ever had that before, and I didn’t even have to share the car with another passenger (unlike Mom, for some reason, who had to share with another couple in a van, even though I thought we had booked the same thing).  When we stepped outside the airport I was already in love.  The air just feels different here, and I don’t mean the massive humidity, it felt magical.  I asked him if I could sit up front so I could enjoy the view, and I am so glad I did.  I was amazed the entire 1 hour drive.  Ireland is green, but this is like GREEN!!!  And gorgeous mountains.  Reminds me a lot of Kauai.  We drove down a road that had tons of trees on both sides, then along beaches for a while, and this one quick corner had the most amazing view of the peninsula.  I also got to see a large herd of wallabies grazing in a field off the other side of the road.  

Only one of the great views along the drive.

As we got closer, the driver told me that it was Market day in Port Douglas, so when I found out my room wasn’t ready (it was only 8am), I left my bags and went shopping!  Very kind of hippy/beachy vibe here, but not pretentious, everyone was super friendly.  And very safe, apparently, and no bums, which I know my brother would love.

I was already badly in need of a shower before I went to market, but I was super ripe after market.  It may have only been 9am, but at about 86°F it was already 30°F hotter than Dublin, and massive humidity.  Summers in Georgia and Virginia should have well prepared me for this, unfortunately the time in Dublin has got me pretty well acclimated to milder temperatures.  I was melting and my face was all red and blotchy.  But I wanted warm, and I got what I asked for.  Might not be ideal for walking around town, dressed for a chilly airplane, but will be great for when we are in the water.  Still, I was happy to get into my room and clean up a bit.  I debated jumping in the pool while I waited for Mom, who’s flight was about 4 hours behind mine, but I decided to just enjoy the AC for a while instead, and waited to take a dip with her.

It was as nice as it looks, and our room overlooks the pool.  The other side of the hotel just looks at the road, so we scored in the view department.

When Mom arrived she was starving and wanted to check out the pop-up market that was about to close, so we dropped her bags and headed straight out.  We picked up some good produce at the market, had a quick lunch, and then were back at the hotel to book a trip for the next day (all other trips had been pre-arranged).  Once all that was sorted, it was finally time to relax.  We hit the pool, and although it is empty almost every time I check it, this was apparently prime pool time.  We ended up talking to a couple from Melbourne, and the conversation eventually degraded into discussing Donald Trump, as it so often does these days, unfortunately.  We wrapped it up shortly after and, since we already had our suits on and towels in hand, went to check out the nearby beach.  I liked it, it had nice soft sand, it was pretty quiet, not too crowded, and was just beach and palm trees as far as the eye could see.  It’s actually called 4 Mile beach, and it’s easy to see why. 

Some irregular weather has kept the jellyfish (marine stingers) in the area longer than usual, so they had a small area netted off that was safe to swim in.  We dared not swim outside of that, as these jellyfish can actually kill a human!  It was a little awkward all trying to swim in the same, very shallow, area, but it was nice to finally go into some warm water! So few beaches I visit have water warm enough to want to swim in.  After that, we’d had about enough fun for one day, and headed back to rest a bit before dinner.  

This sign worked on us, we were too scared to go outside the netted area.

I had planned to take Mom out for a Mother’s Day dinner, since we had such a quickie lunch, but unfortunately neither of us made it that far.  Considering the last time I slept in a bed was about 48 hour prior, and only managed to sleep about 4 hours on the plane, I was pretty happy that I made it until 6:30pm.  I probably could have gone later if we hadn’t sat down in our room, I didn’t have a chance one my butt hit my bed.

Even though we didn’t do anything special to celebrate, and we were both travel weary, I think kicking off a Mother-Daughter trip to an exotic place we’ve both been wanting to see for ages is a pretty good way to spend Mother’s Day.

Giant's Causeway

We’ve been in Ireland for a year and a half now, but I still haven’t seen much of the country.  It’s slightly embarrassing when friends come to Ireland to visit, take a tour of the country, and leave after a week or so seeing so much more than I have!

Two years before we moved here, hubby took one of these tours himself and saw most of the highlights.  He hates long car rides, so convincing him to take a 4 hour drive to some place he’s already seen is tough, and we don’t usually want to do overnight trips because doggie can’t come with us.  I keep saying I’m going to go off on my own and take one of the day trip tour busses, but I have yet to actually do so.

I was talking about this with my friend, neighbor, and fellow American, YB (or at least that’s what we’ll call her here).  Since Christmas, she has taken me on two trips, the first to The Giant’s Causeway, the second to Powerscourt Estate.  The second is close, but not really hubby’s idea of a good time.  I’ll tell you more about that trip later.

