Cliffs of Moher

Hi, this is Taylor. Day two of Ireland and I'm starting to like it here more and more. Until now I hadn't totally accepted the fact that other countries actually existed. Some things are still a little hard to understand though. Like euros and driving on the other side of the road is just not right. It's not normal as far as I'm concerned. Riding in the car terrifies me; I scream at Page every time she goes to the "wrong" side, so I've started to practice the driving in my head. It has been really cold and really raining here, but apparently that is just something I'm going to have to get used to. Today we went to the Cliffs of Moher. It was probably the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. We definitely don't have sights like that in America. The wind was blowing so hard that I honestly almost got knocked over a few times. After we left, we made ourselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate in the car to save some money. It was a very classy dining experience. Then we went into a pub where David had his first drink. He really liked it, which is a very scary thought. Sarah found a boyfriend in this bar. He thought she was a famous singer, naturally.

Cliffs of Moher

Ireland's version of confusion corner

We made our mark at O'Conner's Bar by taping a dollar bill to the wall.

Big's first drink

This particular pub had a little American flavor to it

We had dinner tonight in the hotel. We weren't brave enough to go back out into the freezing rain. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be the same. We're driving to Galway to spend the day and New Year's Eve there. Can't wait to see how David holds up on New Years Eve in an Irish pub. Mom, I know you're especially worried about this, but personally, I can't wait.

The Irish get Visitors!

Dear friends and family of Nanny Page,

Today is a special day in Ireland because I, Courtney Rejzer, am gracing you with my presence as Page's guest speaker! Page left early yesterday morning to come and pick me up at the train station in Mallow, where I stepped off the train from Dublin sleep-deprived and EXCITED! Page spotted me first and welcomed me with a lovely Welcome to Ireland sign. On our drive back to Killavullen I quickly found out Page is a VERY good driver, despite the wrong side of the road AND the left-handed stick shift. I was impressed to say the least.

The Forde's welcomed me with open arms, except for Katie-she just stared at me bright eyed for about 30 minutes! She quickly warmed up and after a delicious lunch Gillian made for us, Eoghan, Page, and I went for a walk to go see the famous cows. On this walk we saw "David in an airplane," "invisible blackberries," and tons of cows. Oh and by the way, Ireland is BEAUTIFUL and the views from the Forde's house are incredible! On our walk Eoghan said, "Come on lads!" to Page and me. I of course found this hilarious as I am not used to the accents at all.
At the Forde's house we built about 100 lego towers only for Katie to knock them down again. We FINALLY built one taller than Eoghan! I honestly think Page and I were more excited than he was. After dinner we played with Katie in the living room (while skyping Riddawg) and GUESS WHAT?!? KATIE STARTED TO WALK!!!! Page says it's because I had given her the ultimatum that she better start walking by the time I left, so the peer pressure pushed her over the edge. I think she just wanted to surprise us all:) After Katie debuted her walking skills, my eyes were just about shutting themselves (because I had been up for over 30 hours at this point) and I went to sleep.

TODAY Page and I left for the Shannon airport at around 8am and yes it was still dark outside!!!! (Ireland has the latest sunrises and the earliest sunsets I have ever seen!) Anyway we found David sitting in the airport and the three of us played Go Fish and Old Maid until the girls arrived. (thanks Riddawg). FINALLY the girls stepped off the plane looking glamorous after traveling through FOUR countries in one day (America, France, England, Ireland). WHAT A TRIP.
Page welcomed them while I held the welcoming sign and David took this picture:) Finally the Otey clan (plus Bethany and I) were all reunited after WAY TOO LONG! We pretty much immediately got the rental car and money converted so we were on our way to start our Ireland adventure.

The weather today was rainy and cold, but we quickly accepted the Irish weather and made the best out of our visit to Bunratty Castle. First we ate at Durty Nelly's Pub in Bunratty and visited the castle next. We walked through the town and castle while learning its history and visited the various "shops" from back then, which reminded everyone of colonial Williamsburg! Later this evening David told us he was not a fan of these types of "trips" where you go from house to house looking at historical rooms! Needless to say I don't think he'll let us go to any more places like that. For the record, IIII enjoyed it:) P.S. we saw reindeer!
Page took a picture of her visitors at Bunratty:)

Above: Bethany and Sarah on top of Bunratty Castle...freezing!

