a sisters weekend

it wasn't long after karen left where my weekend in dublin began. so let me explain who is who and how we all know eachother.

gina, my sister, moved to aberdeen scotland where she worked with a gal named avril and they became great friends.skip ahead to a weekend where gina is in town visiting me and avril is in town visiting her sister jo, who happens to live near my flat in wimbledon that i shared with dee, who's sister aoife (pronounced ee-fah) would come visit from time to time. on that weekend the five of us met for dinner and a friendship was made. now skip ahead a little further and you have the five of us meeting here and  there (jo and dee run together, dee jo and i meet for dinner parties, i go to scotland and hang out with gina and avril, aoife comes to visit dee and stays with us, you get the picture) then dee moves to dublin and jo and i craft the idea for a weekend at dee's.

so we finally all get there and head to l'gueuleton for a fabulous french meal where we ate crab cakes, pate and moules frites for starters, then they all had steak frites and i had what was the most giant like tomato/goat cheese tart i have ever seen in my life. we then head out to the market and then to dakota for some pub action and got to bed at a staggering 4 am. it set the tone for the rest of the weekend since we all became bumps on a log. 

we managed to make our way to  glendalough in wicklow county where we managed to have a small easy walk around one of the lakes to build up an appetite. (sorry about the bold by the way, i'm trying to edit the post and its just not changing. sorry!). so a little about glendalough....


glendalough is the valley of the two lakes or how the locals like to describe it...ireland's 'peak district' where you can take some stunning walks of varying difficulty though the hilly irish countryside. it was stunning and well, busy, since the weather was quite lovely. by lovely i mean it was warm and rained only occasionally but in the end so glad we went. we passed the monastic village - a early christian settlement founded by st. kevin in the 6th century. 

from there we made our way to avoca where we feasted (yet again) and the food was so fabulous we ended up buying some cookbooks (well, jo and i did - dee already had them). i tried the lentil and nut loaf with 3 salads...ya, you get 3 salads but i was smart and shared with gina. we had to keep in under control namely because we were having dinner (at 9) at dee's house with aoife and her mom...oh my. we had smoked salmon with irish brown soda bread to start, lakeshore pork (an avoca recipe) with aoife's turnip and sweet potato gratin, green beans and bertie's (dee's mom) pavlova. holy delicious. we were meant to eat dee's but when she thought she had turned off the oven it actually went to 'grill' and the pavlova was one charred mess. it was STUNNING. the smell of burned sugar. ha ha

the next day, our last, saw us at trinity college to check out the book of kells. they suspect it was written in the early 9th century and it is truly amazing to see. that is one old book (well, more than one but you know what i mean).  we said goodbye to gina and avril and the 3 of us that remained made our way to merrion square outdoor art market, a well established Open Air Art Market. Every weekend over 200 artists exhibit and sell their own original paintings and drawings, on the Park Railings. from here we had antipasti at dunne and crescenzi and wow was the food ever amazing. we then made our way to dee's parent's house for tea and cake where we saw most of dee's family gathered for sunday lunch, before making our way to the dublin airport for a butler's hot cocoa and a ride home.

it was a jammed pack weekend but had to make sure to blog as there is no rest for the wicked. in 4 sleeps i'm off to edinburgh to meet the sister and the trows. poor aleksandra....i hope she's ready for rick!