YB needed some items that could only be bought in Northern Ireland.  In case you didn’t know, Northern Ireland is actually part of the UK, as opposed to the rest of the island which is the Republic of Ireland.  Being part of the UK, they have UK stores, and UK products.  Now she only had to go as far as Belfast, but figured since she was going that far anyway, she might as well take me all the way north to the Giant’s Causeway, which was at the top of my to-see-in-Ireland list. 

I had already heard one version of the story of The Giant’s Causeway and thought it was a fun story.  The moral is supposed to be you shouldn’t pick fights with people bigger than you, but my take away was that a clever wife is invaluable.  You can get a quick version of the story, and some of the science, here, or a long version of the story here.

Hard to believe these weren't intentionally laid as a path when there are perfect walkways like this.

We went on the first Monday in January, when most people were back at work, but the school she worked at hadn’t resumed yet. This meant it was cold, but also minimal crowds.  The day started off with some light rain, but the weather forecast for our destination said that the rain would be stopping around noon, so we decided to go ahead with it. As noon approached and we re-checked the weather, it moved the sunshine to 1pm.  Then again to 2pm.  By then we were there and could see a break in the clouds coming, so decided to sit and have a late lunch while we waited for the sunshine.  After eating we gave up and just headed outside, but the rain had mostly fizzled out by that point, and didn’t start up again until we were heading inside.

We had to walk over a kilometer from the visitor center to the stones, but it was a very lovely walk, with cliffs on one side, and beach on the other.  We passed one corner that was, according to the audio guide, the windiest spot in Ireland.  Although I’ve been in worse by my house when the weather turns bad.

The "trail" to the outcropping.

Much scarier when you are headed down.

But look how far out I got to go!

When we finally got to the stones, they were as amazing as I expected.  Since it was such a long trip up, and since I didn’t know if/when I would be back, I wanted to see every bit of it.  YB may not have been too thrilled with that, as she’s seen it a few times and wasn’t as excited to see it again, but she was happy to let me have my fun.  I walked out as far as I could on every bit, and was surprised that I never slipped once, even though the rocks were wet from the rain.  It made it feel like it really was a path made for walking on, and not just a random geological event.  Even with the small crowds, I had to wait for my turn in some areas, but it wasn’t too bad.  The only part I had trouble with was this section where you had to go on this skinny trial on the side of a hill to get out to the next section.  That was a bit scary, but going back was actually worse!  Eventually I had to turn around and head home.

Being in the UK also means that my phone would be roaming, and paying super high roaming charges, so I didn’t have my phone on.  YB’s phone was running low on battery and she didn’t have a car charger.  I thought she knew the way, she thought I knew the way, neither of us could use our phone to look at the map, at least not for long.  We only got slightly lost, but between that, the poor weather and heavy fog slowing us down, and the shopping trip that spurred the whole adventure in the first place, the entire trip was about 12 hours.  Slightly longer than we expected, but it was totally worth it.  It’s hard to explain why it was so fun, but it was beautiful and amazing and I am so glad that I went.

Afternoon Tea

Last Sunday I went to an afternoon tea at The Merrion with my American Women’s Club of Dublin ladies, and a few ladies from the American Embassy, including the Ambassador’s wife.  Because, you know, why not?  No, this is not something we do every evening, or even every month.  This is a once a year fundraising event, which made it all the more fun.  If we did it all the time it would not have been as exciting.

While many of the ladies in the club are very sharp dressers, I usually am not, and really looked forward to the excuse to get all dressed up.  I had an outfit in mind for months ahead of time, and thank goodness we had unseasonably warm and dry weather that week, because I was going to wear my peep toe sling back satin pumps even it was below freezing and raining!

Photo courtesy of Patrika Mani, Massage Therapist.

In addition to wearing our fancy clothes, we all took the opportunity to wear fancy hats.  Only two of us (myself included) were lucky enough to have a friend (who couldn’t make it to the tea) loan us a hat.  The rest of us all borrowed hats from the Milliner (hat maker) for the event.  We were very lucky to have Sophie Hunter Millinery come to display her wares.  Not only did she bring a huge selection of hats, but she helped us choose which one would work best for us, and how to put them on.   

Photo courtesy of Sophie Hunter Millinery

Photo courtesy of Sophie Hunter Millinery

Turns out the hat I was wearing (the borrowed one) was both on backwards, and designed for a part on the other side of the head.  Who knew?  Even though I was super happy to have a hat already, I still tried on another one, which was amazing.  I wore it around for a bit but then gave it back because the last few ladies in the door had slim pickings, and I wanted to give them a chance to wear the awesome hat as well. 

