I grew up in south Texas and I love going back to see my dad and family. We went last weekend to take a firearm safety class for women. That’s right – I shot GUNS for eight hours on Saturday! I went with my dad’s wife Michelle and step sisters Kayla and Stacey. There were women of all ages and backgrounds in the class which immediately made me happy.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Anyone can shoot a gun, right? I saw it on Castle last night. I could totally pick up a gun and know what I’m doing. I’m here to tell you that showbiz has it WRONG, and the first time you fire a gun it will scare your pants off. I’m going to tell you some of the tips I learned at this class, AND you’ll get bonus guy points. In all seriousness, these are things that they teach to save your life. I’m not saying you should own a gun, but you should know how to use one.

We drove out to an outdoor range with three different areas surrounded by hills called berms. The guys came along so that they could learn in their own group while we did the formal course (I think they were jealous), and the ladies group split into beginner and advanced. We were in the beginner’s group and my dad came along with the guys.

After we split up, we met our two instructors, Jay and Pat. We spent a few hours going over the rules of the range, and general safety rules. I think this was the most important part of the whole day.

1. All guns are always loaded. This can be the gun in your closet, the concealed gun on the guy’s waistband in the supermarket, or the gun the instructor is using to demo. Assume it is loaded until you prove otherwise.
2. Never point the gun at anything you are not willing to destroy. This includes your friends, your family, your foot, and your walls.
3. Never put your finger on the trigger until you are looking at the target and ready to shoot. If you get scared or tighten your grip, you may accidentally pull the trigger.
4. Know your target and backstop. If you aim a gun at someone and miss, there is a good chance there is a wall behind them. If you don’t know what’s behind that wall, don’t fire.

The instructors broke down a semi-automatic pistol to show us how it works, and showed a revolver. The main differences are the way you hold the guns and how you reload.

Semi-automatics come with safetys to make sure you fire when you are ready to fire. There are many different types of safetys so it’s important to know how yours works. Some are levers for your thumb, others are buttons, or there can be one on the grip, magazine, or the trigger. Some guns come with two safetys which is even better.

When firing a gun, there will be recoil. THIS is actually the scary part, more than the sound. It’s going to jerk back in your hands and the lighter it is, the more it jump. Heavier guns will have less recoil but will be harder for you to control. It’s important not to anticipate the recoil or you will be off target. Kayla demonstrated this for the class with the fake blue plastic gun.

The next thing we learned was how to hold the gun when you’re aiming. The first part is called the master grip. You want to have your dominant hand around the gun with your finger ABOVE the trigger (rule #3!) as high up as you can grip. Your off hand goes on the other side so that you create a basket for the gun. You tuck your thumbs to make it as snug as possible and keep them raised for stability. For revolvers, you keep them down so the gun doesn’t burn you.

The second part of aiming is the stance. There are different stances that you can use. The first you’ve probably seen the most which is with both arms straight out and legs shoulder width apart. Stacey liked this stance. This is also the first time she held a gun and looks pretty awesome.

The second stance is more defensive. You stand with one leg forward for balance. Your dominant hand is straight and pushing the gun, while your other hand is bent elbow down to the ground and pulling the gun. This gives stability and you can move around easier.

We each went to our gun and tried our grip and stance. I was using a .38 Special revolver. The first time we fired scared the bejeezus out of me because of the kick, but at least I had a good grip. I didn’t like the revolver because it kicked like hell and my targeting was way off. Adrenaline really affects how well you can aim.

The instructors let us rotate and try all the other guns that were brought to the course. I shot a .357 Magnum, a Glock 9mm, and a Walther PPK, a Sig Sauer, a XD, an H&K, a Smith & Wesson, and a 1911. I don’t remember the calibers – which is what the numbers are – the bigger the number, the bigger the bullet. And the heavier the gun. The Glock 17 9mm ended up being my favorite with the 1911 a close second.

After a while I went to my dad’s range to spy on them and they were doing an obstacle course. I HAD to do it! They were being timed as they shot in a specific order and moved from target to target. This was SUPER cool and included a reload in the middle, so I had to stick extra ammo in my back pocket.

Here’s the bonus points with guys section, and where you can correct them during an action flick. Do not call it a clip. It is a magazine, or mag. If you call it a clip, gun geeks will make fun of you. If you call it a mag, they will probably buy you flowers.

So halfway through the course I was running through I had to drop the mag and put in a new one. I felt like the most bad ass person on the planet. I was slow for my first run ever but my accuracy was good. HELLO NEW HOBBY! I love a challenge and it turns out you can compete. I had no idea.

We were tired, sunburned, and eaten alive by giant mosquitoes by the end of the class, but it was worth it. I’m no longer afraid of guns and will try to rent guns regularly here at indoor ranges to stay that way. I felt so cool the rest of the day. And, I looked bad ass too. I mean really, check me out. And find yer own class!

I love dubai. It dazzles. It’s this magical city that blends american and muslim cultures, with a WHOLE LOT of glitz, extravagance and bling worked into the mix. dubai is constantly growing, expanding and building, so it’s amazing to think that this place was all just a desert island less than thirty years ago.

It went from being this:

To this:

So here’s a recap of my 48 hours in Dubai!

Day 1:

My first night there, my friend SVA (who is lucky enough to live there) took me to dinner at Wafi Mall. I was skeptical when he suggested dinner at the mall because I am not a huge fan of food-court places like sbarros or KFC. When we pull up to the mall I quickly realized that malls in Dubai are MUCH more extravagant than the ones in the US. It turns out each mall has a theme or special attraction that is designed to lure in the expats and tourists. Wafi mall had an ancient Egyptian theme and it was amazing!

