Day 2 of our trip home:

Our Megabus wasn’t sched- uled to leave until 2:30 pm from Penn Station so we had an entire morning just to chill out in the hotel room, watch TV, read, shower, write this part of the blog, AND go downstairs for our last breakfast on vacation!! Breakfast was great and included pretty much every American breakfast food I can think of! We checked out at noon and made the (thankfully uneventful and much easier!) trip back to Penn Station.

When we got to the bus stop it was raining pretty hard with quite a bit of wind but thankfully we only had to stand under an overhang for about 15 minutes, tops. When we got on the bus we went to the upper deck again and found 2 seats…. unfortunately I did not see that the 2 seats next to us were open, and since they are in front of the stairs, they have more legroom…. =( Our seats also seemed like they had less legroom than we did on our way up to NYC…. It was a tight, cramped, full bus ride to DC and the gentleman in front of me had a nice, long, involved conversation with the lady sitting next to him about it his daughter and how the little piece of work was raising hell and his inability to quench her issues…yeah, fun time….

We finally got back to DC where we were picked up by Mr. Justin Trawick (full band show on Friday 4/2 at IOTA in Clarendon, VA by the way!) and we got the much needed car ride to our lovely little apartment in Arlington.

It was nice finally to be home after such an awesome, eventful trip, but best of all, nice to return with the knowledge that we were coming home to continue our lives together as a couple and as a team, rather than Mandy and Jean.

Baile Átha Cliath go Washington DC

We got up early this morning for another walk around Grafton Street and to take in some of the rest of Dublin on this beautiful day. During the walk we went to St. Stephen's Green which is a scaled down version of Central Park, and to Avoca, one of Mandy's favorite multi-level clothing and housewares boutique. She was excited to discover that there is also one closer to home in Annapolis, MD! She picked out a cute apron and blouse as well as a housekeeping book. I picked out a book about being a groom =) We stopped by the Bagel Factory for lunch and had "Stars and Stripes" (Bacon, cream cheese, avacado and tomato) and a pastrami melt bagels with swiss and thousand island. After our adventurous morning outside of the swanky hotel we went back and had coffee in the tea room before leaving for the airport!

We got in a BMW taxi (all taxis in Ireland are the driver's privately owned vehicles) and decided to have him take us all the way to the airport instead of to the bus station, which made us feel a little more special =) Since we got to the airport a little early we did some last minute shopping to finish off the trip. One can never can have enough prezzies!!

We definitely didn't take off on time...more like 45 mins late due to the fact that a normal random bag check wasn't a random check...EVERYONE got checked and patted down before allowed to get on the plane (everyone before Mandy in line, that is. Must be something special about her!)...until they were 30 mins past take off and then just let just abut everyone after her on the plane...needless to say, i was a little frustrated =( We had a really annoying/inconsiderate guy sitting in front of us who was quite loud. It was a daytime flight and EVERYONE seemed to be up and moving around the cabin...and there was a family with 2 kids for the 2nd time this trip! The kids were cute but the older one, maybe 2, was restless most of the trip and seemed to be sick halfway through the trip. And then she WAS sick during the flight if you know what i mean...right across the aisle...gross!!

Thankfully we had a pretty good entertainment on the flight and i watched 3 more movies that I've wanted to see for awhile. I got to see "Inglorious Basterds" which was pretty good, "Surrogate" with Bruce Willis and was also quite good, and "The Ugly Truth" which i laughed out loud during about half of!! After that i still had an hour left of the flight and watched Family Guy to make lift my spirits for the end of the flight. One other form of entertainment was from Mandy's new ring...It definitely makes a very pretty show!!

When we finally got back onto US soil, we went straight to the JFK Marriott and took a load off after a pretty long and stressful day. This morning we went downstairs for a breakfast buffet in a few minutes we'll be checking out and on our way downtown to catch the bus to DC. Hopefully the ride home will be empty and uneventful!!

Dublin

NYC

Béal Feirste go Baile Átha Cliath (Belfast To Dublin)

Woke up early today at 7am after a very hot shower to soothe the poison ivy and a restful sleep at the wonderful Park Inn, and went down to breakfast consisting of cereal, coffee and tea, and eggs with Irish sausage, bacon, and white pudding (not black…)

Next we headed out to do some wandering around city centre and check out some more sites, including Victoria Square, an open-air mall with the first Starbucks I’ve seen the entire trip =)

After checking out, we went to Rusty Zip, a vintage second-hand shop that Mandy has been wanting to go to ever since finding out that her favorite musician from here, Duke Special, shops there regularly. I found 2 shirts and a fedora and she found a wrap and a cute felted wool handbag.

