Sunday Randomness

While I'm writing this, John is at his first American football practice. As per my uncanny prediction it started raining as soon as he headed off to play. It's about 48 degrees here and rainy with no sunshine. Sure am glad that I didn't go sit on the sidelines for this one!!

We've been in kind of a whirlwind lately, so we haven't documented all that we have noticed--or perhaps it just doesn't all fit under one tidy topic. But here are some of our random moments so far. . .

1. We saw a Russian submarine at one of the quays (docks) in Cork City. Not sure how it made it this far up the river, but it sure was a shock to turn the corner and see a SUBMARINE in the channel!!!

2. Cork City feels a lot like Amsterdam at first. The city runs along a river and there are a lot of bridges. In the industrial part of town there are not a lot of barriers to keep your car from falling into the river so they have posted signs to warn you about this. I don't have a picture yet, but the sign shows a car careening off a cliff into deep water. Very funny,

3. It is not "wheat" bread over here. They ask you for "white" or "brown". I like that--keep it simple. By the way, John and I have a small debate going on about whether the crust of white bread is actually nutritious (or more nutritious than the rest of the white bread slice). Anyone know?

4. People here say things like "lovely" all the time and they really mean it. We've noticed people saying "lovely" in ways that we would use "great" or "wonderful" or "excellent". I like "lovely" and may start using it myself.

5. Lifting weights with kilograms instead of pounds is slightly more complicated. It just takes you off guard and makes you think about math when all you want to do is just work out. Oh, and you have to keep in mind that the treadmill is working on kilometers instead of miles. John noticed this when he set it at "6" to get a warmup job and thought it was VERY slow. 6K=very slow.

6. I just got to use "lovely" with the housekeeping staff and she seemed extremely pleased. Big smile. Maybe it means more than I think. . .

7. There are more people here who do not speak English than I imagined. Not sure what language they speak because they don't look any different, but we've had several occasions in restaurants where people have had to get someone else to speak with us. Maybe we're the ones who don't speak English

Well, I'm sure John will be draggin in soon from his soggy football practice. Glad it's him and not me--I would have frozen solid!

Enough ramblings for now. Have a fantastic week everyone!