Good times on our last, very hot (by Irish standards) day. The beach, doing taste tests, general goofing with our new, dear Irish friends.
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The kids are in swimsuits but don't let that fool you into thinking it was actually warm. It was not. My sweet new Irish mom friend, Ruth, kept saying things like "it's roasting!" to which I'd smile and nod but I was not roasting. Not at all. I didn't thaw the entire trip--even on this warmest of Irish days at the beach. I was dressed in pants, long sleeves and a thick jacket...and was still cold. I have no idea how the kids managed to act like it wasn't freezing!
One of the points of connection we made with our Irish friends was related to food. How Irish foods and food preferences differed from American alternatives. There was a fair amount of overlap in the area of sweets but, in general, our diets varied greatly. This led to taste-testing lots of food together. Irish chocolate is the bomb and American chocolate tasted more like wax in comparison. They had better diary products. But that's like, duh. There was no consensus on crisps (potato chips). Most popular crisps in Ireland were Prawn Cocktail, Cheese and Onion, Bacon, and sometimes Salt & Vinegar. These were the flavors stocked in most grocery stores, sandwich shops, etc. Plain salted potato chips were hard to find--we looked! Peanut butter grossed these kids out. One day we found some peanut butter that (sort of) resembled what we have in the US and we made PB&J sandwiches for our friends. The kids did not like it AT ALL. One of the girls wouldn't even finish her bite. It ended up in the kitchen sink. We discussed what kinds of breakfasts, lunches, etc the family ate and compared to the standard American diet. We really do eat terribly! Lots of prepared and processed foods. Especially at our schools.
Maggie saying goodbye to our little alley cat that was always hanging around the flat:
The bed situation in Ireland was not ideal. I made Patrick promise me that we'd have a KING sized bed because sleeping with him in anything smaller is impossible. Well...he forgot that a European idea of king sized is not the AMERICAN king. We had a queen sized bed. This meant that we played musical beds all month. I would often put Caroline in the bed with her dad and sleep in her bed. This meant I got time to snap pics like this one of Maggie sleeping.
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