It didn’t take long to get to Dublin even with the stop off at the airport to drop off the car, which I am so glad we did cause I would have NEVER found our hotel without a cabbie =) We took a bus to the city centre and a cab to the Westbury Hotel, just about a block from the popular pedestrian shopping and dining area of Grafton Street. The Westbury Hotel is a 5 star luxury hotel… we had a doorman carry our bags in and a bellhop to take our bags upstairs…PRETTY SWANKY if you ask me! Thankfully I wasn’t dressed in jeans and a t-shirt!

After checking in we went straight out to Grafton St for dinner and after finding out that the place we were going to go for a nice expensive dinner didn’t have any openings till 10pm (it was 5:30pm) we decided to go across the street to Marco Pierre White’s for the ‘Dine in Dublin’ special, which is similar to Restaurant Week in America. The food was very good and my selection started with a beet root, walnut, and goat cheese salad followed by a pan-seared skate wing (yes, I ate the wing of a ray!) and finished by crème brulee. Mandy’s dinner started with asparagus in a hollandaise sauce followed by an 8oz Rib eye finished with raspberry rice pudding. Delicious.

We unfortunately weren’t able to meet up with Mandy’s friends tonight due to time constraints from their jobs and the fact that we were exhausted after a long day =(

We called it an early night so we could get an early start tomorrow to come home!

Muileann na Buais go Béal Feirste (Bushmills to Belfast)

What a full day! We woke up to rain, which here, is not a big surprise. We had planned a full day of activities that were mostly outside, so the weather was a bit of a bummer, but we forged ahead anyway. First stop was back to the hotel restaurant, The Porthole, for a wonderful breakfast. After checking out we decided to mix up our original plans in hopes that some of the rain would subside, and headed of first to the Old Bushmills Distillery. Unfortunately due to the volatile alcohol that hangs thick in the air, we weren't permitted to take pictures of the tour. We were, however, able to use our cameras afterwards at the bar.

Admittance to the tour gets you one free drink at the end, and on top of that our hotel had given up tickets for a 'tasting experience'. Bushmills no

longer does the tastings, but our bartender set up a mini one for us where we got to learn about and try each of the types of Whiskey that they produce. We then proceeded directly into the

gift shop and dropped a ton of cash. This is how they get you!!! :)

Moving on, we stopped at Giant's Causeway, just down the road. It was interesting to see the abnormal rock formations, but unfortunately it was still raining pretty hard. We were still able to get some good pictures though!

Our last planned outing of the day was the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, a rope suspension bridge linking the mainland to Carrick Island,

spanning over 65 feet across and hanging nearly 100 feet above the crashing waves below. Once on the other side, the tiny island offers great views, and also a great location for a marriage proposal! We took a few pictures of the scenery when Jean asked a passerby to take our picture. As we prepared to take the picture, Jean got down on one knee (in the mud!) and asked me to 'cross back over the bridge and be [his] wife'. I, of course, said yes!! Photo sequence below...

After leaving Carrick-A-Rede and ready to celebrate, we headed southeast into the city of Belfast. After checking into the lovely Park Inn hotel on Clarence Street, we started sharing our happy news with family and close friends. Afterwards we wandered down to the hotel restaurant for a wonderful dinner of lamb shank and gourmet cheeseburger. We were meeting our friend Stephen at 8:30 PM, so after dinner we headed back up to the room to rest and catch a little TV before heading out again for the evening. After grabbing a few drinks with Stephen, we walked throughout the city centre, stopping in to visit Scott at McHugh's and taking in the sites of City Hall and the Belfast Wheel (which was unfortunately closed by this time).

All in all it was a long and eventful day, but one that I'm sure neither of us will ever forget!

Before

The Proposal

The Acceptance :)

After

The Ring

Gaillimh go Muileann na Buais (Galway to Bushmills)

Jean: Hey everyone! Great day today! Woke up rested and refreshed and ready to make the journey to Northern Ireland. Met up with one of Mandy's Duke Boardie friends last night for dinner and some catching up.

My poison ivy is getting better with the prescription medication i got yesterday and though itchy at times, its definitely not hindering my ability to see the beauty i see while driving around the country.

Before we got on the road we went to Centra, a version of Wawa or Sheetz that far surpasses either of them in America in my respects! We shared a breakfast sub with 2 Irish sausages, rashers, 2 eggs and hash browns....for 3.5 Euro....... AMAZING!! I am in LOVE with Irish sausage.

One of the main things i've fallen in love with here is some foods. The first day i found a strawberry jam that I WILL be bringing home with me. Its fantastic! I also found a granola with coconut and almonds. We both already loved Nutella, but we found Krave.....a breakfast cereal that is captain crunch filled with hazelnut chocolate.....OMG

On the way to Bushmills we passed through Sligo, where we stopped at the W.B. Yeats Memorial and gravesite which is surrounded a gorgeous landscape of mountains just seeming to come out of the ground. A lot of the mountains seem to just jut up out of the ground and not belong to any mountain range. It's pretty fantastic.

