If you’re on
Facebook, you’ve already seen all the pictures from our Ireland trip. But
of course, pictures are way more enjoyable when they have stories behind
them. I am going to attempt to take you through the past week, leaving
you with visions of lucky charms dancing in your head.
Before I go into
vacation mode, I’ll just mention that the week prior was also a blast. We
had the official opening of our new London office and all the important people
were here. Of course, most nights ended with post-work drinks, one of
which facilitated my first glass of Pimms. One of the nights the entire
office went to a bowling alley on Brick Lane for some healthy competition, (no
– I surprisingly was not the worst on my team), followed by a delicious meal
and bevvies. On Friday the 3rd we started our weekly lunch run
– anyone brave enough to get gross and sweaty in front of their co-workers took
the Regent’s canal as their prisoner and conquered 4 miles at lunch time.
The sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky – it was perfect. A coworker
challenged me to a sprint-race at the end toward the finish mark….Let me tell
you, these little stumpy legs can still burn rubber.
Alright, vacation
time! Saturday morning (10/4) I woke up around 4am, bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed. I grabbed my suitcase and hopped in a cab around 5am for
Heathrow. It was the easiest airport experience of my life, although I
felt like I was in minority report when the robot security entrance scanned my
eyes and finger tips. Pretty cool,
eh? The flight was super quick, less than an hour, but I slept the
whole time (it’s a good thing because sleep would be hard to come by in the
week ahead). Wheels down in Dublin, got my way through immigration, and
waited very impatiently for my luggage (Yes, I checked a suitcase for a
less-than-a-week trip. Go ahead, judge me. Girl can never have too
many shoes). Ok, so I got my bag, ran over to the exit, and then
beamed a smile so big my cheeks were sore. YAY! Spence had already
landed and was waiting for me to come through. Yes, I cried a little out
of pure happiness – 34 days was a long time!! After the hug that lasted a
lifetime actually ended, we headed out to the curb to catch our shuttle over to
our rental. We got a little blue Hyundai, manual, shifter on left side,
driver seat on right side… it was frightening. Thank the LORD I wasn’t
going to be driving that thing. We drove about 25 minutes on what was
supposed to be a main interstate but was really more of a 2-lane road to the
Westbury Hotel in Dublin. After check in, we skipped right off to a
little café for a quick breakfast and a latte to prepare us for the 1 million
Guinness we were about to drink. We were advised to take a taxi over to
the Guinness Storehouse as the back roads aren’t as friendly as Ireland’s
people are, so we grabbed the first one we saw right outside Temple Bar.
Our driver chatted with us the entire way, mentioning that he used to be a
Guinness distributor and his son just started his first semester playing soccer
at a college in the states (Texas, I think). The most important and
memorable quote though – “Guinness doesn’t travel”. Yes, of course you
can get Guinness all over the world and they have mastered and patented the
bottling technique. But, you can’t get a Guinness to taste, look, smell,
and feel as smooth and authentic as you can in Ireland. I’m pretty sure
they just substitute their daily intake of water for Guinness. I honestly
don’t blame them. We arrived at The Guinness Storehouse around noon for a
self-guided tour. We spent hours in there: learning about how they brew
the beer, checking out their ad campaigns throughout history, tasting samples
properly, and becoming officially certified Guinness pourers. After all
the activities, we decided we deserved to relax at the Gravity bar on the top
floor of the factory which overlooked the entire city – Guinness in hand, obviously.
I felt like I was on top of the world – the sun was shining, we were
overlooking the beautiful green city of Dublin while drinking the most
delicious Irish beer I’ve had in my life, and I had my other half right next to
me. It really can’t get any better than that my friends. After I
started to feel a bit floaty we decided to walk back toward town since it was
such a nice, sunny day. We made our way over to Trinity College where we
walked around a bit and enjoyed the architecture before heading over to the
Brazen Head, oldest pub in Ireland. The Brazen Head opened back in 1198
and was still poppin. We found a corner table outside in the garden area
and ordered….. Guinness. To hold us over until dinner we ordered some
potato wedges too – lunch of champions. After TBH we went right back over
to Temple Bar. For those of you that don’t know, Temple Bar is an entire
area of Irish bars and pubs, rather than 1 bar called ‘Temple Bar’.