After Bunratty we drove to Ennis and stumbled upon our hotel. I was riding with Page and we didn't have the best directions, so we weren't expecting to find the hotel without stopping for directions. Well, immediately upon arrival in Ennis we looked up and the hotel was within feet of us! The hotel is very big and nice for the price we got the room for-it even has a "Leisure Room" or exercise room that Bethany and Sarah are jazzed about! Once settled in the hotel, David immediately fell asleep, Taylor took a shower, and B+S went to work out in the leisure room. Page and I went to find a Vodafone shop to activate our second cell phone that Page's friend Carmel let us borrow. This "outing" turned into a 30- minute walk in the rain and cold to a street where the shop was and we ended up loving it. I thought it was such a cute street! So once we came back we talked everyone (except David) into going back for dinner. David did not join us for dinner because we LITERALLY could not wake him up. He slept through 5 people trying to wake him up and was not even coherent when he would talk. Anyways, the girls all enjoyed dinner, although I think they were EXHAUSTED by this point! (They have now been up for 30+ hours also) We ate at a pub and the picture below is Taylor and I when we got there.


Above is the street I was talking about, where we ate our dinner and we also stopped at a grocery store on the way home. We got food for the road so that we wouldn't have to pay for 3 meals a day-a very good idea in my opinion! I believe the result was: 2 loaves of bread, pb+j, and cereal bars.
Above: Both before AND after the pub, this was the picture of David.

Back at the hotel it is now 9:30pm and Page and I are the only ones awake. Everyone pretty much crashed when we got back (for good reason), except for David. David woke up and asked us, "Is it morning or night?"

Tomorrow our plan is dependent on the weather but Page will write all about it!

Alright, all this blogging is wearing me out. Goodnight everyone!

Love,
Courtney

Alcoholic Santa

Forgot to mention that in Ireland they leave out whiskey and mince pies for Santa instead of milk and cookies!! I found that funny since the Irish are known for their drinking culture. Kieran said Santa even left a broken whiskey bottle one year at his house.

Eoghan wanted to leave Coco pops, water, an orange, and a slice of American cheese, so Santa didn't get any whiskey at the Forde household this year!

Happy Christmas from Killavullen!

My first Irish Christmas ended up very well. I told Gillian that I feel that in an effort to make me feel at home here, I ended up getting spoiled rotten! I woke up Christmas morning to an Irish stocking and my stocking all the way from home!! I of course lost it once I saw my stocking all the way from home. Eoghan says that Santa came here, then went to "Americamp" to get my stocking and bring it back here. Not only did the Fordes and my parents put a lot of thought into my Christmas, but I also received a gift from Nashville, TN (thank you Sielbecks!!!), from Kieran's family, from one of Kieran's sisters, from Gillian's family, and from their good family friends the Larkins. Everyone has been so generous and considerate- always making sure I was managing the day okay.

Eoghan got a "quad bike" (a four wheeler) and a John Deere trailer for Christmas (along with a lot of books, art supplies, etc.). Katie got a stroller, a doll, and a pram. Eoghan was wired all day. He was just on top of the world after having Santa come. Katie was really too young to understand it at all! It was a lot of fun to be around kids who are so excited about Santa. It's been so long since we were that age that I had forgotten how their imaginations run wild.

To top it all off, it was a semi-white Christmas! This morning there was snow (and ICE) and frost on the ground. It was a dangerous trek down to 9 AM Mass, but we thankfully made it safe and sound. Sadly there was no music at Mass- something I'm still trying to get used to. I really missed hearing the Christmas carols, but I've been playing them on my ipod since about October, so I guess I should be sick of them by now anyway! Around noon we headed up to Gillian's dad's house to have light snacks and drinks with her family and the Larkins. Then we headed back home for dinner. Dinner was DELICIOUS. Gillian made "prawns" (shrimp cocktail- thought of you, Mom), mushroom soup, spiced beef (a Cork specialty), honey glazed ham, a turkey, brussel sprouts, two kinds of potatoes (of course!), carrots, the best stuffing I have ever had, and some special kind of peas. I was stuffed to the brim afterwards, but it was all so, so good.

If it wasn't for Sarah, Taylor, David, Courtney, and Bethany coming over in a couple of days, I think Christmas would have been equally as hard for me as Thanksgiving was. Lucky for me though, I'm too excited about them coming to realize how homesick I am for my traditional American Christmas!

Eoghan's carrots for "Rudolph and his friends"- the red blob on the sign is obviously Rudolph's nose

Reindeer droppings left on the sidewalk!!

Eoghan and Katie with the new quad bike and trailer (in their new PJs from AMERICA! thanks Ridedawg)

Pushing her new "buggy"

Eoghan and his quad bike

Attempting to take a Christmas day picture...

