Flat Stanley Takes on Europe

Well here is an unusual blog post...

My aunt, a 3rd grade teacher, back home is having her class complete the Flat Stanley project.  If you're not a teacher or a parent with a child in elementary, you may not be familiar with the character.  Stanley is a character who is flatten by a bulletin board that falls on him in his sleep. He makes the best of a bad situation and uses his flatten body to go under doors, and better yet go in an envelope to visit friends and family around the world.  Now this is something students all over the world do, like a pen pal program.  A student from my aunt's class, wrote me a letter and sent me a small paper Stanley.  Jeff and I took pictures with him on a few of our trips. I thought I would share a few of the pictures I plan to send to my 3rd grade pen pal.

We first took Stanley out in Bruges, taking a few photos of him around the canals, windmills, and city life. He also stopped for a quick bite at a fast food restaurant before hitting the road. 

  

We then took him out for a photo shoot in Blankenberge, so he could experience the sea (North Sea) for the first time!

Although, we forgot to take some pictures with him in London, I decided to extend his time in Europe by bringing him with me around Nottingham. His favorite spots were the Nottingham Castle and the famous, Robin Hood statue. He even did the "famous" pose.

Next on Stanley's visit was the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. It was pretty windy for him, as I thought his head might rip off...

He also came to Limerick with us to see King John's Castle. He braved some rain in this one as well. 

Stanley was supposed to head to our next trip, but he needed to get back to his student.  I mailed him back to the US.  Hoping to hear from my Aunt Carol on how the activity went and her student's reaction to the photographs I took.

Farewell Stanley.

On to the next adventure...

Finishing Up Our Time in Ireland

After the cliffs, we headed to Limerick for the night.  It was a short drive away from the cliffs.  We explored the city a little, grabbed a bite to eat at a local sandwich shop called, O'Briens.  It was really good.  The next morning we woke up to explore the city a little more, and go to King John's Castle.  The front desk thought it might have been closed on Sundays, so we were initially bummed.  After walking over to the castle to snap a few photos, a lady told us that they were open but just had a power outage.  Many of the surrounding buildings were out of power, so I'm not sure if it was because of wind or what.

View of King John's Castle from across the very full River Shannon. They had many sections of the viewing points closed down due to high rising water

Either way, we walked around a little more to try to find a place for breakfast.  We were getting pretty annoyed that no place was open for breakfast...even McDonald's and Costa (a local coffee shop).  Not sure what was going around, we finally found Subway...but they didn't have breakfast either.  BLT for breakfast...sure, why not?! Around 11:00 all of the restaurants were opening back up...weird.

Beautiful church and cemetery

We made it back over to the castle, and we were glad we did as it was a pretty cool experience. Part of it was still shut down due to the power outage, but we were able to see the castle grounds which was all we really wanted to see.  It reminded us a lot of Connor Prairie as they had little rooms set up like they did back in those days.  They also had video life size people who explained each room when you touched an object. We have seen these screens before, but we could not put our finger on where we have seen them before. Can anyone help us out? Our thoughts were Stirling Castle...but wasn't quite sure.  It is sort of driving me crazy.

In the kitchen

Inner walls of the castle

We were able to climb the two small towers that had beautiful views of Limerick. We stayed for about an hour, then headed back to the hotel before checking out of the hotel. Next up on our list was some warm Irish stew.  It definitely hit the spot!

 This view is from the opposite side of the city centre. Jeff and I were amazed because if you look closely the city comes to a complete stop. From there is land and mountains.

 The view of the city, although our heads are blocking it...

We jumped in the car to head to the beautiful town of Adare, Ireland.  Adorable is an understatement of the small quaint city.  We didn't do much here but walk around to see the cuteness.

 Adorable houses on Main Street

We made it to the Adare Manor Hotel & Golf Resort.  It made us pretty jealous as that was one of quite a few golf courses we had seen in the last day.  We wished we had our clubs so we could have played a round...although I'm sure the wind would have been quite a challenge.  Either way, the manor was beautiful.  It would have been like staying in a castle for sure.  We walked around the grounds for a little, and then headed back.  We took the scenic route to the airport, although it got dark pretty quickly...so we didn't see much. Jeff and I's flight was delayed so we didn't get back to Manchester until around 11:30, and home by 1:00 AM.  Jeff was pretty bummed because he didn't get to watch the Colts game live.  He came home to watch the recording on Monday evening after work.  Talk about avoiding the internet all day...yowza.

 The washing pool. Women used to come here to wash their families clothes.

Adare Manor Hotel & Golf Resort

On to the next adventure...

Wind: An Understatement at the Cliffs of Moher

York has nothing on the Cliffs of Moher in terms of wind.  Thankfully, we didn't blow away when visiting Ireland to see the cliffs.  Jeff and I woke up around 3 AM on Saturday to head to Manchester to hop on a plane to do Ireland in less than 48 hours!  Since only being gone for the weekend, Jeff decided to go light on the packing. All he brought was his toiletry bag, filled to the max...think a little bigger than a tissue box. Oh Jeff.

We arrived at the airport, rented a car, and headed towards the cliffs.  Although the car was an automatic, it drove like a manual.  It didn't have a park setting, so every time Jeff stopped the car had had to put on the emergency break.  Not the smoothest car, but it worked.  Driving was exactly the same as driving in the UK, minus a few things.  Jeff thought the roads were better and he radio was 100x better.  Driving around was not only beautiful but interesting.  The houses were the perfect combination of English houses and American houses.  I wish I would have stopped to take a picture, but didn't think to do so at the time.

We arrived at the cliffs, found a small parking lot and started our journey.  As we were walking towards the edge of the land (~702 feet high), the wind began to pick up.  Jeff and I couldn't stop laughing as the wind was pushing us around all over the place.  We couldn't control our bodies at a few points.  Jeff held on to me a few times so I wouldn't blow away!

