Hello again! Norah is officially done with 7th grade and it’s Memorial Day weekend, so it gave us a great week to plan our summer trip before the camps and all other summer activities start.

We left New Orleans Friday evening after work headed to New York City.

Nice view of the causeway bridge over Lake Pontchartrain on our way out.

Arriving to JFK airport was pretty lackluster, a huge walk to the air train, riding that out to a pickup point, waiting 30 minutes for a hotel shuttle… but we were staying right at the airport at the Marriott JFK.

We ordered some Halal food via Uber Eats to the hotel as it was 11pm. It was great! Lamb gyro, chicken schwarma, rice and a spicy sauce.

Saturday started with storing our luggage at the hotel and heading out to explore Brooklyn. Breakfast wasn’t anything to write home about but it made a little girl very happy. Lol White Castle! Norah loves White Castle- always has since she was a toddler. We always have to buy the frozen burgers when we travel or live where there were no restaurants… and I have to say the burgers with real egg on them- I’m pretty happy with them as well.

After breakfast we hit the metro to Botanic Garden to go to the Brooklyn Museum.

Only to arrive and go-WAIT- we’ve already been here. Haha so…. change of plans – back on the subway to the New York Transit Museum!

It is fittingly located inside a metro station underground
Did you know the New York Transit Authority had a marching band?? ha

Under the museum, another level down were all the historic metro subway cars! This was the super cool part.

A still operational control board at the office in the station of the museum.

After the transit museum, we caught the subway back out to Queens to visit the Louis Armstrong house museum.

They have set up a museum and center housing a few items of his across the street from the actual house which is preserved basically how the Armstrong’s left it.

This original photo of King Oliver’s band (before Louis joined them) was special to me… because I literally have a print of this in my living room that Kegan bought for me for Christmas one year.
A 6 page handwritten letter Louis wrote as a love note to his neighborhood in Corona, Queens. As a dirt-poor kid who was in a orphanage and then traveling for music and shows his whole life and having 3 marriages end… this house was his first and only “home” he really ever had.

There were no photos allowed inside the house… which always irks me… but I complied… The front sitting room had amazing collected items from around the world, the upstairs den had tons of tapes and records and recordings and had a painting on the wall that Tony Bennett painted of Louis Armstrong. There was a very Las Vegas Liberacci bathroom of all mirrors… and then a World’s Fair inspired futuristic kitchen with teal slick lacquered doors, curved cabinets, a built-in blender in the counter and hidden storage in the backsplash.

After the tour, we headed to Jackson Heights to my favorite Nepalese restaurant for dumplings.

Norah’s Coke can invited her to have a Coke with Dude (the name of her cat she was already missing) ha

After dinner it was time to go back to grab our luggage from the luggage from storage and head to the airport for our overnight flight to London. We had upgrades to Premium cabin on Virgin Air, so we got bigger leather seats, better meals, and champagne at takeoff. Norah got orange juice to toast. ha

The flight was uneventful, arriving at Heathrow early. We took the London Underground to our hotel in Shepherd’s Bush, on the west side of London.

We took a 2 hour nap to try to get enough energy to go be tourists, then we set out, headed to 221b Baker Street.

We wasted $60 on tickets to the Sherlock Holmes museum… which was really just a kitschy little “tour” of Sherlock Holmes’ real apartment and items from his “life”. It was done so strangely I actually had to ask Kegan “He wasn’t ACTUALLY a real person, right???”

After Sherlock’s house, we got some terrible coffee and then headed downtown to see some other sights.

Big Ben
St James Park
Princess Diana Memorial Walk
Outside Buckingham Palace
Norah outside of Buckingham.
The Queen Victoria Memorial
A very old arcade of shops that looked very photogenic.
Picadilly Circus
Chinatown area just north of Picadilly

For dinner, we dipped into the Seven Dials market full of food stalls to have a seat at the rotating cheese counter called Pick & Cheese. We ate so. much. cheese. ha It was fantastic. Each cheese was paired with a sauce or a side, like kimchi, a brownie, a caramel, a tomato chutney… they were all great.