This was the hat on backwards, but I still kind of liked it like that.

This is what it's supposed to look like,but it looked much better in person.

This borrowed hat was awesome, and the center a much darker yellow than shows here.  The other hat does make it easier to chat with the people on my left though.

When Sophie first laid out all her hats, I thought they were interesting, but there were only a couple on the table I was really drawn to.  She had a huge selection, and so of course, they weren’t all going to be my cup of tea.  That is, until she stared putting them on us.  I was amazed at how well she paired them with the wearer, and how the colors of some of them matched perfect with the outfits!  She obviously knows what she’s doing, and how to a make us look fab.  Okay, I know I’m going on quite a bit about these hats, but honestly, it was my favorite part!  I think I’m not the only one, we all spent a lot of time checking each other out and taking pictures.

Photo courtesy of scruplesnoregrets.com

Photo courtesy of scruplesnoregrets.com

Look at how well those red and purple hats matched the outfits.  Those were ones loaned at the event, but Sophie could not have done any better if she had planned this in advance!  Photo courtesy of Sophie Hunter Millinery.

Once we finally got all dolled up and sat down, we got our fancy pants trays of goodies.  I found out that there are two different types of teas: and Afternoon Tea and a High Tea.  An afternoon tea has finger sandwiches and pastries, a High Tea is more like a full meal.  There’s probably more to it than that, but for our purposes that’s good enough.  We had lots of little finger sandwiches and pastries, so this was an Afternoon tea.  

Photo courtesy of scruplesnoregrets.com

At first we were all trying to figure out how to divide up the snacks, since there wasn’t enough on the table for us each to have one of everything, but we quickly found out that they would refill the trays.  They weren’t skimping on the food here, they actually ended up taking food away at the end because we were too full to finish everything they brought us.  

Photo courtesy of scruplesnoregrets.com

Photo courtesy of scruplesnoregrets.com

Photo courtesy of scruplesnoregrets.com

Photo courtesy of scruplesnoregrets.com

Then they brought out the “art dessert.”  We each got our own individual plate of desserts that looked like little pieces of art, but none of us could figure out quite what they were supposed to be.  Once we were all thoroughly confused, the server brought out some little playing card sized pictures of the art work which inspired the treats, as well as a short description.  One was called “Frying pan, fennel, eggs & lemons.”  I was really hoping this was not also the flavor inspiration.   It wasn’t, by the way, it was a yummy citrus flavor.  Once we had an image of the original artwork, we could see what they were doing with the desserts and appreciate them a little more.  Then we dove in.  The best was the chocolate one, yum!

We weren’t quite done yet, though.  Remember this was a fundraising event.  First we had the CEO of our charity, Ruhama, give us a little talk about the charity.  The quick description, taken from their website, is:  “Our services are comprehensive to meet the broad range of experiences of women affected by prostitution.  We provide a service to women who are currently involved in on-street and off-street prostitution; women who are exiting prostitution; women who are victims of sex trafficking; and women who have a history of prostitution.”  She gave some quick examples of how some of the women they helped were tricked into sex trafficking, then also some success stories of ladies they helped.  It did damper the mood a bit, but it was a good reminder of what we were there for.

Then we did the drawing for the raffle, which got us perked up again. There was quite a selection of prizes, mostly gift certificates (vouchers if you’re Irish), including one from my friend TheYankee Baker.  Some women were very lucky, not only winning multiple prizes, but also winning one of the two prizes hidden on the bottom side of our chairs.  Don’t get me wrong, no one was greedy, most people would say they’d won enough and to draw for someone else, but we had a lot of prizes and a small group.  Between the event price and the raffle, we raised €925, a pretty impressive number for only 50 ladies!

I think we were there for two hours, but time sure flew by while we chatted and snacked, and soon enough a good time had to come to an end.  I’m already looking forward to next year!

Teeling DistilleryTour

In a rare confluence of events, Hubby and I both had free time, energy, felt good, wanted to go out, AND had a sunny, dry day.  We could not pass up this opportunity to go out and do something fun.  We haven't been out exploring Dublin much, not like when we first moved here, so we decided to go check something off of our to-visit list.  Hubby has been drinking Teeling whiskey for a while, but we didn't know about this new local distiller until we saw a TV show about it.  The owners wanted to bring a distillery back to Dublin, there hasn't been one here in over 100 years.  Unlike the other tours we have done of the Guinness Brewhouse and Jameson Distillery, this is actually a working distillery.  The other two were at one point a working distillery, but are now just a glorified museum.  This one did have a little museum like section at the very beginning, where you waited for your tour to begin. While we were waiting there I noticed that something was off with the photos they had hanging, two of them seemed to be swapped.  So you know I went and said something about it, then helped the guy swap them around.  So I come to go on a tour, and first thing I do is re-arrange their gallery!

