Parks and Tea

My pals left yesterday and it felt like a lesser version of when I left Dallas.  There were some tears.  There was an empty feeling.  There was sadness.  BUT that's only because we had such a great time together and had a better-than-imaginable week!  It was just nice being with people who know you inside and out and there was no need to be anyone but yourself.  Ah.  Friendship.

I've somehow convinced Meredith and Drew to guest blog, so stay tuned for that in the upcoming days/weeks.  I'm still working on Molly.  I've realized that my least favorite blog posts are the ones where I'm describing a trip or event in detail - saying things like "first we did this, and then we went here, and then we did that, and we saw this..."  These things bore me and I feel like they bore others.  But I've been getting in trouble for my lack of posts and people want the deets so I'm gonna try to blog it all without boring the writer and the reader.  I make no guarantees.  

On Monday, Moll and I headed over to Phoenix Park to do a bike tour after Drew went to work and Mere jetted off to London to check out their Yelp office.  I wanted to show Molly the papal cross and the greenery and the deer, but the bike place was closed due to "stormy weather" - but as you can see from the pics, they were full of it.  So we got on our walking shoes and took off.    

Papal Cross.

View from the cross on the hill.  Is this real life?  

I feel like a Hallelujah chorus should come on at any minute.

Usually the deer hang out right in front of the cross but they were mysteriously absent.  I was livid.  I didn't walk my ass two miles into this park with my visiting friend for her to NOT see the wildlife!  Luckily on the walk back out, we saw them.  WHEW.

Molly becoming one with the deer.

We then walked another 10 or so miles over to...where else?  Queen of Tarts!  Duuhhh.  We split a pot of tea and a sandwich and some desserts and had a delightful time, covering topics from friendships to careers to the differences between big dogs and small dogs.  Serious stuff, people.  Then I took her up Grafton and through St. Stephen's Green, where we soaked up the sun on a park bench and people-watched, and then I gave her a day in the life of Lauren Solomon by taking her grocery shopping.  Luckily they had everything we needed for our feast that night so she couldn't experience the frustration of having to travel to 3 different grocery stores to find what you need.  After a quick stop by the wine shop, we were home and ready to make Chicken Tikka Masala and Homemade Naan bread.  Moll did a great job with the naan and we ate it all.  Whoops.  Monday was a lovely, low key day.

Kneading that naan.

Meredith got back on Tuesday morning, and we wandered over to St. Stephen's Green again to soak up more sun and watch the Irish peeps before our next activity.

Glamour shots.

We had tea at the Shelbourne!  The Shelbourne is a beautiful classy hotel right across the street from the park and I've been wanting to have tea here since I moved.  I figured this was the perfect excuse!

Amuse-bouche: strawberry and banana smoothie!  Yum.

A sampling of tea sandwiches: smoked salmon, egg salad, ham and cheese, and cucumber.  REAL good.

Now for the good stuff: scones and desserts!  I can't even begin to describe all of the desserts but just know that they were amazing and we ate everything on those plates.

Ladies who lunch.

We stayed at the hotel for probably longer than we should have and I took the girls to a cute shopping area off Grafton to buy Drew's birthday presents!  Woohoo.  Then we headed home to rest and lounge, then met Drew for a drink at a pub by his office and discussed our strategy for getting Drew's name announced on The Ticket for his birthday.  This is important stuff, people!

Pubbin' it up.

We were all lame and tired after our two drinks so we went home to watch Love Actually and eat leftovers.  Two successful days with my pals down, several more to go!