Where We Spent St. Patrick's Day

I know this past weekend included St. Patrick's Day and many will wonder what I will be posting.  Our family decided to go outside the box and spent the weekend in London and Oxfordshire, England.  Since St. Paddy's Day is Ireland's national holiday my husband was granted both Friday and Monday off of work.  We decided to take the opportunity and go somewhere else in Europe.  Don't get me wrong, we would have loved to see the celebrations.  But, since we don't know how long we will be in Europe we wanted to go abroad and experience more of this continent. 
We do however plan on going on one more trip within Ireland.  Our plan is to go to Mayo County in the near future.  My husband's ancestors migrated from there and we want to show the kids where one of the places their descendants came from. 

Below is a picture of us in front of Buckingham Palace on St. Patrick's Day.  It was raining and very cold.  I took off my jacket only long enough for the photo to show off my Irish t-shirt.  For those of you who don't know the history of the relationship between England and Ireland you should look it up.  It is quite fascinating.  I had a friend tell me " I suppose standing in front of the colonial seat of power, wearing an Irish t-shirt on Paddy's day, is quite a statement really!"  She said this after a bit of joking conversation about our time being spent in England and not Ireland during the holiday. 
My favorite part of it all is that I am actually of English Descent but my husband is of Irish descent.  I wish we would have had a shirt that said Britain for him to wear.  Now that would have made a statement!

Below is a short video on a quick history of the Easter Rising.  I found it to be appropriate for this time of year since Easter is just around the corner.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of my friends and family as well as any other visitor's to this blog from the Land-of-Green!
Click here for fun facts on St. Patrick's Day

 

click below for a video on St. Patrick's Day and the Saint himself

 

What you might see in Paris

Something that we have come to enjoy living in Europe is boiled and poached eggs.  So far everywhere we have been has had them.  We have always liked boiled eggs but have never tried them soft boiled.  It is amazing how fast they cook and how delicious they are.  One bit of advice I have is to have a cup of cold water ready if you plan to eat them right away.  The soft boiled ones are much better served warm and placing them in cold water for 30 seconds to a minute will help make it possible to Peel them without burning your fingers.  If you don't want to deal with that then just poach them.

 

 

You can't go to France without eating a croissant!

 

This is us eating breakfast in our hotel.  (except me of course, since I'm taking the photo)

 

Some things you are likely to see in Paris are...

 

 a Farris wheel

 

A carousel

 

A bridge over looking the River Seine.

(on this particular bridge, there was pad-locks attached to the fence)

 

The River Seine

 

 

French Macaroons

                                                    Artwork

                             
                                                 Chocolate

 

                                                                          Cheese

                                                                                  
                                                   Lots and lots of buildings.

 

 

A French flag

 

                                                  Notre Dame

 

And of course, the Eiffel Tower. 

 

We were only there for 1 full day since we flew in on a Thursday afternoon and left on the following Saturday.  On Friday we spent the day at the Louvre Museum.  I don't have pictures of that posted yet.  I do plan to add some in the future.

Saturday Drive

I took these pictures this past Saturday morning, a little ways up from Straffin. I thought the fog looked so beautiful.

Sweets in Paris

While in Paris we ate French Macaroons.  The problem with them is that they are light and airy which makes you want to eat more and more.  I noticed there is several demonstrations and recipes on YouTube if you want to try to make them yourself. 

 

This is where we bought the Macaroons along with some truffles.

We also enjoyed crepes.  Sunshine, Tater-Tot and I shared the ones with Nutella.  It was our first time eating Nutella and we liked the Crepes but loved the Nutella.  The guys ate the boring ones with just sugar.

Pickle Relish or Tomato Relish?

I remember last year when we first came to Ireland and I went grocery shopping.  I was so excited to see what we would find.  I knew that it would most-likely be quite different than America.  What I didn't thinking about was all the things I wouldn't find like pickle relish.  I know on the blog I have posted some things on this topic but realized I may not have mentioned, there is no "American pickle relish".  This poses a problem for our family since we put pickle relish in Tuna (for sandwiches), potatoe salad, macaroni salad, egg salad (for sandwiches) and so forth.  At first I thought this is no big deal.  I can just cut up some sweet pickles until I discovered that their sweet pickles are NO WHERE near as sweet as ours.  hmmmmm


Here is what Irish relish looks like.  The indredients are Tomato (41%),Vinegar ,Sugar ,Onions ,Sultanas ,Tomato Puree (5%) ,Sea Salt ,Mustard Seed ,Spices

                                               
As you can see, there are no pickles even in it!

Eiffle Tower

Our trip to Paris was not the normal trip.  At the end of our tour in Rome two out of five of us caught the flu.  Some of us were not feeling well and the others were a bit nervous about catching it.  The night that the sickness arrived we prayed for healing and strength.  To our delight no one else caught it and the ones sick healed quicker then expected.  We are praising God for that!

 

 

We had only one full day to be in Paris.  We arrived in the evening and woke the next morning to see the Eiffel Tower and then spend the day at the Louvre Museum.  Keep in mind it was winter in Paris when we were there so the trees are bare.  Below is a picture of our walk to the tower very early in the morning.

 

I have never known much about Paris so I was delighted to discover that the Tower is surrounded by a beautiful park.  Even in the early cold morning hours there were people enjoying the park.

 

Below is a picture of some men who guard the tower.  They were very intimidating carrying their rifles in plain site.  On the other hand, it gave me a comfort to know they were there.