Steph and Sherrie 08

As many of you know, I went on a nine day tour of Scotland. It was great! I will only give you the highlights from the 9 days. We left Tuesday, July 28 at 9:00am. I chose to go on a small tour so there were 16 of us, plus our crazy Scottish driver/guide (Danny) in one small van. There were people from all over the world. We had 6 from Australia, 3 from Canada, 2 from Germany, and 1 from each - Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Holland and Iran. I could not have asked for a better group or guide. It was a road trip with 16 new friends, complete with loud music, crazy driving and plenty of photo stops. Day 1 It rained - a lot. We learned about Robert the Bruce, saw Stirling ... read more

(I posted an entry yesterday but did not send out the emails.) What a great night! We were among the first people let into the concert and the first to buy our t-shirts. Croke Park is huge - holds 80 000 people. It is a rugby pitch. The pitch had to be removed for the concert and U2 had to pay to put in the new pitch once the concerts are over. Approx. cost of the new pitch is 1 million. Concert was even better than you could imagine. The crowd was amazing, on their feet screaming even before U2 hit the stage. They played for 2.5 hrs straight - a total of about 24 songs. Hopefully the videos will work. I am going to attempt to attach them. I have realized that Sunday Bloody Sunday ... read more

A couple important notes. Sherrie is not with me and it is not 2008. However, it seemed easier to use this blog instead of creating a new one. This computer does not allow pictures so this will not be very exciting. I left Toronto on Monday at 11:55pm. I had a great flight. Two good movies that I slept through and an empty seat beside me. I landed in Dublin and took a 2 hr train to Belfast. Then I took 2 more trains to arrive in Portrush, which is a little seaside village on the Northern coast. My bed and breakfast is very nice. I arrived at 6:00pm their time, so a mere 13 hrs after I left TO. I slept for a couple hrs and then went for dinner. Today I met up with ... read more

We landed in Ireland around 11:30pm on Saturday night. The flight was good, however, there were kids everywhere. One little girl commented to her mom on the way to the plane that "Licorice is lovely." It was very cute. Another little girl who was sitting in front of me screamed BLASTOFF when the plane took off. It was hilarious. Ireland is great. Immediately, we loved it, regardless of the fact that it was cold and raining. We had not seen rain in 4 weeks - it was bound to appear at some point. We have been carrying jeans and rain coats around so now we get to use them. Another reason to love Ireland. They have toilet seats, toilet paper and soap ... all in the same bathroom. You have no idea how exciting that is! ... read more

It has been a busy few days. We left Barcelona on Monday morning and headed to Madrid. The train was very nice - spotless, gave us chocolate and candy and played a movie. It was in Spanish with Spanish subtitles but we cannot have everything. We had 3 hours between trains there so we threw our bags in a locker and hopped on a bus tour. We spent 1.5hrs riding around the city, learning about its history. It is really nice city and we both could have spent a lot more time there. There was water in the fountains which excited us. (In Barcelona, there were these beautiful fountains and none had water in them. Not sure why. We never did ask.) The tour was definitely worthwhile. A short time later we were back on the ... read more