Maybe one of the worst photos captured of me in the background… but gotta stick it in here for Norah. She was a big fan of the cheesecake.
Cornish Kern with a Brown Sugar Biscuit
St Ella goat cheese in a French crottin style with a Rose turkish delight.
Lucky Marcel with a Apricot Jam
Gorwydd Caerphilly with Picalilli – a savory mustard chutney
Perl Las Welsh blue cheese with a chocolate and hazelnut brownie
Yogurt, Lemon and Honey Cheesecake

After dinner, we headed across to the East end of London to play our scheduled escape room at Escape Plan near Spitalfields. We arrived about an hour early… so we went upstairs in the same venue which was a movie theater with a bar and we got pints of cider and Norah tried a new soda she had never heard of called Vimto. Turns out Vimto is very popular in the UK and has been around forever- it contains the juice of grapes, raspberries, black currants and black carrots flavored with herbs and spices. She was a big fan.

We booked the room “Pushed for Time” which had us going through time in our time machine- we had to travel back to 1920’s France and then the 1800’s Oxford to recover items to stop the murder of the time machine designer. It was a fantastic room! We had so much fun. The time machine (where our photo is below) had to have a code keyed in that then started a time travel sequence that required us to select day vs night, the type of music we wanted and our destination…then proceeded to take us on a 2 minute dance party while it “transported” us to a different time. We very much enjoyed ourselves. ha

We were all so tired at this point, we had to take turns falling asleep on the tube for the 45 minute ride back to our hotel. ha

We grabbed takeway right next to our hotel from a turkish restaurant.

Lamb chops and kebab… good stuff.

After a good sleep, we were up Monday morning, heading to Paddington station to catch the Great Western Rail train to Oxford for the day. It was a bank holiday in UK, so not too many people out and about around 8am.

An Ox statue right outside the Oxford train station.
Waiting on the museums to open at 10am, we swung by the Castle grounds. The castle was built by the Normans when they arrived in Britain in 1071-1073. It still functioned as the local jail until 1996.
The Castle Motte

We lucked out and the Story Museum which is normally closed on Mondays was actually open on bank holiday Mondays! So we queued up to go in as they opened.

After the cutesy little story museum, we headed to the Ashmolean Museum, which is Oxford University’s museum of art and archeology- founded in 1683.

We were all starving by the time we finished that museum and Norah asked for Shake Shack which was just down the street. I was a bit disappointed that we were eating something we can get at home… but we did. $75 for Shake Shack! haha I’m still upset about this. ha

Our last stop was the Oxford Natural History museum which has been open since 1860. The neo-gothic building housing the majority of the exhibits was amazing.
The absolute derpiest Beaver I have ever seen. haha I have no idea of his story… but it has to be good. haha
The largest Crinoid cluster specimen we had ever seen.
A full flower specimen of Crinoid. I have NEVER seen one intact like this! This was collected by the scientist Lamark. As in “Lamarkian theory of evolution” predating Darwin… Kegan was like “these were like THE SCIENTISTS that discovered everything! These are THE SPECIMENS they were using!” He was nerding out a bit. haha They also had specimens from Linnaeus, a Swedish scientist from the 1700s who is considered the father of modern taxonomy. Kegan found it mind-blowing to be looking a samples collected by the people who quite literally wrote the books that you study.
A Gigantoproductus – a GIANT brachiopod. You can find these around Indiana, but only like an inch at most… this was massive.
Cast footprints of a Megalosaurus
Hertford Bridge, known as the Bridge of Sighs, because of its similar look to the Venice Bridge of Sighs we also recently saw! It joins two buildings of Hertford College.
This is the Sheldonian Theatre which is a city theater but also where the graduation ceremonies of Oxford University are held. We also tried to visit the Bodleian Library, the UK’s second largest library with over 11 million works, established in 1602. They do architectural tours daily, but they were all sold out by the time I realized we would have time to do one… oh well.

Oxford was very sparse in the morning… but by the late afternoon it was a madhouse of people… we decided to go ahead and head back since we could take any train. We had reserved seats on the 6pm train but the lady told us we could take any seat that wasn’t reserved on an earlier train… so we headed out for the 4pm train. It was SO PACKED by the time it arrived late that we had to stand in the space between the cars with 20 of our closest friends for an HOUR back to London. By the time we realized what was going on, it was too late to abort and wait for another later train. ha Oh well, we survived. But my feet were not happy about two full days of walking and literally heading back early because we were all tired from walking and standing all day. Not a fun extra hour. ha

We took a couple hour nap again before heading out to our escape room for the night and dinner.

