London to Ireland

Whew!  We have gotten so far behind in blogging! We have spent a week in London which was wonderful, and now we're on our fourth day in Ireland!

London- we stayed with a friend of Shane's, Greg, from highschool.  It was very funny to hear them swapping high school stories all the time.  He had four other roomates so we got to hear a lot of different stories.  Two were from India, so we are educated now on where we should and shouldn't go in India and even got a private Indian food cooking lesson!  Neither of us had ever sauteed our spices before using them, so Si taught us how to do this.  The most interesting part is you add more spices to the pan once you smell the spice you're currently cooking.  We had so many spices going on we were coughing and sneezing our heads off!  But, the end result was absolutely delicioius!

To see all that we could see in London we bought a Tube 7 day pass. "The Tube" is what they call their subway, or metro.  A subway in the UK is an underground pedestrian walkway.  Their public transit system is AMAZING.  A train comes every few minutes, we had a great app that never got us lost, and the signs are clear as water.  We packed in all the normal touristy stuff the first few days, then had Greg show us around on the weekend.  We watched wakeboarding at the old harbor one morning with a beer in our hand, then headed to Westminster Abbey for a church service.  All I (Stephanie) kept imagining is Kate and William getting married! We also found a zoo and farm just half a mile from the east side of London - very interesting seeing people weed their garden with skyscrapers in the background.  Stephanie's favorite thing to do so far on the trip is grab lunch and coffee, then head to a park and relax for the day.  We did this in Hyde Park a few times in London - then when it wasn't raining we rented bikes for a few hours and rode through the park. We actually missed seeing a broadway show because we thought it was Sunday all throughout the day on Monday...then woke up Tuesday morning and realized we had to leave :(  Oh speaking of leaving London....a thirteen hour bus ride downwind from the stinkiest man we've ever smelled.  And that's saying something since we're both in the medical field.  Stephanie got to the point where she had rubbed peppermint scented body wash all over her nose, then stuck peppermint gum up her nose....I'll leave it at that.

Ireland! Ireland is beautiful! We didn't want to make the same mistake we did in Iceland and not see the countryside- so after a few days in Dublin when we had our fair share of tourist sites and pubs we decided to rent a car.  After finally finding the rental car place at the airport, we arrived and found out we could not keep our reservation because we were under 25...so we walked down to a few different booths and found a local company would rent to us for  a steep fee...fine fine...whatever... "Okay sir we'll take it." "Oh, by the way, we dont have any automatics left..." *Stephanie turns to Shane...who's driven a manual his whole life..."Ummm, want to drive a stick with your opposite hand on the opposite side of the road in a foreign country"  "Sure! Why not?!" Stephanie breaths a sigh of relief because she would have died out there driving!  We start driving, get lost a few times a a few roundabouts and keep repeating "left left left left left"

As we drive through the countryside we stop at Powerscourt House, then drive through the Wicklow Mountains National Park.  As we're driving we see a few places to pull over a hike, we then found one with a hidden lake in a valley.  Then end up at the cutest little country store and have some ice cream.  After talking with a few locals they point us in the direction of an old Monk tower, church, and graveyard.  Gorgeous! Old stone buildings with the sun shining, and green mountains all around you.  We then begin the trek to find a place to sleep tonight.  We've already tested the seats folding down in the back as a bed, but nothing compared to Emily and Brian's Prius set up!  So that's our back up plan, but have no fear.  We are sitting cozily in a bed and breakfast with tea and biscuits!  It was so nice to take a shower and have fluffy towels to use rather than the camping ones.  Andddd a bed tonight, rather than a couch?  Happy Honeymoon to Us!!