Common misconception – I’m guilty. We decided to mix it up a bit and
order Murphy’s, another popular beer in Ireland. I am going to be quite
honest here – (please don’t get mad at me, Irish friends) – I can’t entirely
tell the difference. But something still made me decide that I like
Guinness slightly better, maybe it’s just the name. After my floaty
status got a bit floatier we headed back to the hotel to wash up and get ready
for dinner. Spence asked the concierge where we could watch the Rugby
game and he recommended Sinnot’s, right around the corner. Got there,
ordered Guinness, and posted up next to a nice Australian man who was drinking
a Budweiser. HA! He was super nice and telling us all about how he loved
Ireland but was ready to go back to his homeland. Later, we took his
recommendation and got an Irish stew and Irish burger to share for dinner, only
to be accompanied by more Guinness. Gluttony, I know. After the
game we walked around the central Dublin area, listened to some street
performers, and grabbed one more beer (Carlsberg this time) at another spot in
Temple Bar. I think that was enough drinking for one day.
Sunday:
An early-morning
departure was in order as we had our long drive to Killarney this day. We
stopped over in Bray, a small town right on the water, for breakfast and
coffees. It was a bit cool but nice enough to walk along the water and
enjoy the rolling hills before hitting the road. After a couple hours we
started having cabin fever so we pulled over in Cork to take some
pictures. The scenery from the random back roads was absolutely
incredible. For miles you could see, through a very light mist, the sheep
and cows from the corner of every acre grazing the greenery. Of course I had
to get on top of a ledge to do a handstand for a picture. You’re not
actually in a scenic location if you haven’t taken a handstand picture in front
of it, right? Spence got a shot in his super (not) fast rally car and we
buckled up for the next leg of the trip. Now that I think of it, I don’t
remember eating lunch this day. I guess that’s probably a good thing
after Saturday’s escapades. Eventually we got to our midpoint
destination: Blarney Castle and Gardens.
It was raining off and on but it ended up clearing as soon as we got to
the castle. That thing is pretty old and
tiny. I have no idea how they got anything
done in there with all those narrow stairwells and underground caves that I couldn’t even stand up in. Nonetheless, we trudged up to the top and
took turns kissing the Blarney stone – which about 100 other people kissed that
day so.. there’s that. After the germy rock kiss, we walked down
through the Poison Gardens and I made Spencer eat a plant. KIDDING.
We finished the self-guided tour, got back in our rental and took
off. When we finally reached our
destination, The Lake Hotel in Killarney, it was monsooning. Not to worry
though, it only lasted about an hour before completely clearing out and making
way for a perfect second night out. Killarney had the reputation of a
more quiet town, which it was, so we didn’t really have high expectations for
wild night life. Welp, we were wrong. We moseyed on into a pub
called Murphy’s, go figure, and sat at the bar. We planned to just grab a
quick Guinness and then find a restaurant for dinner but then…. They were
showing the Panthers game. See ya later, the end, this is where we were
staying all night. Spencer was in heaven. I was fine with it – the
bar tender was awesome, the company was extremely friendly, and the beer was..
Guinness. After our beer-petizers we sat down and ordered actual
food. I finally got a nice salad and felt slightly better about
myself. The Panthers actually pulled out a win so Spencer handed the bar
tender 5 euro with a note “don’t bet against my panthers”, since he mentioned
that he had a bet against them in his league. Huge American football fan
in a random Killarney pub – who would’ve thought? We spent more of the
night sitting at the bar listening to the three-man band sitting at the front
of the pub. Once guy was playing the spoons and was unbelievable at
it. How do you even learn that?? Anyway, Spencer bought them a beer
so they would play Gallway girl because he knew that would make my night.
