CARLINGFORD, IRELAND

Hey guys!

We arrived home from Ireland last night and I wanted to write my first post before I forget our new Gaelic words!

This was our first experience staying in an Airbnb and it definitely set the bar high. The price was right and although staying in a room in someone else's home might not be for everyone, we would highly recommend the experience! Our host, Jacqueline, was so welcoming and helpful. She drove us to the bus station, spent an entire afternoon driving us around the mountains, and taught us a lot about Ireland. (She also warned us that our hostel in Dublin was going to be quite noisy...more on that later.)

This trip was a bit of a do-over because our trip to California this spring was full of bickering and seagull poop. I wanted something relaxing this time so we stayed in a medieval village (with castle and all) and spent our time being fairly low-key (living like locals, visiting the pubs, and walking).

Here's a taste of our little Irish village.

The entrance to the town. One of my new favourite expressions is "have in or take away" (instead of dine in or take out). You can see "take away" written on this Ma Bakers sign.

Other new expressions include:

Slainte - Gaelic for "cheers"
What's the craic - what's the fun/what's the gossip
Have a wee - as in, "Do you want to try that new restaurant? Why don't we have a wee?"
Cead mile failte - Gaelic for "a hundred thousand welcomes" (this was already very familiar to me because it is on a sign as you enter the campus of my alma mater)
Grand - great, wonderful, good

Our walk up the mountain led us through "Leprechaun Habitat" - ha! Of course, we found the pot of gold.

In front of King John's Castle, built in the 1200s. Everything about this town sparked my imagination because of the medieval ruins - so fun!

These are ruins of a Friary, built in the 1400s. Our Airbnb was directly on the other side of the Friary and our bedroom window faced the ruins. No hotel will ever top that!

Our host told us CS Lewis gazed over at this area of Ireland and the location inspired Narnia. I didn't want to look into these details too closely because I am very eager to just accept it. I was in Narnia. The end.

You know me and of course I had to throw in a food photo. This was from a Tea Room that was very kitschy and yet quite a novelty and very adorable. Hubby had an "Irish breakfast" which included... black pudding. (You may have heard this called blood sausage or blood pudding.) I tried a little taste of it suspecting what it was while he had no idea.

More later on a couple of little day trips we took.

HOW TO: PHOTO BOOKS

Have you ever attempted to make a photo book? Let me tell you it is one frustrating process. I have tried at least three times and always end on the verge of tears with nothing to show for it. These websites are not easy to use! But doesn't it sound like such a nice idea to make these photo books from your vacation or family photos? I have this vision of one book per vacation starting with Switzerland...sigh... Scrapbooks of the future.

Tonight I had my FIRST successful photo book experience and thought I would share the tips I have learned through my failed attemps. I used Shutterfly and they have a sale on until Jan 27th if you also have two year old photos to print.

Here are my tips:

1. Save immediately and save often. Is it silly to save your file every thirty seconds you ask? No. No it is not. In fact it is prudent. PRUDENT, I say.

2. Choose your photos in advance. This will save you precious time online pulling your hair out. This is a get in, get out mission.

3. Upload photos one or two at a time. Anything more and these websites seem to implode. It's like Y2K predictions on these sites, people.

4. Upload ALL your photos before you begin formatting the pages and adding your pics to the template. I cannot say this enough. One time my photos were "uploading" for hours and hours and then days and days. They are likely still "uploading" in cyberspace this very day.

5. Shutterfly often has sales so there is no need to buy a photo book at full price. Absolutely no need.

6. If all else fails there is an option for the folks at Shutterfly to place your photos in the book themselves. My friend J has done this and she was satisfied with the result. You lose the freedom to micromanage this terrible project, but on the upside you don't need to consume a tub of ice cream at the end of the day.

I hope these tips help someone out there. Learn from my mistakes. Godspeed.

BEING THANKFUL 2015

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving and in the spirit of being thankful I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the subject.

The last year has been a fairly difficult one in a few ways - living a long distance marriage again and losing two loved ones. Lucky for me working in Medicine I am constantly surrounded by people who "have it worse" and it keeps life in perspective. Absolutely no matter what you are going through things could always be worse and I have that reminder almost daily.

Over the last six months I have started to catch myself when I find myself complaining and instead I thank God.

"I'm so tired" instead becomes "I am so thankful I have a job to go to every day."

"I miss Hubby and Leroy" instead becomes "I am so thankful I have two people in my life to miss."

"We waste so much money on gas driving back and forth" instead becomes "Thank you, God, that we have a car and the money to pay for gas."

I have the tendency to be a little bit on the pessimistic side of things - although I consider it being a realist - and this has really been helping me. If you're like me and sometimes forget to count your blessings, I hope you take this as encouragement to do so.

Top photo taken in Bern, Switzerland. Bottom photo taken in Lucerne, Switzerland - atop Mt Pilatus. Summer 2014.

SWITZERLAND - POST FOUR

I have to apologize for dragging out the posts on Switzerland. It's probably super obnoxious to look at someone else's vacation photos but since I am only living at home part-time I am running out of recent projects to blog about! I am fitting our final three destinations into one post so this is the end, I promise. Here it is.