Our first look over the edge was nothing short of breathtaking.  Definitely one of the prettiest things I have ever seen. And that is saying a lot, considering how much I loved Dubrovnik, Croatia. The waves were huge, and crashing up to the edge of the cliff.  It was constantly white around the edge of the water, because of all the activity.  We headed alongside the cliffs in hopes to make it to the visitor center which a sign said was about a two and half hour walk.  We thought we would try it.

 Our first view of the cliffs

  Fighting the wind

 Definitely one of the most beautiful views

I'm not sure this post is going to do this experience justice as the pictures and the words I'm typing cannot help you completely relive this incredible experience.  As we walked along the edge of the cliff, there were areas where you felt like you were going to just blow right off the side of them.  Although, we should have looked on Saturday, but I did some research on the wind speed while we were there, and the closest point I could find to the cliffs had 31 MPH wind speeds (Gusts up to 62 MPH).  My guess is it was more given we were near the ocean and up so high.  There are many days where they have to close down the cliffs due to the high speed winds.  A week before our arrival, they closed the cliffs.  I also read that about a month ago, they closed down the Cliffs to visitors because of 93 MPH wind gusts! AH!  On top of the wind gusts, at a few points it was sleeting...so we had that hitting our faces.  I remember yelling, "It feels like little pieces of glass hitting my face."  It hurt really bad!

This video does not do the amount of wind justice, although the audio does!  You can see I am struggling to stand next to Jeff, and it definitely looks like I'm faking it, but I can assure you I'm not!

 Inside the Moher Tower

Jeff was braver than I...he explored the edges a little more closely than I would have liked him to! Doesn't surprise me, as he did the same thing in Edinburgh.

Although it was super windy (super = obviously an understatement), we were really lucky that it was so clear that day.  I have heard, seen, and read about people who have visited on fairly overcast days and their pictures look nothing like the clearness of our pictures.  We were really lucky!  It was really difficult choosing pictures, as each one had its own piece of character and beauty.  So I did my best picking the best pictures.

 Dressing like Eskimos!

 Part of the paths had a rock lining

You can see the craziness of the water here

 Our sad attempts to get the cliffs in the background

Only walked past two other people on the cliffs. We definitely were in the spot that not many tourists go.

Dark clouds were coming in, along with the sleet so we decided to abandon our plan of making it to the visitor's center and head back to the car. I think we spent over 2 hours enjoying the scenery and hike.  By the time we got into our car the sleet had picked up, although the sky didn't look as bad. Great timing. Our Ireland adventure didn't end there, as we had another day and a half to enjoy some new cities.  Look for that post soon!

On to the next adventure...

Dub, Dub, Dub, DUBLIN!

What an amazing long weekend we had in Dublin, Ireland! This is the first of many trips outside of the United Kingdom, and we enjoyed every minute of it. We got up at 3:15 AM on Saturday morning to gather our things, hop on a bus, head to the airport, to make our 6:30 flight to Ireland. It was a quick flight, probably because I slept the entire way...including take-off. Who does that?!?  Forty minutes later we were in Dublin. We took yet another bus to take us to the city centre.

We put our belongings in our hotel room, and headed out to explore. We headed to Trinity College first and walked around a little. We were starving and stopped at a local pub for a great Irish breakfast. It was so relaxing to just sit around drinking coffee and taking it all in. Back to exploring after our bellies were full!

 Trinity College

 Breakfast at O'Neill's Bar & Restaurant. Great Irish breakfast!

We then walked around, popped into a few shops. My mom will understand this, as Jeff and her are bakery buddies. They love their sweets. Every time we went past a chocolate shop or bakery...Jeff stopped and stared. It was pretty funny. We visited a few really cute parks as well.

   St. Stephan's Park and the second one is a mystery, but we're thinking it was Merrion Square.

Street performers (the dog is fake), one of the many bakeries, and beautiful architecture on the way to the Guinness Storehouse. 

Next up on the list was the Guinness Storehouse. We spent quite some time here learning how it is created. Jeff really enjoyed the video portion on how they made barrels. It was definitely some process! Always wanting to know how things are made/work. {#engineerforlife} We also took a class on how to pour the perfect pint! I was volunteered by my wonderful husband to be the demonstrator. I taught the rest of the group how to pour the perfect pint...6 steps to get there!

Outside the Guinness Storehouse.

How the bottles have changed over time. 

 Purifying the water.

 The barrels and me with my perfectly poured pint and certificate to prove it!

Seven stories high...we enjoyed our pints at the Galaxy Bar.

 Clearly hard at work and taking my job seriously!

Jeff was pretty good at pouring his. He asked the teacher, and his was one of the best pours. {#teacherspet}

We finished up our fun in Dublin watching Ireland Vs. England in the 6 Nations match at a local pub where we had some traditional Irish food and beer. It was a fun night. The next day we woke up and went on a long walk to some nearby famous sights and strolled around Phoenix Park and watched a Gaelic Football game. We had no idea what sport was being played because at times it looked like football, then basketball, then soccer, and then rugby!  We finally asked and then we attempted to watch to learn the rules. We ended our night with a few pints and attempting to find/hear some Irish music. The pub we chose was playing music, but it ended up being Johnny Cash and some random 90's music. 

 The Wellington Monument.

 Gaelic Game (match?)

 The Samuel Beckett Bridge. It is the shape of a harp as that is an iconic symbol in Ireland.

Another view, you can see the harp aspect of it better here.

 

 The first photograph is a memorial of the Great Famine in Ireland. The second photograph is dedicated to Daniel O'Connell, who was a famous political leader in Ireland.

 And 15+ miles later...we completed our trip to Dublin, Ireland.