Irish Castles

While in Ireland we saw lots of castle ruins. We didn't go to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone (as you know I can gab just fine already), but we did visit Ross Castle and also stumbled across ruins on our drives. They're very cool looking. It makes me want to stay in a restored castle to imagine what it was like to live in one.

Castle Ruins on the "Ring of Kerry" drive


Ross Castle (County Kerry)

Dublin - Land of Guinness

Brett and I spent the past few days in Ireland taking in the sights. We spent the first day in Dublin and toured the Guinness Brewery and the rest of the town. We had a laugh at a few of the sights as it appears that the Irish take their Guinness and their alcohol availability very seriously.

Check out the "Guinness Quality Truck." I love their dedication to ensuring that your pint reaches you "in the finest condition."


or the "Booze2Go" store. At least they don't have a drive through :-)

Hey - he stole my ball!

That's what Holly must have been thinking last night. I took her to the Beatrix Park to throw a tennis ball around when a little dachsaund stole it from her and wouldn't give it back no matter how hard his owner tried to retrieve it.

We had to cut our play session a bit short, but Holly still had fun as you can see in the videos :-)

Donkeys, pink unicycles and pigs

I love looking out the window. From my office I can see huge windmills and cruise ships. From the tram I enjoy looking in all the shop windows to see what's new. Today I had an especially interesting view. I saw:

1) A man carrying an entire frozen pig (hog) on his shoulder as he walked down the street.
2) A girl riding a pink unicycle
3) A donkey tied to a city parking meter


As I walked out of the office today I noticed a film crew taking pictures of a man and woman dressed in Mexican clothing. Then I saw the donkey. He was wearing a sombrero and was tied to a parking machine. I took a photo of the spectacle and got on my tram.

On the tram I was thinking about the donkey and the strange scene I had witnessed. I decided to look at the photo again and noticed a "boot" on the donkey's leg. Not a protective animal shoe, but a boot like you'd see on a car that has too many unpaid parking tickets.



I don't know for sure what they were doing, but I suspect it's a public service anouncement about parking enforcement. The Dutch have a funny sense of humor about these things. When I was in baggage claim at the Amsterdam airport a few weeks back there was a suitcase on the carousel with a sign on it that said "Have something to declare? Go to the red line at customs." It was only on the 2nd time that the bag went by me that I noticed the fake alligator tail sticking out of the suitcase. :-)

Cool American Doritos

In the US, we have "Cool Ranch" Doritos. Here in Holland we have "Cool American" Doritos with the same flavor. It reminds me of the "Big Americans" pizza box we saw that had a "Texas style pizza" callout. I guess they think all Americans are cowboys when the word ranch gets translated to American :-)

Metal Lizards

A month ago I posted about the metal tree trunk "art projects" around Amsterdam. The other day I ran across this field of metal lizards. I'm not sure what the significance of this project is, but it is kind of cool and did make me stop. Maybe that's the point.

Sausage and Makeup together - an interesting sales tool

I was in a store called Hema the other day. I can't think of how to describe it other than as a Dollar Store/Walmart/Deli counter combined in a small space. In other words, a real hodge podge. Party balloons, socks and deli meat all in the same 1000 square feet.

Just after entering the store, I noticed a display of warm sausage in between the make up aisles. It seemed like an odd placement to me. The picture quality is poor, but if you could see inside the bin with the "kielbasa pictures" on the side, you'd see loose sausages, tongs, and bags to put the sausage in. I guess a girl can get hungry with all that lipstick shopping.