Weekend adventure

Friday Friday Friday!!!!!

A beautiful day in Cork!  Shaun & I took our daily walk but this time I added some extra streets (turn it into a real workout) so it took us a couple of hours this time. 

So I'm not sure if its part of the Cork culture or due to the Midsummer Feastival but the streets in the city center are filled with people almost every time we go there. Today there were several performers out and it kind of reminded me of the streets of Boston. While we were watching these girls dancing (pic below) a lady stopped me to ask if Shaun was mine!!! How rude right?  Well actually I get this question almost every time we go out. I guess it's because he is so light, but the thing that made this question so unique was the lady just kept looking at him and she was like "oh my, he is gorgeous (with a British accent). He is absolutely adorable!" And she had to say that like 4x, then she went on to tell me that I should get him into modelling because she has never seen a baby that looked like that, especially with the blue eyes. She talked to me for a good while, very nice lady. People are so friendly and Shaun usually helps to break the ice so I get to talk to a lot of people (mainly about him). 

At any street festival in the states there is always someone preaching or trying to save you...well it's no different here. There was a man and some people from his church out doing interpretive dancing (honestly not that good) and preaching. Funny thing is that the preacher guy was from the states!!!! I guess they were trying to get people to go to their Christian church. It was funny listening to this American trying to share his story and convince people to become Christians...just wasn't expecting that. Everyone here is pretty much Catholic or at least raised Catholic. I knew there were some Christian churches but I didn't expect them to be on the streets trying to recruit members. 

I took another trip to the English Market just because I loved it so much and to get a scone from the bakery but they where all sold out all ready :-(   The rest of our Friday was pretty quite, dinner and family time and preparing for our weekend adventure...

Saturday...

Our Saturday started off with a nice walk to the English Market for some items for breakfast. Mike went for a jog to find us but couldn't. A cherry scone from ABC bakery, then a ham and cheese quiche from Off The Pigs Back and some "streaky bacon" as they like to call it in Ireland. All in all a good start to our weekend adventure. 

After breakfast we headed up the coast to Warerford...where they make the crystal!!  It was a 120km drive so it took us a little more than 1.5hrs. The weather was nice and the country side is so beautiful...had to stop and take some pictures of course. 

One cool thing was the real highway! I was so amazed I had to take a picture. Most of the roads are not like this, but this road reminded me of something we would see in the states...very nice and very well maintained. 

Once in Waterford we had to stop for a coffee of course. Mike really likes the coffee here, I guess it's a little stronger than the states almost like espresso. While enjoying our coffee and couscous (which was also very very good) a lady enjoying her lunch had to stop eating to comment about Shaun. She was so in ah of him that she wanted to hold him. Now in the states I would never let some random person hold my kids but for some reason here I'm more trusting. I mean when we came here for our home finding trip one night we were out to dinner and I went to the WC (code name for restroom or water closet) and I had Shaun with me in his Moby wrap and this lady was like "Give him to me!!" I looked at her like she was crazy of course then she continued "...you need to wee don't you?? Well give him to me while you wee". So I gave him to her! Crazy right??? I just gave some random lady my baby so that I could pee. Anyway all was good, she just kissed all on him and told me how lucky I was to have him. So all that to say people are really nice here and they love babies and its infectious, you become way more trusting than you would ever expect. So back to the lady at the cafe...she was super nice and told us her whole life story it seems. So after talking to her we took a quick walk thru the city. Waterford is a nice little town, a few places seem a little more modern vs Cork but overall it's a normal Irish town (I would guess). We took some pics of the city center, harbor and statue too...

The three of us enjoying the city (Shaun enjoying his fingers)...

