My adventures at the super market.

 Good day.  How are you all Keeping?  Here is Dave at the swimming pool in the main courtyard at Kilmurry Village.  We are off to the supermarket again which is about a 4 mile walk round trip. I thought I would take some pictures to show you some differences.

The first 3 pictures are of the bread section. There are all kinds freshly made and nothing is covered! They do have a small section that is in another aisle that would be like home except they have 1/2 loaves too.  Great idea!

The middle picture of the 3 is where you would come get your bread sliced. Lift the handle,put it in and pick it out. You then put it on the slide(which is coming across the handle) and slide the plastic bag over the bread. Voila!

 In this section of fruits and vegtables, anything that is loose gets weighed. Put in on the scale, push the picture of it, and out pops the price which you stick to your bag.  I bought one onion so I just attached the slip to the onion.

 We have sections like this at home but usually of salad making stuff.  Here they have both sides filled with rice, noodle, salads (chicken, tuna, 3 bean, potato, vegetable etc.) Any combination you can think of , they have it. We also discovered a Del Rosa onion which is a rose colored onion with a milder flavor. David bought these. He is always trying new things!

 I don't think you can read the labels but they have tubes of (L-R) Thai, Mediterranean sauce, Hot chili, Garlic, Basil, Colander, Italian Herbs, Basil, and Lemon grass.( whatever that might be)

 Their markets are never quite like ours and they separate products and have you going to another area for like items.  Here above are the spices with the condiments. But other baking items will be in another area.

 In this aisle you are looking at all kinds of yogurts.  The whole right side of the picture! They have many flavours and even ones that are chocolate. The left side is the butter and some milk.  They don't seem to have a big area for milk but they do have glass milk jugs with the cream on top! David really liked that. Other odd things here... They use baking fat instead of Crisco-They have only regular crisps (chips )and popcorn, no pita chips, corn chips or the like.-no humus or dips- but lots of wonderful cheeses. Nothing like Irish dairy products. They don't have frozen dinners but they have lots of made up dinners ready to take home and cook. Not much on the ice cream; maybe because our refrigerators are small. I made a stew yesterday in a medium pan and had trouble fitting it in. Those that know me, know I can get everything and anything in anything!!!

 So I decided to show my refrigerator for you to see. It is below the counter. Isn't yours?

Hope you have a good day 

Cheerio :)

Dealing

Today is my day for dealing with the stove, washing machine, heat, lights and anything else that comes my way.  I started with reading the manuals. The washing machine was my first challenge.What temperature do I need.  Had to do the conversion for F from C. Then figure out the dials. OH my! When all was done, I picked the cotton eco. The wash took 3 hours to do and the clothes came out wetter than they do at home. So now what? Last time I was here we had a washer/ dryer in one machine. Now I have washing machine and no dryer hence the laundry hanging.:-(  This will take 2 days to dry.

To use the stove called the Hob and the cooker, you  need to turn the switch on which you can see the red button on the wall. . Each burner has a different temperature like home but it is slow to come up to heat and stays hot a long time.
The oven has several switches that mean convection bake, conventional, grill, turbo-grill, and defrosting. on the left and the temperature which I need to convert on the right.  I am far from figuring this out yet. :(



It is time to get out of here and go for a walk. Just another couple of miles around the campus.  The River Shannon  runs along the back of the apartment.
I snapped a couple of pictures that show beautiful swans and ducks swimming down the river.
The foot-bridge (known as the Living Bridge) you see in the picture goes across the river connecting the campus to the medical school and the music buildings.




Our evening was off to the campus pub to watch a hurling championship game between Clare and Cork both Munster teams. This was comparable to a world series championship 'tween the Mets and the Yankees.  Great game that was followed by a Rugby game.  My grandkids would love this.  Six of  David's students walked in to watch the game so I got to say hello and meet them. Nice group.

cheerio,  m

Day 2- university of limerick

 My next day here was Friday which Rotary.meeting in Limerick. So David and I hopped the bus and off we went. David had gone the week before so it was old home week again.  

We walked by King John's castle on which they have done a million dollar renovation. We are looking forward to taking Rogers and Eamon, our grandsons, to it when they arrive. Rogers claimed last time "I hate castles"!  He had "the best time ever" the day he went through the Bunratty Castle!

 On our way to the bus we hit a few second hand stores looking for kitchen things and passed this store. Last time we were here it was the 4 inch heel. It took it a little bit to come to the USA and now we have the 7 inch heel and on the picture below, we have the thick sole shoe..I decided my budget couldn't afford any new pairs of shoes.

So home we came to watch Rugby on TV and ordered some tickets for a Munster game at Thomond Park.
See you again. Maybe I will get some sleep sometime.  Last night wasn't the night.
cheerio,  m

I have arrived in Ireland-day 1

Day 1- Here I am in Ireland.  I arrived at 6AM and started to unpack. There is our flat on the right of the picture which has little room for much of anything. After I unpacked, I started on organizing the kitchen, the living room, and then our bedroom. David just groaned!! Poor guy but he knew it was coming. :.)

 After David's classes we went for a walk for our dinner .  The weather is nice in the 60's. It was nice to walk across the courtyard and see the familiar statues diving into a pool. The building with the steeple is where we will all meet Wednesday with our students for a pizza dinner. I will bake some cookies for them to break them in! As I have walked the campus and said hi to our past friends, they all remembered my cookies. It is a good thing I brought some chocolate chips with me as you can't get them here.

 Just an idea of how vast the fields are.  We cross these on our way to dinner.  A mere 2 1/2 miles.  It seems everywhere I go it is at least 2 1/2 miles!

 Here we are at Nelligan's Pub with Mary.  She gave me a big hug and brought us 2 bowls of Guinness stew and 2 pints of Genuiness to go along!  Welcome to Ireland..Yea!  When David had to stay longer with a sick student last time, Mary had invited him for Christmas dinner. Just an example of the Irish hospitality; nothing like it.

 After dinner we went to pick up a few groceries. Here are the carts that you put 2 Euros in, unchain the cart and when you are finished, you hook it up again and get your 2 Euros back. Slick!

A view of the market. Things are still not together.  Napkins for instance were in the beginning of the store with paper plates and the very last aisle had paper towels, baggies, and the beer.  Go figure. They need me of course to organize for them. :o)

So my first day has ended and I still haven't slept.which is more than 31 hours.  

Till we meet again.    Cheerio  Marti.

Returning to Ireland

Hi all,

This is my view this morning as I am  getting packed for my return to Ireland again with 12 PSU students this time. My husband is already there with the gang,  So this is the beginning and a test for my equipment.

See you soon.