Sunday Funday

Because we'd had an earlier night than the previous night, we woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to face the day!  Susan had told us about some place her friend went to called The Queen of Tarts, all the way across the city, that evidently had tarts, pastries, breakfasts, scones, and anything else baked that you wanted to DIE FOR!  So we made the trek.  We each got a scone and some orange juice and tea and delighted in the cute atmosphere and how wonderful it was.  (Ok, I delighted in it.  The guys could care less.)  It's pretty much my new favorite spot and I plan on coming here often and taking everyone I know who comes to visit here.  

(It's probably a blessing in disguise that it's across the city, so it forces me to walk miles and miles to get there, eat my pastry/scone, and then walk back.  So it cancels itself out!  When I worked at Joe Willy's, I had a couple who came in every Saturday but they forced themselves to WALK there to get their burgers.  They lived in my parents neighborhood if that's any indication how far it was!  I thought it was a brilliant plan, and here I am with my own.  Just like in Sevilla - the best ice cream was about 4 miles from our apartment.  And it was worth it.  Anyway.  Bye.)

I'll be going back to The Queen of Tarts, bottom line.

We then walked across the river to the Jameson Distillery!  (And potentially witnessed a drug deal go down while walking there in a shady part of town.  Awesome.)  Drew and Evan are both whiskey drinkers, and I figured I certainly could be with the right amount of training and prep and acquirement, so...why not?  The Jameson Distillery was a little different from the Guinness Storehouse in that it had a guided tour for you to go on every 20-25 minutes.  You had a tour guide and it was much more "old school" than the Guinness one.  You watched a short video depicting the Distillery when it first opened, and you walked around to see how they made their whiskey in the old days.  And the description of making the whiskey sounded a great deal less complicated than making beer.  I actually understood it!  The tour ended with a chance to taste Jameson in a variety of ways: straight, with cranberry, with Sprite, with Ginger Ale, etc.  Evan and Drew opted for drinking it straight and I tried it with Ginger Ale.  Not bad, though a little sweet.  If I were to order it at a bar, I would get a "splash" of Ginger Ale to cut the horrible asophagus-burning flavor and try it that way.  But we had a great, educational time!

The whole process starts with Barley, as with most everything else.

Mixing the barley with water and what not.

The process of seperating the alcohol from the water.  Distillation, perhaps?

Aging whiskey.

Creepy husband.

Cheers!

Mmmmmmm.

B-fris.

Some fun with hats in the gift shop!

Pretty building on the way there that had nothing to do with Jameson.

We had a lovely time and learned a lot.  Evan was a saint and went with us after the tour to buy our new TV and to do some grocery shopping!  He even helped Drew set it up when we got home.  The addition of a TV with functioning cable and channels has added significantly to Drew's happiness.  The first channel he turned to was ESPN and I thought he might pee his pants.  As previously mentioned, I'm more of a DVD watcher, but whatever makes Drew happy is fine by me!  


We ordered pizzas from our favorite place, drank some wine, and watched the Olympics on the new TV.  We were sad to go to bed because we knew Evan had to leave the next day, and Drew had to go to work, but...c'est la vie.  It was a really fun weekend with our best pal.

Guinness Storehouse

On Saturday, we tried to wake up and recover from our late/early night but were slow-moving.  Understandable.  We walked over to Junior's to show Evan how delicious a traditional Irish breakfast can be.

Yum city.

Ireland's version of Huevos Rancheros.  Not as great as Texas but it did the trick and brought me back to life.

After breakfast, we decided to go to the Guinness Storehouse!  Drew and I hadn't been yet and wanted to go, so Evan being here was the perfect excuse.  Tracy hadn't been either (except for the time she went and waited for us to finish up at the immigration office, which never happened), so she joined us! It was an interesting self-paced tour, with a pint of Guinness waiting for you at the end in their Gravity Bar on the top floor.  

Serious about Guinness.

The actual 9,000 year lease that Arthur Guinness signed in 1759.  

Entryway to the museum.

Water of Life.

Barley, an essential ingredient.  Duh.

Hops.  Another necessary ingredient.  Duh.

Quick!  Act like someone's saying something funny!
(They give you a "taste" halfway through the tour, here.)

Hook 'em.

Area where they show you how to make the casks/barrels.

All of the Guinness ads over the years.  Thinkin about John cause he loves this stuff!

A couple of pints at the Gravity Bar.  Cheers!

The bar had really amazing views 360 degrees all around Dublin.  This picture doesn't do it justice!

Friends!  Happiness!

Winks.

Awkward pic in the stairwell.

Large, beautiful statue/carving that looks like a pint.

It was pouring rain after we left so we abandoned our walking plans and took a cab ride home.

We made it home, soaking wet, and took a little cat nap to prepare for the evening's festivites.  And continue to recover from the previous evening's festivities.  We were planning on going to dinner with a few people, like The Barrister (who had a party at his house the previous evening and hadn't recovered yet), Tracy (who was working out and then ended up staying home - can't blame her for the rain!) and Sarah, another one of Drew's coworkers from Canada (who ended up coming), and we picked a cute cafe recommended by The Barrister called Cafe En Seine.  It was gorgeous inside, with beautiful stained glass windows and mosaic walls and mirrors, and a large greenhoused ceiling in the back, and it looks perfect for dinner or after-work drinks.  After the dinner hours it evidently turns into a pretty happenin' club - and I was sorely out of place because I forgot to wear my sluttiest clothes and my 10-inch heels.  Ah well.  Next time.  It was a lovely dinner with Evan and Drew and Sarah, and then Drew and Evan and I went to a pub for some more drinks, and then home for bed.  