So after our chat with the lady it was on to the Waterford Crystal store for a tour of the factory. I guess we talked to the lady for too long because by the time we got to the factory we were 6 min late for the last tour of the day...we were pretty bummed out but we figured we would be going to the tour eventually with the family when they come to visit. So we started to walk around the shop and the lady behind the tour desk came to find us and secretly add us to the tour!!! We were pretty excited about that...so we got to tour the factory after all. It's just amazing how they make this crystal. Everything is done by hand!  It takes a lot of skill to do this, no wonder it cost so much. Every piece is touched by one of the craftsman, they hand outline where the cuts are going to be made and then someone else carves them in...absolutely amazing. 

Did you know that Wayerford Crystals was closed for over a century before reopening in the mid 21st century. Crazy

 

Mould for BCS Championship trophy!

Mould to make a Justin Timberlake statue...really? A crystal statue of JT??

 Mike holding a "crystal ball"...crystal football at least. 

The hand drawing of the lines to carve out for the football. 

Here are some of the amazing pieces that they can make...again...all by hand...

A classic Pepsi bottle (what you don't see is the huge Coke bottle next to it...Ireland is a true Coke country but we are not supporting Coke of course). 

 

This was really cool...a 9/11 memorial sculpture. It was absolutely amazing...

A cool tour it was...now did we buy anything while we were there...any souvenirs you might ask...the answer is hell no!!! That crap is way to expensive, all we have are these pictures. We don't even have a ticket stubb because the lady didn't even make us pay for the tour...very nice...and I even asked her about it to confirm. So all in all a really nice day. 

We finished off the night with dinner at Greene...a cool place just on the other side of the river near Cork city center. On our walk there I was fouled on by a bird (not sure if that's the proper way to say it but it sounds funny to me)...so gross...but we both got a good laugh out of it. 

I wonder if there are any fines for bird fouling??

We had this amazing beet juice that Mike was impressed with so he took a picture and asked if I could add it to the blog...now normally I wouldn't because it doesn't really have any value but he took the picture and asked nicely so I had to...

Got home and had a little FaceTime with my sister which was nice. 

Sunday...

Nothing to exciting for the day. Grocery shopping at the Tesco, but this time we had our euro so we were able to get a cart!!!!!  And since the Tesco is attached to a mall we went to look for a belt for Mike...while he normally sports the plummers crack look we thought he should try to get a belt to keep the Irish women from falling in love with his crack...hahaha. So after 4 stores he determined that he was going to go belt-less because the belts were just too much for him (he's pretty cheap when it comes to belts) so €45 was just too much so we will get one when we go to get Lino. Crazy how expensive things are here. 

Oh, on the way into the mall/Tesco we saw these people (a-holes is what Mike called them) outside advertising. This is so Coke country...no bueno. 

Then after a bit of relaxing we took a walk to the city to go to Amicus for this amazing seafood chowder for Mike and bruschetta for me. Mike is in love with this seafood chowder, it must be pretty amqzing for him to go back for more...all this coming from a man who didn't even like fish about 2yrs ago. Anyway, it was good and theybhave the best sticky toffee pudding that we have had here. A really good place!  Then to the movies to see Now You See Me. This is the first movie that we have taken Shaun too and he slept the whole time so it was awesome and so was the movie. The crazy thing is that when we walked into the theater there was no commercials or advertisement playing...it was completely quiet!!  Totally freaked us out. And it was so empty, it must not be the normal thing to do...go to a cinema on a Sunday afternoon. I mean there couldn't have been more than a dozen people in the whole place...just not use to that. But the movie was good and a nice way to end our weekend. 

Oh I have to add these 2 things...first I have to give Mike all the credit for all the great picture for this weekends blog...he did an amazing job!  And 2, this hotel/apt is about to stress us out. We have been trying to get someone to take out the trash for 2 days and we keep getting the run around...today this lady told us that we could take it out to the dumpster ourself!!! Now not to sound like a snobby American but that's bull...first off we don't have any bags to replace the full ones with and second of all isn't that what the hotel does???? This is going to be an adjustment...have to get use to this. 

Well tomorrow is back to work for Mike and time for me to get on the ball with finding a GP for the boys and some mommy groups for me to go to...let the new week begin. Hope everyone had a good weekend!