In Ireland

Hello everyone. Well here we are in Waringstown, Ireland. i have come to the understanding that although i am Canadian we are all really americans at heart! (Karen just put that on there, she really meant that Canada is the best country ever and she wishes to live in saskatchewan!)
Anyways..
This last week has gone extremely fast! One more day in Ireland and then off to Newcastle, England. And the chauch I am purchased the tickets for Newcastle for the 6 am flight and we fly out of Dublin. Karen lives much closer to Belfast and it takes an hour and a half to drive to Dublin. I really have to pay more attention to detail in e-mails!!! So we have to get leave at 3 am Thursday morning!
So how has the trip gone so far you ask? Well it's gone really good. The flight from Canada to Frankfurt went well. They don't have tv.'s in the back of the seats and to make things worse most the music stations weren't working, and to make things more worse, Mel's little entertainment unit wasn't working at all!

We got so bored we decided to stick the water bottles on our heads.







We landed safley in Frankfurt and stored our luggage and purchased a train ticket to Liege, Belgium. I think it took about 2 hours to get there. We arrived at around 11 am to the beautiful face of Nathalie!! So good to see her again. It's been close to three years since i've seen her last, but it feels like I just saw her. This photo is her and I at the Eiffel Tower.
The first day in Liege she showed us around. It's really cute and I do like Liege better than Brussels;o) Really I do! Everything is made of concrete and is really close together. They have cafe's and shops all over the place. We stopped at a pub and had a fruit flavoured beer. Was it ever good!!
After we went back to Nathalies and relaxed and went to bed very early.



The next morning we took off to Brussels and met her friends for lunch. After lunch we walked around and saw the sights of Brussels. I'm just gonna stick some pictures from Brussels.














Above is Nathalie with the troll and to the right is the peeing boy of Brussels. Nathalie was explaining to me the story of the peeing boy and I compleltly misunderstood her. She said that there was a fire going out of a bomb and he peed on it to put out the fire and saved the city. I thought she said bum instead of bomb. I later asked her again about the story and she clairfied the bum part;o)

The next morning we got up early and took a train to Paris! It took about two hours. We arrived and took the Metro to our backpackers and set out to the city of romance. We went to the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, The Obeliske, Notre Dame, Champs Elysee and Moulin Rouge. There was a couple more things, but i've forgotten the names.




















At the top is Mel at the Arc de Triumph and beside that picture is the Obliske with the Eiffel Tower in the backround. On the left hand side is Nathalie and I in front of Norte Dame and to the right is Mel and I in front of the Eiffel Tower. And to the right again is Moulin Rouge, oo lala!


I must say we were all exhausted by the time we finished sight seeing! We had some food and in my salad I found a chicken bone, mmmm.. Oh and I now know how to eat salad and fries with a fork and knife. I'm a proper young lady now. After we ate we went back to the backpackers.
Got up the next morning and did a little bit more sight seeing and then just barley caught our train to Lyon. We arrived 3 min. before departure. It was just like the tv. shows with the running and the sweating and the jumping on the train. Well not that extreme, but the running was happening. It was exciting!

We were greeted in Lyon by Melissa's family. We hopped in the car to Bourgoin, France. It's a beautiful little town/villiage outside of Lyon. We went back to her cousin Marta's house and ate. When you eat in France you eat lots!! The courses never end!! I didn't know that they served in courses and neither Mel or I paced ourselves, so by the third course our buttons were popping off! And not to mention you drink good wine with each meal. A meal lasts about 2/3 hours. Lots of visiting. But it was a shame with the language barrier. It was very hard to have a conversation. A couple of her cousins spoke a little bit of english and our french really didn't amount to anything. I shouldn't of droped out of my university french class!!
The next day we got up and had another 3/4 hour meal with another one of her cousins. After lunch/supper, or lupper, we went to a rugby match with her cousin Virginie and then back to her other cousins house for another meal. We were still full from the other one but we made room for more food. I should mention Melissa has a million cousins here and I hardly remember the names. Finished that meal up and went back to Marta's to get ready for the next day.
We got up a wee bit early and went to a restauraunt/hotel for a very fine meal! Boy was it good. We started off with some duck liver (it was very good!) . The second course was frog legs and they were so tasty. The third was duck. After the duck we had cheese. The French have cheese after each meal. After the cheese was dessert. And of course we had wine with the meal. Oh was it good wine! It was from Bordeaux which I'm guessing is a popular place for wine. And I can't help but thinking of the wine tasting we had at Joey's. Deb this wine is much better then the wine we ever had!! No aftertaste. So good, but i'm sure it would cost you an arm and a leg to bring in! You would love it.
After the meal we visited more and drank a bit more... Well I drank a bit more, Mel drank a lot more!! You should've seen her the next morning. Hehe.. Oh and my apologies for no pictures from Bourgois. They are all on Mels camera.

The next morning we got up to leave for Dublin. Boy was that a long day. Our layover went from 7 hours to 10 hours in Stansted. Our plane got was delayed. And poor Karen!! She was waiting at the airport in Dublin for four hours with nothing to do! And again, why I flew into Dublin, I don't know!! My most sincere apologies Karen!!




This is Mel and I in Stansted.





The next day we got up and went to Newcastle for some lunch and we had a beautiful view of the mountains. We later went to a castle. Sorry Shar I don't think this one would make Most Haunted. It's very modern inside. We walked around the lake by Castle Wellan. It is just absolutley gorgeous here!! The air the scenery. It was nice to get out in the country again and get some fresh air.


This is a large chair that was by the lake.
Below is the Castle again.





















After the Castle we went to the worlds largest maze and if it wasn't for Karen i'm sure it would have taken us at least 45 min. to do! The sun was starting to set and Karen decided to help us out a wee bit, actually she just told us how to get through.
So here we are on the last day in Ireland, (should have stayed longer! I really don't know what I was thinking when I booked the tikcets). We are just eating something quick and then off to Belfast. Get to see Mable. It's been three years as well!
And I promise not to have such long blogs! Also I apologies for grammer/punctuation mistakes. Mel and Karen are patiently waiting for me as I finish this so I quickly went through for mistakes.
So next time I write will be in South Africa!!!!!!!!! Can't wait!