We booked the official BBC TV Sherlock escape room… but we had a bit of a struggle finding out how to get in…

Turns out, it was through this fake Optician’s office. ha Only reason we thought it COULD be the room was because what optician is open at 8pm?? ha so we gave it a shot and the lady inside asked why we were buzzing her… we said “to play an escape game?”… she said “why would you ring the optician’s to play a game?” and really had us for a sec until we figured out we had to tell her were there for an eye exam as a cover for the covert Sherlock operation we were going to be a part of…

Of course we were successful! We got out in 45 minutes- the handler told us our gamemaster called out to her to be sure to tell us we were “brilliant”. lol There was an issue with a bike pump we were supposed to be using to get a machine to work so she gave us our photos for free. I think they were pretty fun. lol

We walked a couple blocks to a posh-looking Pakistani restaurant and I think it was my favorite meal in London. It was a small place called Little Lahore.

We had pappadam to start, a mixed grill of meats and a butter lamb with naan bread as well as some cocktails and mocktails. We left very happy and ready for bed and ready to pack up and head to Ireland.

Tuesday morning, we had to get up super early at 5:30am to take the tube to Liverpool Station to catch the Greater Anglia Stansted express to Stansted Airport. We made it through Priority security quickly so we sat down for some proper breakfast.

The flight was quick, just a little over an hour into Shannon airport outside of Limerick. The rental counter guy made sure we had actually driven on the other side of the road before. Apaprently this is a common enough problem with American tourists that they feel the need to check. lol

We headed out for our 2.5 hour drive down to the Dingle peninsula where we booked a house for 4 nights.

Driving through Blennerville with a glimpse of their windmill. Elphin- the town we lived in- was one of the only other towns in the country with a working windmill tower that had not been destroyed.
We stopped off at Minard Castle as our first stop on the peninsula. It is my happy spot in Ireland. It’s just so gorgeous and wild. I love it.

We stopped at the grocery to get a few items before heading to the house.

We looked like a group of unsupervised children in the grocery buying every crisp and sweet we ever liked in Ireland for the week! ha

We wanted to find something with decent food, not a chipper, but not fancy that we would have to change clothes… and decided on a place called Ashe’s Restaurant in Dingle town. They had Guinness and Bulmers on tap…so I was happy.

Crab claws in a garlic butter sauce
Prawn risotto
Local John Dory fish special
View from the top of Connor Pass driving back across to our house.

Wednesday started later, I slept like 12 hours. Ha it was glorious. Woke up to this rooster outside our door giving us the wake up call.

I’ve had worse views while drinking my coffee.

We went out and about driving in the morning, heading north, first to Galway for lunch at maybe my favorite restaurant in Ireland, Moran’s Oyster Cottage.

They added a new outdoor seating garden for folks without reservations (and that was us!) so we sat outside in a sauna of a tent since it was such a sunshiny day in Ireland! I swore I wasn’t going to complain about being too hot in Ireland from the sun lol but after shedding sweatshirts and drinking a cool draught cider and STILL boiling, I had to start complaining a little by the end. ha

A dozen local Gigas oysters
A 7th generation family recipe seafood chowder with brown bread
Fish and chips, of course, for Norah
Kegan and I both had our own Seafood platter with salad, smoked salmon, shrimp with marie rose sauce and 2 crab claws and crab meat.

After, we were off to County Roscommon to see a few folks from where we lived. Our first stop was to see our friend Anne-Marie and her kids. Henry went to school with Norah and that’s how we met them… and Henry’s younger sister Anna-Martha who was only about 3 years old the last time we saw her, she’s grown a bit! ha It was like we just left there yesterday, they played and talked and ran around the farm. It was great.

The famous St Patrick’s Parade in Elphin that Norah was in the paper for. ha Henry dug it out to show Norah in case she didnt remember! ha
Anne-Marie’s wild Irish Roses in the hedge that smelled absolutely wonderful! Had to photograph them. When we lived there I made elderflower syrup from elderflower blooms in these same hedgerows.. and Anne-Marie remembered that! ha

After seeing Anne-Marie, Michael and the kids, we headed across town to see Sean and Michelle and their boys. Sean helped us finish out our house when we remodeled it and the whole family are just super good people. It was great to catch up with them for a couple hours.

