Swans

There are so many of them here. This weekend there was an abundance of them on Lake Luzern in Switzerland.

One in particular kept swimming slowly by us as we sat on the edge of the lake, eyeing us and waiting for crumbs. But when I pull out the camera he does this:

And then the next day we caught this guy trying to blend in and get some treats from the swan fans:

Silly Duck, Trix are for... well, no one in Europe. 

Treasure hunting

Chris and I did something we haven't yet tried on a trip yet. We split up. He really wanted to go to the Old Jameson Distillery and tour it and I...did not. So I looked up a few markets to hit up in the area while he got a few free shots (post to come by him at some point).

Before we did though, we had a quick lunch in the Jameson restaurant. Normally I wouldn't want to fall for tourist trapy types of food places but honestly, it was delicious. That might've been due to it being out first meal after racing but, still.

I left him to his tour and soon after I found this gem:

This was by far the best market I've been to in awhile. I slowly perused the tables and finally chose one book to take home. I always feel like I'm leaving the others behind when I pick one. Like I'm choosing favorites. Which is ridiculous but hey, I'm the girl that cried at 14 when I finally had to give most of my stuffed animals away so other little kids could enjoy them. And also so I could grow up. I still feel like Mrs Pound Puppy was devastated.

Anyway, the book I ended up taking home was one I haven't read yet by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. His book "Shadow in the Wind" is one of my absolute favorites. And I think it is so because of the way in which I found it. Underneath three layers of books and upside down, being sold for 25 cents in a tiny yard sale that I almost passed by since I didn't have any cash but a few coins on me at the time. The book itself is about another such book that was hidden and then discovered by someone who treasured it and kept  it safe all his life even when both were threatened.

Have happy weekends, we are off to Switzerland where bad weather is being forecast but I'm sure we'll make due. See you Monday.

Aillwee Caves

This part wasn't exactly my usual cup of tea though it was very cool. My favorite part of it all was the story of it's discovery. And please excuse these photographs. Obviously the lighting isn't great and I didn't take time to fiddle with the settings and without a tripod...well you get the (very blurry) picture.

The Aillwee caves were discovered quite by accident in 1944, when a farmer named Jack McGann followed his dog who fell into a hole while chasing a rabbit. McGann went into the hole to get his dog back and found himself in the cave. 

--Now, here is where the tale differs slightly from our bus driver/tour guide to the cave guide to the internet. But I like the bus driver's interpretation best so we're going with that.-- 

For thirty years McGann kept the knowledge of the caves to himself, exploring them and telling no one. However, on one rather inebriated night in 1973 down at the local pub, McGann began bragging about what he'd found in the mountains. He bragged to the worst possible people: a group of archaeologists! So they investigated and though he was given credit, work began on opening it up to professional exploration and later public access. 

Can you spot the "praying hands"

The most harrowing part of the trip wasn't when everyone was instructed to turn off their lights and we all stood in utter and complete darkness. It was walking over the "bridges" cut into the side of the wall and made out of see-through metal grating. I'm sure its 100% safe. But I don't usually do things like that. I shudder to think of doing it again.

Unrelated to Ireland, I ran my first 13 mile run in years yesterday. It felt so great! Minus the multitude of bugs, of course. I'm getting more and more excited about this marathon. That's so weird to even type out considering I never thought to run one. Ever. But October 6th, I'm so excited for you to get here!

The Celt Pub

And now on to another of my favorite parts from our trip to Ireland. This was our first night in Dublin and we were wandering about, trying to find some food and came to this pub. The Celt Pub was such a relief to find when the two of us were about to get very hangry on each other. 

And then we were delighted to find that not only was the food pretty darn good, but we were about to be treated to live music as well!

This song has been in our heads since that night. Take a listen:

I may bring back more from this night another day, but for now, Happy Tuesday (update: It;s Wednesday and my brain just figured that out three hours after initially posting...) see you tomorrow!

Park Run in Malahide (Dublin)

I have so much of our trip to Ireland to show you all. First, I am going to take you along on one of my favorite parts of our trip. 

It is Saturday Morning in Dublin. We wake up at 6:30 in our temporary apartment and sleepily dress in running clothes and racing shoes. Hop on a bus twenty minutes later and make our way to Malahide, Ireland. You see, two weeks prior to our trip I was searching for 5k races to do but we had several trips to go on during the time period I wanted to race in so I searched in Ireland and Switzerland near our destinations. What I found was the coolest thing. 

There is this organization called parkrun that holds free, weekly, 5km timed runs around the world. "They are open to everyone, free, and are safe and easy to take part in." What a cool way to get involved in running races without committing to an expensive and elaborate event! 

Some of these people are f-a-s-t! The person who won our race went 16:27! Pretty darn quick. There were 368 people who ran in our race. Here's the results for Chris and I:

And, bonus. There was a castle in this park. Irish castles aren't particularly grand and decorative but they are many! 

Vanilla cupcake with rainbow sprinkles?? Delicious. One of the best post-race "recovery" snacks I've ever had.

My only regret is that we couldn't stay longer in this cute harbor town. Another time!

Thank you (and a little soccer)

Check out that #10, what a cutie

We went to Ireland this weekend and it was beautiful and lovely and I will get to that later but first, some Chris and some soccer:

Imec, the company he works at here in Belgium, had a tournament for any employees who wanted to sign up. Quite a few teams of guys (and one girl) did, and Chris joined one. Turns out he joined the best one. Or maybe it was that he made it the best? As you can see goals were scored on numerous occasions. I'm a pretty terrible sport-action photographer, but you get the gist of the evening. It's always so fun watching Chris, I'm glad he keeps finding soccer events to join up with. His final indoor game was a few weeks ago but more on that another time.

Now, a little smidgen on the HGTV fallout:

Wow, guys. When we decided to do this HGTV thing it was more of a "hey, we'll get a little cash, it'll at least be good for a laugh, never done anything like this before" kind of thing than anything else. But we've had friends and family get in touch with us that we haven't had a chance to talk to in a while and it's been wonderful to hear from everyone. I know it's not necessarily a reflection on us that people have reached out and been kind to us. It just makes me so thankful for the people we have come in contact with through the years and those that we don't get to see or hear from or talk to at all, still found a second to reach out after the episode, it just means a lot.

We definitely appreciate it so much that any of you took time out of your Friday nights to watch the show and cheer us on! I know it would have been hard for me to choose between the only East End Fest Rochester was having this year and our show. Honestly I would have stayed in buuuut that's probably because I also chose to watch Jane Eyre over going out drinking once. And I don't drink, probably the more important reason hah! For those that DVR-ed it we still appreciate that too, obviously! There were mini viewing parties happening all over upstate New York and we're just in awe of all the love we woke up to the next morning from everyone's responses.

Thank you

Okay, enough gushing. I'm getting sentimental because Christmas music keeps coming up on my shuffling iTunes and I miss home more than usual this morning. Back to business. Or rather, Ireland. See you tomorrow!

Gare du Nord

I noticed Gare du Nord was dressed up the last time I went through. I like their adornments.

But my favorite part is this::

We're in Ireland this weekend, hopefully standing on the Cliffs of Mohr as you read this, or not if it's super late in Irish time, and we'll be back on Sunday night. I hope we're not too humiliated after tonight's episode, we'll have to wait to watch it online. Enjoy it tonight!