It did. Since we had already spent hours
and many euros at Murphy’s, the bar tender offered us free passes to this
random bar around the corner. Apparently there is usually a stiff cover
charge so we figured it was in our best interest to check it out for free.
We walked in with our passes and were welcomed with a 5 piece band playing
traditional Irish music. They were freaking AWESOME. We thought it
was just the bar area that warranted the usually-steep cover charge but then we
walked around the back. It was a legitimate club. Smoke machines,
strobe lights, DJ, the works. It was an all-in-one Disney world for
partiers.
Monday:
I almost forgot to
mention how absolutely perfect our Killarney hotel was. It was called
‘The Lake Hotel’ for a reason – it was set back off the main road and directly
next to a beautiful lake off of Killarney National Park. There was an old
castle at the end of a path overlooking the small mountains reflecting their
shadows in the placid water. Spence had it all figured out and paid a
little extra to get a room with a water front view. Monday morning we
woke up early to watch the sunrise. We made some tea like a couple of old
people and sat outside on the back terrace in our complimentary white fluffy
robes and slippers as we listened to the calm splashing of small waves crashing
against the rocky mote of the castle. After getting ready we stopped into
town for a hearty Irish breakfast and more caffeine, hoping to recover from all
our fun the night before. Our scheduled adventure on this day was to hike
through Killarney National Forest. We were told it only took about 2
hours to complete but you would have to be sprinting to achieve that. I’d
say it took closer to 3.5 but it was worth every minute. It rained a bit
at the beginning but once the clouds got their tantrum out of the way it was
blue skies for the remainder of the hike. I would’ve complained but the
rain left an earthy scent of moss and a perfectly positioned rainbow stretching
from the top of the hill to the top of the castle. I was sure we would
find a leprechaun along our trek that day. We walked up and down winding
paths through a conservatory of bountiful trees, chirping with their winged
inhabitants. The trail led us to Torc Waterfall, which was a lot larger and
even more beautiful than the accompanying picture can prove. We stopped
by Dinis Cottage, hidden on a back trail overlooking the Muckross Lake,
explored Colleen’s Rock, and completed our 8ish mile hike at Muckross
Castle. That was enough walking so we then drove our little blue
rally car over to Ross castle, walked a very short loop around that great
antique and got right back in the car. Here’s when the heart attacks
began. For tiny roads that 2 cars could barely fit on, rounding corners
and cliffs, the speed limit was 100 km/hr (62 mph). I thought we were
going to die. Luckily, our rally car was more of a roller skate and
hardly went that fast so we were actually being passed. We saw more sheep
than we could count and more cows than we wanted to smell but our drive lead us
to the top of a cliff called “Ladies View”, name stemming from the admiration
of the view given by Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting in 1861 (footnote, Wikipedia).
They had a small café across from the breathtaking view so we stopped in to
recharge with some caffeine. We got a bit lost on the way back but
enjoyed the many miles of gorgeous scenery and peaceful nature. The night
before was enough partying for us so we grabbed a bottle of wine on the way
back for later, ate dinner in the hotel at sunset overlooking the lake, and
stopped quickly into town so Spence could grab a Cuban. After the sun was
almost completely set we poured ourselves a couple glasses of wine, sat at the
foot of the castle, and Spence lit up a cigar by the water.
Tuesday:
Another early
morning wake-up call but I made sure to watch the last radiant Killarney
sunrise as I packed up. We started off for our journey to Gallway and
stopped at a small coffee shop on the way for a cappuccino and a scone.
That morning started out very cold so the warm cup o’ joe was key.
Our route took us through Tralee, which was not very exciting, and down more
tiny back roads with unreasonably fast speed limits. We came to a
complete stop in the middle of one of these little roads to allow about 100
cows to cross. The head farmer guy just needed his cattle moved from one
side of the farm to the other. Naturally, we both broke out our phones to
take pictures as we laughed like children at what was happening in front of
us. #citykids. Finally we reached Tarbert where we took the ferry
across the Shannon River to Killimer. We drove our car right up onto the
ferry, along with tour buses and other large trucks, for just 20 euro and
enjoyed the ride. It was another clear day of sunshine so we hopped out
of the car and stood atop the elevated side of the ship to get a better
view. We ran into a woman from the states who was on an extended tour of
Ireland that we had seen back at Murphy’s a couple days ago. She
mentioned they were headed to the Cliffs of Moher, which was also our next
stop. We docked, drove off the ferry, and started on our way.