At 10pm, we still had to make the 4 hour drive back to Dingle… and we made it! barely. ha Kegan was a champ at driving that far, that late.

Thursday we slept late, fried up a full Irish breakfast and then we just went around exploring a bit of Ireland, driving through small towns we had never been to before, checking real estate prices for homes we’ll never buy lol

Kanturk Castle- 1580s Irish chieftain’s fortified house

We made our way to Adare town to eat at a restaurant Kegan has been following on Instagram for around 8 years. They have multiple Michelin awards, Best of Ireland awards- the chef and owner, Wade Murphy is featured on TV a lot in Ireland… and he was very excited to finally get to eat here at 1826 Adare.

Monkfish scampi for a starter
I had the Chicken Liver Mousse with a sourdough and bacon jam
Rump of Lamb with broccolini, peas, broad beans, crisp croquette and salsa verde for me.
Short ribs on celeriac puree with pearl onion bacon onion horseradish sauce for Kegan
Pan roasted cod fillet with potatoes and beurre blanc sauce for Norah. She was the first one done. Ate every bite.
Side of broccolini with crispy onions
For dessert I had a tasting flight of ports- a ruby, a tawny and a vintage
Classic creme brulee with blood orange sorbet
Milk chocolate Cremeaux with dark chocolate brownie, hazelnut crunch and a coffee ice cream

Overall the food was amazing, the first courses were going wonderfully then a large group of 15 drunk old rich American businessmen came in and were the loudest most obnoxious group complaining about their wives, their country club golf membership cost per year, watching porn on VR headsets, getting their wives breast implants and just being all around grade A jerks…. Kegan was fuming mad that they were ruining his experience… so by the end, he was definitely ready to go… he said if he ever had a restaurant, he’d go broke before he let entitled assholes ruin an entire restaurant’s evening. But, that’s why American’s have the reputation they have around the world for being loud, brash and obnoxious- those types of guys are our ambassadors to the world.

Two hours back home after the restaurant and still light outside at 10:30pm. Love Ireland in the summer!

Friday was our no plans day of just jetting around and seeing what we could find.

Forgot to photograph my “99” before I started eating it… Ireland has .99 cones in almost all their petrol stations – but now they cost 2-3 euro. lol Still amazing and what our Dairy Queen ice cream used to taste like 20 years ago.

We found a great view over the Kenmare Bay on our way to the Ardgroom Stone Circle on the Beare Peninsula.

Love these little ladders for helping the hikers and tourists see the sights without disrupting the sheep fences.

Next we headed over the Healy Pass on along the south of Ireland… and my goodness. This is the point I decided I wasn’t ever going home. ha Norah said it was so pretty it looked like AI and there was no way this was a real place.

We ate lunch in Bantry at a little pub. Nothing great, but a dry cider on draft and seafood chowder.

We passed through the little town of Dunmanway one day before their famous Star Wars festival weekend. So the town was all decorated up,. We saw a mandolorian, then yoda, then baby yoda, then Han Solo… and we were like, what the heck is going on??? haha looked it up and we were just one day early!

We ended up back in Dingle town, grabbed an order of Monkfish and chips and smoked cod and chips because I had a list of 3 things to get in Ireland- real batch bread, a cider on draft and smoked fish and chips. ha Couldn’t find the right bread, had PLENTY of draft cider, so this was #3 for the last night.

We all shared the fish and chips, packed up our bags and cleaned up the house… and we were out Saturday morning, headed back for our 2 hour drive to Shannon airport. We flew RyanAir to London Gatwick, took the Gatwick Express train to Victoria station in London, where we booked the Doubletree Hilton at the station to make it easy to head to Heathrow airport Sunday morning.

We grabbed Turkish food at a takeaway close to the hotel, I had another draft cider from the bar and I wrote up this summary while Kegan and Norah “existed” in the hotel room. (As “existing” is what Norah said she wanted to do when I asked what she wanted to do around London Saturday evening) haha

Sunday was an uneventful flight on Virgin Air back to JFK, a terrible Lyft ride at 20-30 under the speed limit through Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey to Newark airport, then a United flight back to New Orleans (delayed 20 minutes) to get us back home just after midnight. The cats were thrilled we were back home and life was now back to normal.

No more trips or adventures planned for the rest of the year at this time as I have multiple work golive events between July and November… but we’ll see what last minute trouble I can find to get us into.