Monthly Archives: December 2014

Some pictures from December adventures

Mike Parkes came to town and we had a nice time in the mountains and by the sea. DSC_1244 DSC_1239 DSC_1217 DSC_1186

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Bret and I finished up our 52 pubs the night before our first wedding anniversary!!  We complete the challenge after a bit of a pub crawl at El Fenix.  We thought it was hilarious that the logo from one of our top beers, an IPA made locally called Handsome (logo on phone), was strikingly similar to that of our favorite mexican restaurant in Cork, Cafe Mexicana (postcard that I happen to be carrying around in my purse).

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We took one last road trip up to Connemara and Mayo.  In general, we find that our favorite place is the one we just visited and this was no exception.  Connemara was really stunning with snow capped mountains and we had lovely views of the Achill Islands from our drive around Mayo.  We could definitely spend another few weeks exploring this area.

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We stopped in Galway for lunch on our way home…

This parking garage was clearly designed to mess with tourists not from Ireland or the UK.

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Connemara and Mayo

For our final trip in Ireland we took a long weekend and went to county Connemara and county Mayo.  We both found Connemara absolutely stunning.  Turns out it is in competition with some of our favorite places in Ireland, including the Beara peninsula and Donegal.

Sheeeeeep!

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Our favorite beer in Ireland, the RUSTBUCKET Rye Ale!DSC_0044 DSC_0058

Blacksod Lighthouse – Gave the weather forecast for D-Day 1944. A friend of ours used to live in it.

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This is a pretty special rock circle in that it multiplies one when you are in it!

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Plymouth, UK

The major project for my research this year was two weeks of wave basin testing at the Plymouth University COAST research facility.  Since the models I was using were pretty big, I rented a van and drove them to the UK.  I went from Dublin to Holyhead on the way there and Pembroke to Roslaire on the way back.  This allowed me to drive through Wales both ways which was amazing.

I was staying on the 8th floor of a hotel for the two weeks I was there and had pretty nice views of the harbor and an abandon church.

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Emily joined me at the end of the first week and we went to Cornwall for the weekend and stayed in Penzance.  This was a great place to stay and explore the southwest peninsula.  Our first stop was the Minack theatre and the beach next to it.  Both were spectacular:

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Then it was on to Lands End and Sennen Cove for some more great views

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We then stopped at St. Ives which was a very nice touristy town with lots of art galleries and a couple of very nice beaches and a harbour.

The next morning we took a walk from Penzance to St Michael’s Mount which was also very striking.  We happened to be there at low tide and was able to walk out to the island via the causeway.

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During the second week, our friend Debbie, came and hung out in Plymouth with us and then joined us for our journey back to Ireland.  We traveled across Wales over a couple of days and saw some great sights.

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We caught the ferry in Pembroke, which is a great little town with an amazing castle.  They were having an arts and crafts fair so admission was free.

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Halifax

The International Network on Offshore Renewable Energy (INORE) and International Conference on Ocean Engineering (ICOE) conferences sent me to Halifax Nova Scotia in early November.  Pretty intense week of conferences but got to have some fun as well.

Halifax waterfront:

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INORE symposium poster session:

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Halifax Mooseheads Hockey:

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Wave sculpture on waterfront:

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INORE group cape split hike:

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INORE Curling game:

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ICOE poster presentation:

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Oh, and a lot of boring important work stuff I didn’t take pictures of…