Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Travel Tuesday: Ireland










Ireland was such a special trip because my family flew all the way across the pond to visit my sister and me. Even my 89-year-old grandma took the redeye to London, then hopped on another flight to Dublin and went straight to the Guinness Factory before getting a real nights sleep. What a trooper!

Grandma and her Guinness :)


The next day we took a tour of The Old Jameson Distillery before we left Dublin. I've never had Jameson before this and boy was it great! No more Jack Daniels for me. I even became a Certified Jameson Whiskey Taste Tester!


My dad rented a van that fit all six of us and all or our luggage (yes this looked like a kidnapper van) and drove us down to Cobh, Cork (pronounced Cove) on the left side of the road. This made for an entertaining and scary experience.


Cobh is the small quaint seaside town my ancestors are from. It is also the last port the Titanic left from before it set sail for the last time across the Atlantic. You're probably thinking "Jillian, you're full of shit. The Titanic left from England." And you'd be right, it did originally leave from England but it made a stop in Cobh before leaving for New York. Seven lucky people got off the boat at Cohb. That's my little town's claim to fame.


Our second day in Cobh we traveled to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip other than the Irish music.



Kissing the Blarney Stone!

It was so nice for us all to be reunited!





Climbing this tree was the hardest thing and getting down was even harder. Emily (in the white) dislocated her knee getting down and went to physical therapy all summer to return it to normal. Even though she got hurt my other sister and I couldn't stop laughing. Luckily the fall was caught on video. I'd love to share it with you all but unfortunately it is not on my phone.

After three days in Cobh were were enroute again and on our way to Galway. The drive was along the east coast and was filled with gorgeous views and lots of cows and sheep. Along the way we found a place to pull over so we could get a picture with the cows.


In Galway we stopped at the Cliffs of Moher. I could not get over how amazing they were. And I thought the Block Island bluffs were spectacular.




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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Weekend of Colors and Football!

 I've been a very bad blogger and have been neglecting this corner of the Internet lately. So today I will update you on the past two weekends which both pretty amazeballs.

Two weekends ago was beyond great or as Barney Stinson would say "Legend... wait for it....DARY!" And that's certainly what that weekend was.

On Friday my sister and I drove down to Queens and had and early night because the next morning we were up early for...wait for it....


THE COLOR RUN!


We all had a blast running it. What a great experience.  My goal was to run the whole thing without stopping and I did! I even came in first out of my family.

Before the color

After the color!
I highly highly highly recommend this run to anyone and everyone! Even if you don't run, walk it! So many people walked the race or would switch between running and walking. This run is definitely for people of all ages and athletic abilities.


The next day we were energized and pumped for the Jets season opener! To give you some background I am third generation Jets fan and my inheritance will be our family season tickets. My family has spent Thanksgiving at the Jet's game twice in the past three years. If you are familiar with the Jets you will now how unfortunate this is.

Despite the usually pitiful Jets they somehow but the grace of God (literally) managed to beat the Buccaneers in the last few seconds. I won't go into details but I'll just say that this was probably the most exciting game I've ever been too and there's one Buccaneer in a lot of trouble right now.

This past weekend my friends and I hiked Mount Beacon which is right across the Hudson River from my school. It was such a beautiful day to be spending outside and the views from the top were unreal! We got sandwiches from a local deli and had a picnic once we reached to top of the mountain.
Oh, hey NYC skyline!

Found a walking stick!




How pretty is that view?