Mandy: Hi all! Great day today... After leaving Galway we hit the road for what we planned to be our longest day of driving, but

it turned out not to be so bad! We hit the Centra and purchased an amazing breakfast sandwich that was so bad for us, it sustained us throughout most of the day (um, hello...rashers, sausages, eggs, and hashbrowns on a baguette. NOM!).

Down the road we came upon the shrine at Knock, so we decided to make a spur-of-the

moment stopover to sightsee and pick up some souvenirs.

Back on the road, we went through Sligo, Donegal, and Coleraine before landing at the most A.MAZ.ING hotel in Bushmills, NI (well, technically Portballintrae). After dropping our bags we went for a walk down to the beach and throughout the town before returning back for an incredible dinner of mussels, caesar salad, and blue cheese/sun dried tomato ravioli for starters, ribeye steak and pan-seared red sea bass for mains, and Bushmills for dessert.

After grabbing a bottle of wine to take up to the room, we retired for the night. After each taking our turns soaking in the jacuzzi, we settled with the bottle of wine and... home and garden style TV (some things never change!)

Tomorrow we've a busy day, but very little driving, so Jean's particularly happy about that! We'll be visiting the Bushmills Distillery, Giant's Causeway, and the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge, then heading about an hour-and-a-half south into Belfast. Praying for good weather, since many of our activities tomorrow are outside (though somehow we've both managed to get some sun already).

OK, time to get off the computer and back out to our bayview balcony...that wine is calling me! Until tomorrow, enjoy our view...

An Daingean go Gaillimh (Dingle to Galway)

Hi everyone, both Jean and Mandy here!

Mandy: What an eventful day so far! Jean’s poison ivy has progressed further, so we finally sucked it up and went to the Dingle Medical Centre, where the wonderful Dr. Conor Bronson wrote a much-needed prescription for some prednisone. After collecting that from the local pharmacy, we were on our way!

Jean: Before heading to the Doctor and the Pharmacy we had an AMAZING breakfast at our B&B! We had a few fresh baked scones with various jams and nutella, coffee and tea, Irish meats and cheeses, and we both had Eggs Benedict, which were far beyond creamy and delicious!

Everyone told us to make the drive to the Slea Head Drive, but unfortunately due to the time we had to use to go get me checked out we couldn’t do it. We started out today’s trip going up Conor Pass, which is up a small mountain road and probably some of the most gorgeous views

I’ve seen in a long time. It reminded me a lot of when I was in Italy in the Cinque Terra and when I was working for Carnival Cruises and I went to the top of a mountain in St. Thomas. There are two lookout points in Conor Pass. The first stop gives you great views both towards Dingle and to the other side of the peninsula. The other stop at first looks like just a little waterfall with a rock face. But if you know what to look for (thanks to Mandy), with a little scampering up rocks about 150ft up you come to a HUGE wading pool where water gathers off the mountain and offers you a superb view.

As we continued on, we went through Tralee and on to Ennis to visit Siobhan (a family friend of Mandy’s) to drop off some presents and have a cup of tea before heading out to the Burren and the Father Ted Parochial House.

On the way to Tralee, the easiest and ‘fastest’ way is to use the Shannon Ferry from Tarbert to Kilrush so we didn’t have to drive all around the inlet which would have made our drive a little longer……. It takes about 15 minutes and made me miss being out on the water

Mandy: The ferry ride was beautiful, if not a little windy and chilly. Once arriving at the other side we were off to visit the site where the popular BBC TV show ‘Father Ted’ was filmed. This was quite possibly the highlight of my trip! Well, it would have been if we didn’t come upon a bad accident where we were asked to turn around. Unfortunately, Irish towns don’t offer multiple ways to get to a place, so we ended up going several kilometers out of our way, just to have to backtrack and get back on the road we wanted. We made it though, and arrived at the Fr. Ted/Craggy Island Parochial House just before sundown, with strains of Neil Hannon and Duke Special’s remix of ‘Songs of Love’ playing on the car stereo J

After photos and ogling, we made our way out of The Burren. By this time night had fallen, and this made for some interesting driving! Eventually though, we were back in civilization, and on our way to Galway. Upon arrival we met up with Ails, a friend of mine from the Duke Special message boards (Hi Ails!) and had some dinner. After that, we were pretty much shattered from the long day, so with a quick drink in the hotel bar, we were off to bed, falling asleep almost immediately.

Tomorrow we’ve got another loooong day of driving, but it seems to be mostly on main roads, so we’ll see what adventures that will hold. Next stop, Bushmills (yes…that Bushmills … ;) )!

Ros Mhic Thriúin go An Daingean (New Ross to Dingle)

Hi All!