Unplanned, we noticed a sign that said Donald Trump’s International golf
course, Doonbeg, was down the road off our trail. We should check that out, right? Ya. It looked like we
were headed into the middle of nowhere but when it opened up it was
insane. The place looked like a castle in itself, seated right on the
water with a matching string of upscale lodging. We were a little
concerned that we weren’t dressed for the occasion but we went into the gift
shop anyway to buy a golf ball. The employees may have been the nicest
people we have ever met in our entire life. Not only did they completely
disregard the fact that we were wearing very casual outfits, but they went out
of their way to introduce themselves, ask about our trip, and recommend that we
grab a pint upstairs to check out the first hole which overlooked the
ocean. I decided to have my first Irish coffee of the trip here to warm
me up while we sat outside. We noticed a big pup guarding the first hole,
although we later found out that the staff has no idea where he came
from. I played with him for a short while, which eventually morphed him
into my best friend and shadow as he wouldn’t stop following me around the
greens. I’m just such a sucker for dogs. After finishing up our
drinks, Spencer bought a Trump golf ball and we started out for the Cliffs of
Moher. When we arrived it was cloudy and a little chilly but still no
rain. As soon as we got to the base of the cliff it started to come down
hard. So, we waited in the gift shop for it to pass and I bought a
hand-knit head band to keep my ears warm but more importantly because I thought
it was fashionable, and then the rain stopped. It was misting on and off
but not enough to keep you inside. We climbed up the first cliff and over
the edge to take a picture but the mud was causing slippage so I had another
heart attack because I assumed this was it for me. Off the cliff I goooooooooooooooooooooo.
Bye. Don’t worry, I didn’t fall. In spite of my panicked state we
got our picture and explored the other side of the cliffs where O’Brien’s
castle was positioned. I know I’ve used this word before in this post but
breathtaking.
This view was the epitome of breathtaking. I really cannot describe it
and you can’t get the gist from pictures. You have to go there and it
will take your breath away. Put it on your bucket list right now and
prioritize it. Eventually it was time for lunch so we stopped at a random
café for sammys before finishing our trip to Gallway. We had many more
pubs to cross off our list so time was of the essence. We pulled into the
Park Hotel right around rush hour so it was slightly less peaceful than what we
had been used to. Nonetheless, we checked in, tossed our bags in the
room, and headed into town. We started out at Taaffes for a Guinness
where the bar tenders were just as friendly as before. It is still
amazing how lovely the people are in Ireland. It must be the
Guinness. After that we stopped at the infamous DoughBros for a
pizza. A few guys who had originally operated out of a food truck got
their restaurant permit and opened up shop in downtown Gallway. They only
had a few month’s lease to start out but since they had been so successful they
were able to extend their lease. They made all their pizza from freshly
made dough, no oils, no extras, all natural. Their topping choices were
extremely original so we chose one of the fan favorites – Spicy Tandoori
Chicken Pizza. It was bomb. Ok, bellies full so we went to the next
pub, Tigh Colli (pronounced “Chick-goh-lee”) for some Guinness and trad
music. Later on that night we went to our last spot of the night, The
Quays (pronounced “Keys”), which is a super old church that’s been redecorated
as a bar. Lots of cool colored lights and an elevated stage hosting a
really awesome four-piece Irish band. I had a water there.
Wednesday:
Round 8:45am we
walked about a mile to a Bed & Breakfast to meet the stable owners for our horseback
tour reservation. We must’ve screamed tourists because they walked right
up to us when we arrived at the B&B and introduced themselves. James
and Chiara told us to have a seat for a quick breakfast and then they would
meet us for the tour. It ended up just being Chiara that scooped us,
drove over to the stable of 17+ horses, and helped us get situated with our
rides for the morning. I’ve ridden before and am fairly comfortable on a
horse. Spencer on the other hand, was not too keen about being on the
back of a giant that could buck him off at any moment. That being
apparent, Chiara saddled up Midnight for Spencer. He was an absolutely
ginormous black horse but was also the oldest, most experience, and most tame.