Our next stop was Interlaken, literally "between lakes". This is certainly a tourist destination, especially because of its perfect location for outdoor adventure sports. Paragliding is hugely popular and with good weather conditions you can watch paragliders all day. They landed in a big grassy square in the middle of town and when the weather was nice we sat on benches after dinner and watched. We also rented bicycles in Interlaken because it was nice flat terrain through town (surprising for Switzerland, right?). We had a lovely bike ride to the lake and swam. We could have ventured further but we didn't feel the most safe biking on a twisty road through the hills with no shoulder (and possibly no helmets if I remember correctly). The lake was fed by mountain water and it was chilly but refreshing! At this point on our trip we were dying from the heat so we welcomed cold water! This was a fun stop and biking was a great (inexpensive) activity.

Next stop. We took the train into Bern for the day. When we were in Zurich (trying on those Prada shoes, remember?) the salesperson was shocked and appalled that we weren't going to see Bern's old town so we planned this day trip specifically for that reason. Just call us day trippers. We were definitely glad we went - the old town was beautiful with lots of character - cobblestone streets and flags of the regions hanging everywhere. We went to the Einstein museum (in one of his old apartments) and found out old Albert was actually a very interesting character! (He was anti-atom bombs and warned the Americans the Germans may have been building an atom bomb. And we all know how history played out from there.) Bern means "bear" and there is a small park near the water that is still home to a few bears. Other fun fact - the original gate into the city is still in place. That's why I think Europe is awesome. (Oh - and in the bottom picture the red thing is a raspberry popsicle because I know you're going to wonder.)

And now our final stop in Switzerland! Lucerne. My friend E lived in this region as an exchange student in high school so I was excited to see her old stomping ground. We only spent one night here and I wish we had more time. This was one of my favourite places, especially because we did a ferry ride to Mt Pilatus and then took a cogwheel train up the mountain, a gondola partway down the mountain, and did "toboggan-ing" on the way down as well. I found the toboggan ride in a guide book before we went, and it was like a slow version of the bobsled on an aluminum track. If you're interested in what that would look like, here's a youtube video. Hubby and I commented to each other that we could actually picturing ourselves living in Lucerne. It was a small city with a familiar feel, somehow.

That was the end of our trip! The next day we went back to Zurich and spent one last night there before we flew out. It was an amazing vacation and we felt very fortunate!

SWITZERLAND - POST THREE

This post is going to combine the next two stops on our Switzerland trip - Zermatt and Gruyeres.

As you might remember, the Glacier Express Train took us to last stop - Zermatt. This is a pedestrian only town; the only vehicles were golf cart sized electric go carts. With a glorious view of the Matterhorn (trust me - glorious is the only word that fits there) it is just the most majestic thing I have ever seen.

We spent a few nights in this town and spent most of our time hiking. If I had to choose my favourite activity in the world hiking in the Alps is definitely top three. Besides hiking we ate a delicious meal of flambe steak which felt very fancy and exciting, did some shopping, and went to the Matterhorn Museum (our Swiss Travel Pass was also a free pass to museums)!

I could have stayed there forever. Again, it is a town known for skiing so I like to imagine us going back there some day. The skiiers in the family can ski and I can lie in a hot tub and eat Swiss chocolate.

From Zermatt we made a quick stop in Gruyeres. We only spent one night in the home of Gruyere cheese - the key ingredient in cheese fondu. Yum. We did a little tour of one of the cheese factories but they were done making cheese for the day so we didn't get the full effect. (Again - free with our Swiss Pass.)

This was an adorable town (and tiny!) with one cobblestone street through the center flanked with restaurants and hotels. At the end of the street is a chapel and behind that a medieval castle (and a weird alien art exhibit??). Every restaurant sells cheese fondu made from their own special blend of local cheeses.

The medieval castle in Gruyeres (not to be a broken record but again free with the Swiss Pass) is open to the public so we did a little tour and video which was a good way to kill some time before our delicioussss fondu dinner. Hubby and I keep a mental list of the favourite meals we've ever had (who doesn't?) and this was totally top ten. During dinner a glider plane (it looked like a life sized version of a paper airplane) was flying around the hills and was actually pretty cool dinner entertainment.

The only downside to this stop on our trip was this is when it started to get hot. Like smoking hot. Like make you fight about stupid stuff hot. And we had to carry our backpacks from the bus station up a gigantic hill to get to the town. First world problems, I know, but really you could add this to our list of marriage challenges. ;) Yikes. But it was an adorable town and the cheese was crazy amazing so totally worth it. If you ever make it to Switzerland, it is worth a stop but one night was enough to see it all.

SWITZERLAND - POST TWO

In post one I talked about our time in Zurich and Kyburg, Switzerland.  Today we're off to St Moritz - a town well known for skiing - and according to my guide book, a favourite of celebs and royals.

St Moritz was a quick stop on our trip.  This was our starting point for the Glacier Express, the express train that took us through the Swiss Alps.  I had read about scenic train rides through the Alps and bought our tickets in advance.  The train was definitely the best way to see Switzerland.  We were scaling cliffs and mountains and passing countless rural towns.  The windows of the Glacier Express extend up to the ceiling so the views of the mountains are extended overhead.

Stores and restaurants in St Moritz were mostly closed due to it being an in between season (ski season was definitely over but summer tourism had not yet started) so we had dinner and walked around the small lake.  We didn't find this town particularly special because it felt like a resort town with expensive boutique stores and not a lot of charm.  The next morning we hopped on the Glacier Express (slight hiccup there when hubby took us in the wrong direction on our little connecting train and we temporarily thought we might have missed the G.E.) and spent the full day traveling by train and watching the gorgeous scenery...and rereading some Harry Potter occasionally.  Here are a few photos from St Moritz and the Glacier Express.