We learned that the three copper stills are each for a different stage of distilling, not for doing three batches at once.

The first thing I noticed was the smell.  At the Jameson distillery, they just made it smell like malted barley, which is a nice smell.  Because they were actually doing the work here, we smelled the fruits of their labor, which is a lot of fermenting grains, which doesn't smell so nice.  It wasn't too bad though, hubby thought it just smelled like whiskey.  This distillery works at least 6 days a week, and was supposed to be working on the day we came, but the distiller called in sick!  Oh well, it was probably easier to hear the tour guide this way anyway.  Some of the info we already knew from the Jameson tour, but this guy talked a LOT about the "tax man."  He said one of the reasons those stills are so wide is because they are taxed on how high the stills are, but not on how wide.    The glass and bronze box pictured below with the three bowls in it is also for the tax man's benefit.  Even the guys with the fun jobs have to worry about boring bureaucratic lame stuff too.

To finish up the tour, we got to taste some of the whiskey.  This place is unique in that it has different tickets available; they are all for the same tour, but get you different tastings at the end.  We had just the basic ticket, which got us one shot of whiskey and one whiskey cocktail.  I didn't like the cocktail but hubby did, and we both loved the plain whiskey.  I'd had it at home, but appreciated it much more after the description he gave us and tasting it in the manner he described (not just throwing it in your mouth).   That being said, I was totally jealous after I saw all the glasses the other people had and wished we had sprung for the pricier tickets.  Next time....

I also loved the bar area, it was modern but still warm and cozy, and I thought it would make a great place for a party.

This bar was very quirky, it just looked like a bunch of planks of wood thrown down with a slab of stone on top!  Somehow it works, though.

We were surprised to run into these bottle yourself stations in the small gift shop.  I've seen bottle your own olive oil or vinegar places, but never bottle your own booze!

We also enjoyed seeing all the things they made out of old whiskey barrels that had reached the end of their life.  They had tables and bottle holders, which I've seen before, but they also made lots of Christmas decorations, including a few full trees.

The tour was a bit quicker than we expected, so we weren't ready to head home just yet, and decided to try out another place hubby had heard of a month ago, but we never managed to get to.  

This is the next place we went to, do you see the bar here?

He read about a pop-up bar that was Christmas themed, even playing Christmas music the whole time.  Since Christmas is only a few days away it was now or never, so we headed over even though we knew it wasn't quite time to open yet.  He explained to me that the trick with these pop-up bars is that they they are only temporary,  and they don't have signage when they are not open for business, and don't advertise or even make it easy to find, I guess it makes it cooler.  We only had an idea where it was because of what he had read earlier, and the guy standing around out front that seemed to be a security guy.  Still, we stood a few doors down and just kept peeking over, it wasn't like a normal place you could line up at, we weren't even positive we had the right spot.  Did you find it in the picture above?  Here, let me show you:

Can you blame us for thinking we may not have the right spot?  When they were finally ready to open we heard some music, they removed the red gate, and light was pouring out of the door.  That was it, it wasn't even worth taking a picture of.  The inside was picture worthy though!  The bar was actually downstairs, this door just opened onto a staircase that led down, but they had a "Santa's Grotto" sign handing there, and some impressive Santa and elves paintings on the stairway wall.

Once we got downstairs we found the small bar that was very cozy, had scented candles burning, Christmas decorations everywhere, and even Christmas Crackers on all the tables.  If you don't know what Christmas Crackers are, look at last year's post.  We were the only people in there, having rushed the doors as soon as they opened, and first thing the barman gave us some Crackers to pull, this was hubby's first one! He didn't even know that there were things to dig out of the tube, he though that the bit that fell out was all there was, but I knew there was a crown and a joke in there.  I made him wear his paper crown for a while, but it didn't last the whole time.  At least he was a good sport for a while :)  

At this point in the year, the barman said they were so tired of the normal Christmas songs, so were looking for all kinds of alternative versions.  I was a little disappointed in that, but hubby was excited to tell them about the Bad Religion Christmas album, and they played the whole thing through for us. We were, after all, the only customers for a little while, and we were having a lot of fun with the guys as they continued to get set up.  One of those things was making the mulled wine, which took them FOREVER and started to become quite a joke.  Once it was finally done the first glass he served had the spice bag still in it! Once we finally got some mulled wine we headed out, having enjoyed our first Dublin Fun Day in quite a while.