Child Abuse

Gillian thinks this video borders on child abuse, but I had to still put it up. Eoghan got a dog mask from Santa (I think I already mentioned that when you visit Santa Claus here, he gives you gifts- not fair!) and we took turns wearing it around the house today. Eoghan and I came up with the brilliant idea to play fetch- a colored pencil being the bone. We played this for about half an hour. I showed the video to Gill when she got home and she thinks Eoghan is going to have psychological problems because of our game!!


Last night we had our au pair secret Santa gift exchange. Franziska cooked schnitzel (an Austrian breaded pork dish) and some sort of German style macaroni and cheese. We all had a really good time. It was nice to have the group of us together to celebrate Christmas since only one of us will be celebrating it with our actual family.

The group of us:

JP with his version of au pair ("O Pear"):

Even though Christmas will be hard being away from home, the Fordes have been so great about everything. Gillian even had a stocking made for me (with my name embroidered on it) to match theirs.





In other news, my car is finally ready!! I went for my first test drive to day and had an embarrassing experience- to say the least. Gillian was at work and Kieran was watching the kids, so I decided I'd drive up the road to practice. I only stalled about ten times leaving the driveway. Then when I got to the end of the road and tried to make a U-turn, the car didn't have a good enough rotation to make it on one go, so I needed to put it in reverse. Well, I couldn't get the car in reverse, so I kept drifting closer and closer to the hedge in front of me. Eventually I was about a foot from the hedge and too nervous to go any further. It took a shot to my pride, but I ended up having to call Kieran to drive up the road to back the car up for me. I felt terrible doing it because that meant he had to load the kids in the car just to come rescue me, but I figured that was the better option over crashing the car on my first day! Apparently you have to lift a ring around the gear to move it over into reverse... guess I should have asked about that before I left the driveway. Taylor, Sarah, David, Courtney, and Bethany, be scared for your lives when you come over here!

Bruxelles

I got back late last night from my weekend in Brussels, Belgium. Despite the FREEZING cold, I had such a fun weekend in the land of chocolate and waffles. The six of us left Killavullen around 2:45 PM on Friday afternoon- since Gillian's class had put on their nativity play that morning (cutest thing I think I have EVER seen), she had a half day and was able to let me get off early. We drove to Shannon and then flew over to Brussels.

Once landing in Belgium, I realized this was the first non-English speaking country I had ever visited. Luckily we had a French girl in our culturally diverse group and she was able to get us where we needed to go. We bought bus tickets to the city and then attempted to figure out the best way to make it to our hostel. We eventually hailed a taxi van that could fit us all and take us to our hostel for a mere 20 euros (not bad split six ways). We had our own room in the hostel which is always nice! It definitely wasn't a five star establishment but it worked.

The next morning we walked (the "scenic route") to the Christmas market. We didn't have a map, so we had to use Nathalie (the French girl) to ask directions. After a lot of walking, we spotted green and red tents! I immediately bought a new hat and a second pair of gloves because the -10 degree Celcius temperatures (about 14 degrees Farenheit) were unbearable.

When we went to lunch, I was surprised at how the wait staff did not know any English. In such a big city, I would expect them to know some English. I asked for tea and the waitress looked at me like I was from another planet... so I got Nathalie to ask for me!! We also stopped for some mulled wine, which I had never had before. It was very good and warmed us up right away!

Three of us went ice skating and toured the "Christmas monster" (basically like a Christmas haunted house- probably one of the highlights of the trip!). Then--exhausted--we headed back to the hostel for the night.

We woke up to heavy snow the next morning. We checked out of the hostel and headed back towards the Christmas market. After lots of slipping and sliding (Elisa fell to the ground nine times), we made it. We spent most of the day walking around and stopping every chance we got (to get out of the FREEZING cold). The second I would step outside, I wouldn't be able to feel my toes. After a comedy of errors, we made it to the airport and caught our flight to Shannon. Shannon (at 2 degrees Celcius) felt almost warm.

I had a very good weekend. I missed good ole Ireland, so I am happy to be back. It was nice to get away for awhile though. The Christmas market, the snow, and the ice skating has definitely put me in the Christmas spirit!

Enjoying the mulled wine at the Christmas market


Elisa in front of the Christmas market vendors

Elisa, Franziska, and I posing with SANTA!

Ice skating!

BELGIAN CHOCOLATE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID!

Counting down the days until you'll be here..!