Day 3 Ireland

Do you ever think of Mad Cow Disease? I don’t, very often. The only time it comes to mind is when I think that I could be selling a few pints of blood a week to fund a few more Red Mango visits a week. Apparently after 20 years it is still a concern that the disease could manifest itself. I can’t wait until that happens. All of your readers out there (I think we’re up to 4 now) can say that you know someone with the Mad Cow. I promise this is relevant to our trip. Dave thought about Mad Cow Disease more often than most people. He brought it up several times a day. I’m sure it was brought up at one point on day 3. Day 3!!!! We’re finally getting to day 3….2 years later. Sorry, we have been real busy. Busy with boys and dating and preparing for our future families. Joking! We just haven’t gotten around to it. I think we’ve blogged a total of 4 times in the last 2 years. Fortunately for you all, I am getting paid to sit around and do nothing at an office this summer. I’m shooting to have our blog caught up in the next two weeks. And then I have plans. Very big plans….to keep blogging. Our lives are real interesting now. The other day one of our paintings fell off our wall. That was exciting (in a bad way). I’m an invalid…that’s exciting right? (In a bad way as well). Our neighbors let their dog pee on our balcony…that’s exciting as well. (Also in a bad way). So pretty much only bad things happen to us. But on day 3, something really great happened to us. I’ll get to that in a minute, first I need to say something rude about Greg because I’m pretty sure that is the common theme in all of our Ireland blog posts. We did everything Greg wanted to do, when Greg wanted to do them. On day 3 Greg wanted to go to the Aran Islands. There really were no complaints by any of us (and even if there were, I’m sure he wouldn’t have cared). Greg had all the timing figured out perfectly. He’s a great tour guide. We left our cute little cottage and headed to ferry port and got there approximately 1 hour after the ferry left. So we did what every other snooty American visiting Ireland for spring break would do. We charted a Jet. (Ok, so to be completely honest, it wasn’t technically a jet….more like a tiny little plane, but we still felt like high rollers.) We took a cute family photo in front of the plane (we don’t like touching…the pictures are evidence of that…looks like Greg and Scott would be getting no action this trip. It was tough to let them down) before we hopped in and Janae co-piloted us all the way to the Island which was about 10 minutes away.

The Aran Islands…so beautiful. Our tour guide (the real one, not Greg..with a crazy strong accent) drove us to a fort (I don’t remember what it was called, I just remember thinking that it didn’t seem like a fort). There was a short hike up to the top of it where we experienced the most beautiful views on the planet. I’m not even kidding. I know most of our blogs are not super serious…but I can’t seem to come up with something funny to say about how beautiful it was. The pictures do a pretty good job of showing the beauty, but even those are lacking. Sorry folks, if you want to experience the complete serenity and beauty that we did, you’ll have to book a trip to Ireland. It was there that I took my first engagement photo with Scott….turns out it was my last as well. We took some adorable family photos there, hung off a few cliffs and watched Scott entertain the masses with his traditional Irish jig.

Then we headed back down. Somehow we got on the topic of engagement rings and I heard the most ridiculous thing ever. Dave expressed some thoughts he had about one day proposing to his future wife with a fake engagement ring so that he could surprise her. What a terrible idea! Here are my reasons as to why I think that: 1.I doubt any guy is going to go buy a tiny little fake ring….fake rings are big and blingy. If that is what your woman sees when you open that little box and then later finds out it’s fake and that she can pick out her own…only ¼ of the size…she is going to be ticked. Ok, maybe that’s my only reason. I think it’s valid though. I understand Dave’s desire to surprise but here’s the thing boys (I’m pretty sure that no boys even read our blog...dang), it’s not a good idea to spring a proposal on a girl. You are taking a huge risk in doing that. If she doesn’t know it’s coming then there is a good chance she isn’t going to be cool with it. Look at that…you just got a two-fer. A fun blog about Ireland with a little life lesson in it. (And by “you” I mean the boys that don’t read our blog). The funny part of that whole conversation was that Dave got married this last December, and guess who didn’t propose with a fake ring…your welcome Dave! (Please note that Janae did not share the same thoughts as I did on that topic). After we made it down the fort we stopped at a cute little café for lunch. They had delightful soup and gluten free bread. There was a lot of that in Ireland. It was pleasant. We did some shopping at the gift store and assisted Dave as he tried to decide which earrings where perfect for his then girlfriend, Jacklyn. We were relieved when he finally found the ones and decided she was worth the $30 and pain and anguish required to make the purchase. After lunch we hopped back on the tour bus and visited a cemetery, a really creepy one. I pretty sure Janae and Scott got married at the cemetery. Something about touching thumbs through a hole in a rock. Oh, and Greg and Scott spent a good amount of time trying to convince the tour guide to say “33 1/3” because all Irishmen would pronounce that as “terty tree and a terd” and they like to act like 9 year olds. We caught the ferry on the way back and sat near all these snooty French kids.

We ended the evening in Gallway where we decided to pair off. Greg and Scott went to a fancy pub for Fish ‘n Chips, Michelle and I got smoothies, and Janae and Dave went to a fast food Fish ‘n Chips place. (Did you think I meant that we went on dates when I said we paired off? Not a chance. I mean, Michelle and Dave are an obvious couple choice, but you couldn’t pay Janae or I to deal with Greg for an evening…).