Dublin

We decided to go to Dublin last weekend. The decision was between Scotland or Ireland and Ireland prevailed, maybe because I have Irish in me. We quickly regretted our decison when...just kidding. We had such a great time in Dublin! I guess you could say this trip was a mix-up with times as I'll explain in the post. First off, we thought we were going to be in Dublin for 2 full days. It would be a short but sweet trip and we'd be back for Sunday so Rick could teach Sunday School and I could get sustained to my new calling {Relief Society Secretary}. Turns out instead of 9pm, we'd be back at 9am Saturday morning, big difference. Stink. So we had all of Friday to visit Dublin. Our flight left at 6am something Friday morning so we had to leave our house by 4am something. One would think we would have gotten to bed early that night. Nope, we went to bed past 1am. Stink. Luckily, we woke up and got to the airport on time.

This is what the weather was like when we left Germany. The funny thing is, we didn't want to be in Ireland too long because of the cold. We didn't want it to be cold & misrable outside that it would be a chore to sightsee.

Well, Dublin was actually very nice weatherwise, it barely even sprinkled (for Ireland weather we were told it was nice. It's green there from a reason). The above picture is one of the first we took for obvious reasons. Hey, it's Irish English--maybe they don't have the same slang as we do. Do you know that Celtic is the national language of Ireland? Yup, everybody learns it in school and all the signs are in it.

It was a little early after arriving in Dublin. The airport is so close to the city that we were able to take a regular bus and it cost a fraction of what an airport bus would've cost. We stopped a traditional Irish Breakfast, that's what the sign said anyway. Our breakfast came with both hot chocolate and orange juice. How's that for a nice treat? Rick got the meat & potatos dish, while I chose the crossaint and fruit cup dish. Don't worry, the fruit was swimming in whipped cream.

Here's the marshmellows that came with the hot chocolate. They double as hats when you're cold.

I'll post more on this trip later...hopefully. I'll just add on to this post, so check back later when insomnia hits. It's almost 2:30am and I should really try and go to bed. I'm on a bad sleep cycle!

A Powerful Story

I got this in an email forward and thought it was quite powerful.

Before seeing the video, read below to understand the video:
The video shows the winner of "Ukraine’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.

The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about $130,000.00. She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.

It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.
This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye..

The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.


Kseniya Simonova says:
"I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there’s surely no bigger compliment."

Snow Snow, Everywhere, Snow

I had big plans for today. We were going to go to the Metz Fleamarket. I guess it's a pretty big one and I love flea markets. Love them. After that, we were going to go to our French Walmart aka Cora and pick up some French goodies. Then, we would drive to Mettlach where they have a Villroy & Boch outlet, along with Silit and Land's End outlets. {Of course, we'd keep our eyes open for any other flea markets along the way.} Next we'd make our way to European Country Living to mostly look around there. We have fallen in love with a farmhouse style table with a butterfly leaf that costs as much as our rent. But they also have other cute things there and sometimes we splurge a little. We'd finish up the day at Ramstein where there is an Air Force base and a big American-type mall complete with a movie theater complex and a Macaroni Grill. Then we'd drive home and sleep soundly in a warm bed.

That was my plan.

Until it snowed last night.

( picture taken after all said events)

We left anyway this morning to make the plan a reality (a little later than I wanted to, but we left nevertheless).

We drove.

Then we were driving slower. Meanwhile let me add there was lots of snow everywhere but the freeways were pretty okay. But then traffic slowed down to 20. And I think that was kilometers. Maybe I'm confused how slow we were going but it wasn't pretty and we still had a long ways to go.

So we turned around.

Sad. I know.

We tried to follow signs to other flea markets but the snow was bad and we thought they might have cancelled them anyway.

We found one flea market that was basically like 5 people having a combined garage sale. We got 2 children's books. Our children to be are going to have no idea what we're saying but we got them anyway.

Then we went to Ikea and got lunch because it was already that time. Yes, we had been driving around for like 3 hours! And we spent way more money that we planned for lunch. Because I thought they were still serving breakfast until I got up to the lady behind the counter with the food. So we ate delicious Swedish meatballs and salmon and drank hot chocolate. We did this even though we splurgged last night and ate at Die Kartoffel. And when I say splurgged, I mean we splurgged.

Die Kartoffel brings out a salad and then later a huge potato with mounds {literally} of sour cream. The main meat comes out on a hot simmering stone. It cooks in front of you. It's pretty cool and we had to do it at least once. We ate down in some old wine cellar that was decorated with antiques. Should have taken a picture of those. It was fun, we got to know more people from church.


So now we're home. Rick's asleep on the couch and I am almost done cooking an incredible soup recipe. If tortellini sausage soup doesn't hit the spot then I don't know what would because that soup is amazingly delicious! p.s. that website, the one with the soup, is amazing. I've already tried their Brazilian Lemonade and Cinammon or Orange Rolls. They are amazing.

Okay, so basically I just gave you all my secrets. So treat them wisely.

But getting back to the snow part--it sort of stunk. I need to go to flea markets. NEED.

I guess there's next week...

Here's a teaser picture from our Strassbourg outing the week after Christmas,

Can you believe they strung up that beautiful chandelier in the middle of a street. It was really beautiful. The house behind it isn't bad either.