Therefore I bring you Ireland Photos. Mostly Northern Ireland, actually. On March 10th I flew to Dublin with Dom and a whole plane load of Valda and Richards coworkers and varied assortment of friends. I started my Ireland vacation by leaving my brand new kindle in my airplane seat pocket in front of me when I left the plane. Fortunately, I realized it and waited at the Service Desk amid a throng of peeved passengers until the service reps were able to track it down and hand it back to me. (I wasn't peeved; Everyone else was about their luggage). After that auspicious start, Dom and I stayed in Dublin that night at Valda's brothers' GF's house, trotted around Trinity college in the rain the next day (despite Dom's boast that he brings good weather) and finally in the evening drove with other wedding guests to Carrick-on-Shannon.
The wedding went as weddings go. The bride looked lovely. The groom cried. His mom wore a fantastic yellow and grey and black hat. Oh, but this was different: The wedding was in a long hall outside a ballroom at The Landmark Hotel. The wedding was "in the round," if you will, with the guests seated in a semi circle around the bridal party and the pastor. After the service they moved us to the reception area of the hotel for drinks, and then back into the hall on our way to dinner. By that time, all the furniture had changed and I didn't recognize immediately that it was the same room we'd been in earlier. Tricky! :) But a good use of space, I must say. At dinner we were seated at tables named after Swiss Mountains, and the wedding cake looked like the Matterhorn. I got special mention in Richard's welcoming speech for being the guest who had traveled the furthest to attend - over 7000 kilometers.
Look at that! That's a proper blog post and I haven't even gotten to the pictures or the entertaining post-wedding travels, flat tires, or missed surfing opportunities. Here's a few pictures. More stories to come.