He had a lot of experience with inexperienced riders so this was a perfect match.
I paired up with Darcy – a boy – who was a bit smaller and brown, not as
well-trained. He didn’t seem to want to go for a walk but we eventually
got him in line. Chiara walked alongside Spencer and Midnight and me and
Darcy and told us all about the land around the stable, the broken down
castles, and the archaic well system that they had pretty recently replaced
with modern plumbing. There were a couple times that Midnight needed to pull
off to the side to munch on some berries but for the most part, he stayed on
track. After our hour-long ride we walked back into town, had lunch on
Quay St., and took a stroll by the water and along the canals that ran through
the city. I started thinking I smelled like Darcy so we went back to
shower before heading out for the rest of the night. We made another stop
over at Taaffes pub and Spencer put his 2 beers on a tab. The bar tender
that we had met the day before recognized us so he brought over the second
Guinness and asked the name of the tab – Spencer replied “McKenna” and the guy
looked at him and said “what did you say? I’m a McKenna!”. Instant
best friends. So, bar tender McKenna sat with us for a while and asked
about our trip and where we were from. He introduced himself with a first
name of “Fairchrah” (sp?) followed by “ya, I know. Super Irish”.
Upon mentioning we were from Boston, he asked us if we knew a bar called the
Skellig in Waltham. We almost fell on the floor. You have to be KIDDING me… a guy in Gallway
knows the Thursday night Bentley bar on Moody St. in Waltham. I can’t.
He said, “You know that’s closing down, right?”. Yes, yes we know.
It just so happens that the guy who owns Taaffes also had part ownership, or something
like that, of The Skellig and there was a plaque on the wall that proved
it. Absolute craziness – this world is smaller than you think.
After Taaffes we walked over to the Radisson Blue for dinner at “Sushi in the
Sky”, a rooftop sushi bar overlooking the water. I got my salmon fix and
then we were off to the King’s Head to listen to more trad music and watch
Irish step dancing. Please note: I did not have 1 alcoholic beverage this
entire day. Necessary.
Thursday:
We had a three hour
drive to Dublin ahead of us to take AerLingus back to London. The ride
was mostly uneventful, other than the 400 cows and sheep we saw along the
way. We had our own row on the flight, which was nice, but as soon as we
backed away from the jet way they announced that we wouldn’t be able to leave
for another hour due to traffic. Naptime. Up, up, and away we went
after the long waiting period and a short trip over to Londontown. It was
really cool to look out the window right before landing and recognize most of
the buildings and landmarks that I was seeing from above. Felt kinda like
home.. weird. After waiting for our bags and taking the tube from
Heathrow to Knightsbridge, we didn’t have too much time to explore before the
game. I took Spencer to Harrods, which lucky-for-me is right around the
corner from my flat, for freshly made salads and sammys. That night we
had tickets to the International football game, England v. San Marino.
Unfortunately none of the club teams were playing this weekend so this was the
best we could do. Poor San Marino didn’t stand a chance. Our seats
were pretty cool: lower level, behind the San Marino net in the first half, so
we saw a couple goals right up close. The final score was 5-0 and San
Marino didn’t even get a shot on goal.