Mandy again… Our second day here held a lot of scenery and a lot of driving. We started out at the picturesque MacMurrough Farm Cottage in New Ross, County Wexford, complete with a flock of sheep right outside our back door. After Jean made us a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, toasted brown bread, and tea, we packed up the car and headed off. We did get confused by the roads a couple of times, but eventually made it to the opposite coast, town of Dingle, County Kerry.

The original plan was to head up the Conor Pass, but it was already about 5 PM when we arrived, and also a little overcast, so we decided to just check in to our bed and breakfast and then hit the town. The Castlewood Guesthouse – our home for the night – was top-notch. The proprietors Brian and Helen were wonderfully accommodating, and we couldn’t have asked for a nicer place to stay, or a better view of the stunning Dingle Bay.

After depositing our bags to the room, we started out on foot into the town in search of sustenance (and perhaps just a pint or two J ). After walking the length and breadth of Dingle…twice…we settled on The Dingle Pub, where unfortunately we were not the only Americans. We chose to distance ourselves from the others and get a table, instead of asking the bartender to ‘say something in Irish!’. Afterwards we made a quick stop at the off-license for a few cans of cider, then back to the B&B. Jean’s poison ivy has gotten progressively worse, so after cleaning and redressing, we were off to bed. He’s still in good spirits, though J

Tomorrow we’ll leave Dingle by way of Conor Pass, The Burren, and the site of the Fr. Ted Parochial House, then it’s off to Galway. Until then, Slán abhaile!

Baile Átha Cliath go Ros Mhic Thriúin (Dublin to New Ross)

Hey Everyone! Jean here! We made it to "The Big Isle" safe and sound =) It was a loooong trip and there were a few bumps along the road, but nothing too bad.

The plane ride was pretty good, though a little cramped for me. Mandy was able to sleep for half the ride but i don't usually sleep on planes, so i got to watch 3 movies - District 9, Adam (a relationship story about a guy with Asperger's

syndrome), and 50 Dead Men Walking (a story about a guy during the fighting in Northern Ireland)

Once we got off the plane at 6:30 AM and got our luggage, it was straight to the Budget rental kiosk to get our car (where the online quote was unfortunately not quite the price......ALL the insurance was more than it said it would be.) But we got our little Nissan Micra.......and i mean little! It's surprisingly big on the inside though for such a mite of a car! It's definitely a different experience to drive on the opposite side of the road. But the biggest oddity for me is looking at the mirrors. Nothing looks the same as home cause the angles are different. And due to the stories i have heard from Mandy and her brother John, I drove first!

One thing i did find out for sure after we got off the plane was that i should have declared something when i came to Ireland.......that i brought Poison Ivy over with me.....yeah.....it kinda stinks.....

We got on the

road and went straight into Dublin, where we found out we didn't have any good maps of the city despite the 3 maps we brought and the 2 that were given to us....... so i drove around the city for about an hour and a half "site seeing". Which means trying to see their street signs and figure out where the heck we were in relation to our destination, the Guinness Brewery/Storehouse. City driving can be hard back in DC, but Ireland city driving, on the opposite side of the road when you've never done it before...... priceless. I definitely scared Mandy a few times =)

At the Guinness Storehouse we saw how they made Guinness and it was a very appropriate first stop in the country for me. At the top of the storehouse is a 360 view 'Gravity Bar' with fantastic views of the city.

On the way to New Ross we stopped in Wicklow because i was exhausted due to not sleeping in god knows how many hours. We found some food at a Lidl (supermarket) to have for lunch and Mandy started driving after we found a beautiful place by the beach to take pictures. It took about 4 hrs to get to New Ross and when Mandy started driving it happened to be along a tiny ocean road!!! hahaha. It was fun to say the least but she did a GREAT job. When we got back on the highway i went right to sleep.

The Cottage we stayed at was very cute, quaint, and quiet.... except for the rooster that hangs

out outside the cottage door.....but i never heard him during my 14 hrs of sleep starting at 7pm!!!

DC to Dublin: a dó (round two)!

We're on our way!

After rising just before 7 AM , packing our last minute items, and catching a ride to the bus (thanks Marshall!) we have finally commenced on our long-anticipated trip to Ireland. As luck would have it, Megabus was offering a Groupon and we were able to book two luxury bus tickets (um...is 'luxury bus' an oxymoron?) for the trip up to New York City, where we are flying out of.

Today might just be the longest day of travel ever. Ever ever. OK, maybe that's an exaggeration. Our 9 AM Megabus takes us to New York, where we will feast on authentic New York bagels at Murray's Bagels in Chelsea (recently seen on Food Network) before the long subway ride out to JFK International Airport in Queens. Perhaps I should have waited until we were at the airport, stealing their WiFi, before exclaiming that we were on our way, because really, it feels like we're not even close right now :)