Evan's last day is Sunday so there's plenty more fun to come - gotta fit in as much as we can!

Lauren and Evan's Day O' Fun

Friday started with a lot more sleeping in, and then "crafting" (or doing more housewifery) with Evan!  When we purchased our curtains at Ikea, they were about 3 feet too long.  I got some sort of sticky glue tape and instructions on how to shorten them with an iron, but Drew and I both knew it would be months before I actually got around to doing it.  But not with Ev!  He ran a tight ship and said he was there to help - and pretty much forced me to do it while I had help, because he knows me as well as I do -  I really wouldn't have done it.  His help and force was essential.  I took pictures of this really interesting activity.  Ha!  It's actually not interesting at all but I figured our moms would at least want to see it.  Keep scrolling if you wanna see other stuff.

First, you measure your curtains and lay them out, folded up to the length that you want.

 Then you measure them to make sure they're the right length.

We didn't have pins so we used Chip Clips to hold the fold in place.

Then you iron a fold, or crease, into the curtain.

Then you can remove the chip clip.

Look!  A crease!

You unroll the tape/glue in solid form and line it up along the crease.

Then you get the iron REALLLLY hot and start ironing that bad boy together.  The tape melts and turns into glue and seals the curtain.

Then you cut off the excess fabric from the hem.

Then you hang it back up...

And repeat, 4 times, with all of your curtains (bedroom included).  And then pose with your new curtains.

Evan suggested taking the extra fabric and making a sash or a headdress.

Like I said, without Ev, this project couldn't have been possible.  Before Thanksgiving anyway.

This is a panoramic picture of the view outside our apartment that Evan took.  Cool!

After that, we showered, got dressed, and were out the door by 2:50pm.  Whoops.  We were hungry so we stopped at a cute sandwich place/coffee shop (3fe) before we started our day.  

Food pornography of my turkey, brie, and red onion mayo sandwich.  REALLLY good.  And so simple!  I could make this at home but sandwiches just taste so much better when someone else makes them for you.

Evan had been pretty laid back and surprisingly had no agenda (which...if you know Evan, this is so not like him) - to the point where he was content just sitting somewhere in a park for hours, not seeing any of Dublin, so I insisted we went to the Natural History Museum cause we both like that kinda stuff.  Evan naturally had more questions like..."Name your top 3 favorite mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, etc." or "If you could be any animal in the world, what would it be and why?" and we definitely both wrote down names or species of animals that we saw and wanted to go back and research later cause we're dorks.  

Evan with a Giant Irish Deer (one of the animals we wanted to research).  These guys are humongous. 

Seals!  Cool.

A sunfish (another researcher).  They're biggins.

A basking shark, hanging from the ceiling.  I don't know much about this type of shark but I don't really care.  A shark is a shark.  Avoid them in the water.  You know the drill.   

SLOTHS!!  (That's for you MD & BA.)

Enormous skeleton of a whale.

"When I was a young wart HHOOOGGGGG....!"

Raaarrrrrrrrrr.

Giraffe!

 Coo coo ca choo.

Elephants!  Maybe my most favorite animal.  Besides dogs and dolphins and whales.

Flippy!  Only if you know me really well you would understand this significance.  Consider yourself lucky.

This is a giant hyena.  I couldn't get over how huge these things were.  I don't think I'd want to run into one in a dark alley, that's for sure.

Friday night, I had my first girl's dinner!  Some of the girls at the 4th of July party and the aforementioned engagement party last weekend invited me to a cute French place called The French Paradox that Drew and I had actually been wanting to try.  It was amazingly delicious and we had a really, really great time.  We stopped at Bellamy's for some more wine while Drew and Ev went to dinner with the guys, and we all met up on the other side of town called The Bernard Shaw - no clue where it was but it was a fun bar nonetheless.  This particular bar sold bottles of this stuff called Buckfast (pictured below) - a grape flavoried, syrupy, caffeinated alcoholic beverage that several of the people we were with swore by.  We ordered a bottle and tried it and it was...pretty disgusting.  Like drinking Robitussin but only slightly better.  The bar closed around 1:30am, and naturally we weren't ready to go home, so we went to Missy and Tom's (the house where the 4th of July party was) to keep the evening going.  Good wine, homemade hot whiskey, and old school 90's tunes and a dance party kept us going until 4:30AM!!!  What the hell.  Thankfully I'd been chugging water for 2 hours but I seriously don't know who I am or what I'm doing staying out this late.  It's nuts.

Buckfast.  When in Rome.

I took a picture of the SUNRISE leaving the apartment because I was so shocked at how late it was.  Or early, rather.  Geez louise.

In bed by 5AM.  Insane.  I don't think I can keep this up.

It was a really fabulous, wonderful day.  Good friends, old and new, good food, good drinks, good weather.  Good times.  

(The Mary Tyler Moore Show's theme song "You're gonna make it after all...." is playing in my head right now.  Cue picture of me throwing my hat up in the air in the next month or so.  Ha.)