Friday:
I had absolutely zero food in the flatski so we went over to Sainsbury for a
few groceries early Friday morning. Now that we were back at my temp home
there wasn’t much of a need for restaurants at every meal. Money does not
grow on trees.. especially in London. Breakfast was on Sloane Street
followed by a nice run around the royal parks. I took Spence by Hyde
Park, through Green Park, past Buckingham Palace, and around St. James
Park. We timed it just right, without even knowing. On the way back
past Buckingham Palace we were stopped short by the crossing guard who was
holding traffic to allow the changing of the guards procession. This
happens at 11:30am every other day and we hit it right then,
unintentionally. I hadn’t even seen it yet since I’ve been here so I was
amped to have been there right in the middle of all the action. Later on
we took the tube over to Trafalgar Square, walked through Picadilly Circus, and
all the way up Regent Street. Before crossing over to the park we picked
up take-away lunch from Pret. That park is flipping huge – I think we
walked another mile at least until we found the area we wanted to sit, which
was by the pond. We earned that lunch my friends and later, we most
definitely earned a (few) pint(s). Lunch was absolutely perfect – it was
something I had been waiting to do for so long. Every time I run through
the parks I always see couples and friends sitting together enjoying a
picnic. I can always have a solo picnic but it’s just not as fun.
Finally I got my perfect picnic fix at Regents Park, sitting right along the
pond under the sunshine with a salad, some fruit, and my best friend. Oh
gosh I’m so sappy, I know. Sorry. The post-lunch walk lead us right
along the edges of the pond where we saw about 50 different kinds of birds and
100 of each of those. But there was one giant bird – no idea what it was
– but it just stood there like it was a human. Wasn’t fazed one bit that
we were standing directly in front of him with a camera. It was kind of
frightening. Anywhoo, we took the tube back to Sloane Street, freshened
up, and went out for the rest of the night. First stop was a pub that
ended up being our favorite so far – The Burrow Boy and Banker. I was
pretty much Guinness-ed out so I got my favorite cider before we walked over to
the Shard. The Shard is the tallest building in London and is named as
such because it looks like a shard of glass. The peak is open and jagged
but the 72nd floor, is accessible to visitors. I had scheduled
our view time for sunset so we could see the cityscape at prime time. It
was absolutely stunning. You can see almost the entire length of the
Thames River, winding through the city, sidelined by the Eye, Tower Bridge,
Tower of London, London Bridge, the Guerkin, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and many
other iconic landmarks. The pink and orange painted sky appeared after a
while and we were able to watch the sun set on the beautiful city of London
from 800 ft. off the ground. We decided that we absolutely had to go back
over to that same pub afterwards for dinner – they had a ale and pie sample
board that was a must. After stuffing our faces we took the tube over to
the London Eye to see the city in lights. This was my first time on the
Eye since I’ve been here and I was bursting with excitement! I wish I
could have shared the view with you all but unless you have a professional
camera, there was really no way to get great pictures up there at night.
Ash – I needed you there!! After our ride on the giant, illuminated
ferris wheel, I took Spencer across the Thames via the Hungerford and Jubilee
bridge. Remember a few posts ago I mentioned this to be part of my solo
explorations and I saw all these cute couples taking selfies and walking
romantically, hand-in-hand, along this bridge? I promised you I would be
back with a date of my own. It happened and I was so happy J.
We capped off the night at Covent Garden and met Courtney for a little Bentley
reunion at Punch and Judy, a balcony pub right in the middle of the square.
Saturday:
In the morning I
brought Spence over to King’s Cross to show him the new, baller office. Basically that’s all we did before taking a
long walk over to find our cheap but healthy take-away lunch. Overall, today was a very chill day – we hung
around on the couch and ate lunch in my flat in while we waited for the
McKenna’s to arrive. Mr. McKenna was flying the CLTàLDN
flight so Mrs. McKenna got to tag along. Once they got to the Sloane
Street palace, they were able to check out my pad before we all set out for the
Imperial War Museum. They had just renovated the entire gallery with
several new exhibits and artifacts so we thought it would be a great
opportunity to check it out. We thought wrong. The London half
marathon was this weekend, along with it being a holiday for Americans thus
causing more tourists, so the museum was almost unbearable to walk
through. It was cool and we learned some things but enough was enough, we
needed a beer. The foursome left the museum, walked across the
Westminster Bridge, took a couple Big Ben selfies and skipped the train to
Leister Square. We jumped into the first pub we could find with a table
and had a few pints while we caught up on everything that has been going
on. After we were able to unwind a bit from that utter chaos, we got into
the thick of it again and took the tube back to Sloane Street, sat at my place
for a few minutes, and walked a block down the road to the Sloane Street Pub,
which proudly considers itself “the most friendly pub on Sloane street”.
