More Snow!

Well, we made it up to Northern Ireland, near Ballymena, to visit Marie and Brian on Friday afternoon. It stopped snowing long enough for us to make it safely there and back (last night), but we woke up to more snow this morning! We celebrated Marie's birthday (which was last Friday), Marie and I did a bit of shopping, and Paul did some odd jobs on their house. There is a really good exchange rate when exchanging Euro into Pounds at the moment, and everything is generally cheaper in the North, so I stocked up on non-perishable grocery items. I compared the same items in the same store, and saved 35 Euro by shopping up there. I'll definitely be doing that again!

Marie and Paul

Marie and her little birthday cake

Paul got up early and went to mass this morning, and he called me after it was over to say that the roads were like ice rinks- he went up onto a curb before he even got out of our estate! Luckily there was no injuries and no damage to his van. He got a few groceries on his way home, stopped to pick up some McDonald's pancakes for me, then I taught him how to make a snowman when he got home! He didn't think rolling the snow into a ball on the ground actually worked. While we were out in the snow, he said "I'm kind of getting sick of this snow!" We've only had snow for about a week here! He should go to MN for a few weeks in January! The sun came out and most of it has melted now. There's more in the forecast for the week ahead though.

Paul making the snowman's head

Me and our rather sad looking snowman- he does have really small branches for arms, but we didn't have any coal or carrots for his face

A self-portrait in our backyard.

Snowy Days!

I know this has been a pretty common site in Minnesota and other parts of the US this winter, but Dublin has had more snow this week than it has had in about 20 years. And, it's only been about 3 inches at a time! Unfortunately it seems to hit right about the time everyone is on their way home. On Monday I left work early enough that I made it home in a reasonable amount of time, but Paul left his office (only about 3 miles from our apartment) around 6pm and didn't get home until 9pm! He did stop and get something to eat for about an hour because he was going nowhere fast and was getting hungry! On Tuesday I was headed home from work and Paul was headed home from a meeting in town, and we both ended up stuck on the same road- Paul was in the fast lane, and I was in the slow lane. We would occasionally pass each other and wave! It was two hours and forty minutes for me to get home, about 8 miles! Yesterday wasn't bad, but it's been snowing again today. The Dublin airport has been shut down all afternoon.

It is just kind of funny to me to see this little bit of snow crippling the eastern part of the country. I know it's all relative though. There are no snowplows here, road surfaces are different, tires are different; they just aren't accustomed to snow! As I've been driving around the past few days, kids throw snowballs at all the cars because it is such a novelty. In County Wicklow, south of Dublin, a few people had to be airlifted out by helicopter from some hilly areas because they were stuck, and cars/trucks couldn't get up the roads! Below are a few photos I took on Monday night outside our apartment.




Other than surviving the snow this week, we've been doing the ordinary- work, gym, keeping up with stuff around the house. We've seen a few movies- Bride Wars (typical chick flick), Yes Man (not too bad, basically brain popcorn), The Wrestler (good but depressing), and Slumdog Millionaire (I really liked it). We went to some friends' this past Friday for a Texas Hold 'Em night, and somehow I ended up being the overall winner! Talk about beginner's luck- I had never played it before, and the last time I played ordinary poker was about 10 years ago!

We're supposed to be heading up to Northern Ireland to visit Marie and Brian tomorrow, but now we'll have to see what the weather does!