Well, from my knowledge it is the only pub on Sloane street but they are
most definitely extremely friendly there. Each of us ordered a
traditional English meal and spent the night chatting and laughing.
Sunday:
We slept in a
little before heading off to watch the F1 race at a local pub at Shepherd
Market. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this section of town before – it
was right near my flat and looked like it was straight out of Harry
Potter. It was more of a back alley way lined with bars, pubs,
restaurants, cafes, and shops. Anyway, we stopped over at the Kings Arms
where they advertised to be showing the F1 race, which they were, but about 5
people showed counting us and there was no volume. We watched the first
15 or so laps and went back to my flat, only to realize it was showing on one
of my 10 channels. Another lazy day
relaxing on the couch before preparing for Sunday night football (London
time)! I took Spencer over to Picadilly
Circus and we walked down the main drag for a bit until we reached Leicester
Square. It was only about 4pm so still
too early to enter the infamous Hippodrome so we posted up in the crowd to
watch a street performer. Remember a
while back when I watched the guy in Covent Garden swallow a meter-long
inflated balloon? Ya – it was that guy
again. This time he was going to fit his
entire body through an open tennis racket by dislocating his shoulders. Pretty uncomfortable to watch but he was
seriously entertaining so we stood there the entire time, captivated by his
comical but painful act. Finally it was
time – we walked right over to the palace of American Football – the Hippodrome
Casino in Leicester Square. There were
two bar seats basically calling our name as we walked in and although I had
vowed to stick with water, we ordered a pitcher of Coors Light for the two of
us with dinner. Whatever, it’s football night and I’m still technically on vacation. The Pats won and for the Panthers, we
witnessed what I believe to be the second tie-game in history, post OT rule
change. The three panthers fans in the
bar were amped about that missed field goal.
I have to say, it really was so exciting that I became a Panthers fan
for a quick second without even realizing ;).
And that was our last event,
last tube ride home, and last night we would see each other for another 45ish
days. Monday morning sucked. It was raining, dark, and cold when I had to
say goodbye and watch Spence roll his luggage down the street to the tube. Off to the airport and back to Boston for
him. A workout and work for me – back to
the grind.
This week will be rough –
still feeling a lonely little pit in my stomach, the weather has been crappy
and I am on a juice cleanse while doing double session pre and post work
bootcamps on bodyrocktv. Hopefully I don’t
faint or try to each a coworkers fingers.
After reading about all the fun I had the past week, wouldn’t you agree
I deserve this punishment? The empty
feeling will pass and I am looking forward to Barcelona and Madrid next week…. And
something other than green juice.
Thanks for coming to visit and
spending an absolutely perfect week with me, mcspencer. xo
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| Guinness Storehouse |
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| Guinness Storehouse Sky Bar |
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| Guinness Storehouse - Put yourself in an Ad |
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| Brazenhead - Oldest Pub in Ireland |
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| Morning walk along the water in Bray |
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| Scenic Handstand, duh. |
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| Spencer's rally car |
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| Atop Blarney Castle |
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| Random, awesome pub in Killarney late-night |
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| View from The Lake Hotel in Killarney |
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| On the ferry across the Shannon River |
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| Doonbeg's guard dog |
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| Cliffs of Moher |
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| The Quays Bar, Gallway |
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| Kissing the Blarney Stone |
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| Kissing the Blarney Stone |
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| Torc Waterfall, Killarney National Forest |
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| Cigars and wine at The Lake Hotel Castle base |
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| England v. San Marino |
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| Picnic in Regents Park |
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| 800ft up in the Shard |
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| Random, giant, terrifying bird |
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| View from our pod in the London Eye |
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| Changing of the guards during our morning run |
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| Pie and Ale sample board at our fave pub |
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| Big Ben Selfie |