After dinner, we hit up QD’s, a sheesha (hookah) lounge which allowed me to people watch. Dubai is a very diverse city which includes Emiraties, other Arabs, South Asians, expats, and many, many tourists.  It wasn’t uncommon to spot the emirate and gulf natives, as they wore traditional kandooras (men’s white outfit with red/white checkered scarves) and abayas (female’s black dress and headscarf, usually with rhinestone trim!) The vibe of this place was very loud and the DJ was attempting to reach out to his western audience, by playing recent songs by Pitbull: I know you want me. However, when he started to remix “Wiggle it just a little bit” and a night at the roxbury’s “What is love”, I decided it was time to go.

We decided to hit up the Address, a luxury hotel in downtown.

Not only was it SUPER posh, they have a huge bar/lounge that looks over the BURJ DUBAI! The Burj is the world’s tallest man made structure and is over twice the height of the Empire state building!
(Side note: The burj is officially called burj khalifa, after the ruler of Abu Dhabi who saved the dubai economy from collapse, but locals are adamant that it should be named burj dubai!) And the best thing about it, is that every half hour it lights up and sparkles

There’s also a huge garden with fountains where everyone can walk around if they get tired of looking at the sparkly building (but uh, why would they?!) Naturally, I had to stop and smell the pretty flowers!

Our walk took us next door to The Palace- Old Town, another luxury hotel. The views were amazing and I felt like I was on the set of a movie—everything was just *that* extravagant and grand!

Day 2:

After being enchanted the night before, I decided to try and visit the other famous malls I’d heard about. According to Wikipedia, Dubai is “the shopping capital of the Middle East”—SO TRUE. After a yummy breakfast, we headed to the Dubai Mall, which was grandiose and extravagant!

Apparently this mall is known for a large indoor aquarium and waterfall sculpture:

Another mall we hit up later that day had a huge out door attraction where people (mostly kids) could get inside huge balloon bubbles and float over the water! SAY WHAAATTT??!

Although it looks like so much fun, I didn’t try it out. I *really* wanted to, but couldn’t due to time constraints.  The indoor sky-diving attraction at City Center Mall tempted me as well. Ah well, this just gives me more reasons to go back and visit.

After a morning of shopping, we decided to head to the beach to play in sand. On the way to the Jumeirah beach I had to stop and photograph the beautiful mosques. I love Islamic architecture and I loved the simple details of this building in contrast to the over the top extravagance of the malls.

Oddly enough, the main attraction at Jumeirah beach, isn’t the beach. It’s the burj al arab is the second tallest building in the world that is the only 7 star hotel! Compared to the modern look of the burj al khalifa, the burj al arab seems much simpler. Its shape resembles the sails of an arab dhow, or sailboat.

After soaking in some sun, we decided to get dinner and headed to the atlantis on the palm jumeirah island. The palm jumeirah is an artificial island that was designed to represent a palm tree and was built in the gulf, connecting to dubai.

I’m definitely not an engineer, but it was amazing to think about how this entire city/resort was built from the ocean up. They are working on building a second man-made island in the shape of the world. I will def go back to check that one out!

When you entire the grand, magical atlantis, you are greeted by a beautiful murano glass sculpture! Then your breath is taken away by the hallways of floor to ceiling  giant aquarium! It was much larger than the one at the mall and it was so peaceful watching the fishies swimming around.

And now onto the tasty business! The Atlantis had many restaurants to choose from, and although it was hard, we settled on eating at rostang, a french restaurant. It was v. v. YUMMY and was one of my most favorite meals of the trip!

And since I love food, I have to show you some of the other om-nom-nom-worthy photos I took:

I hope that with all these photos of yummy food, shopping attractions and the aquariums I’ve convinced you to consider a visit to Dubai.  

One more thing, Dubai really is the city of bling. The new trend is to bedazzle your car. Even if you don’t like shopping, yummy food, or the beach, go to dubai just to check out the bling-bling cars, like this one:

Disclaimer: secret dates are not my invention.  A couple of years ago, Erin read a blog about a couple that planned secret dates, and Matt and I stole the idea and have been doing it ever since. And now you can steal the idea from us!

So here’s how it works: every month, we alternate who plans the secret date. I typically keep a list of secret date ideas on my phone, and I’m on several fun Houston e-mail lists to find out when cool stuff is happening in town. We give the other person a little notice, clothes/shoes recommendations if relevant, and then SURPRISE THE PANTS OFF EACH OTHER!

Okay, that one’s not from a secret date. It’s from our honeymoon, which was not a secret as we were both pretty much in on it. But don’t I look surprised?!

Secret dates don’t have to be outrageously expensive or complicated. Previous secret dates have included bowling and a monster movie, an Aeros hockey game, museums, picnics at the park, a wine tasting, a crawfish boil, pub crawls, live music shows, visits to the farmer’s market or lunch at a favorite restaurant. The awesomeness of secret dates is three-fold:

1) Once every two months, I get to be surprised, and once every two months, I get to be sneaky!

2) We always have at least one night (or day) a month that’s all about us and having fun and being cute.

3) Food and booze are invariably included.

January was my month to plan secret date, and I’d read on one of my e-mail lists that Discovery Green, the big, wonderful park downtown, had a giant balloon that you could ride 300 feet into the air for beautiful views of the city. For only $15! Secret date plan: accomplished.

That morning before I work, I packed our oft-used picnic backpack with wine and snacks we had at home (including scones and a heart-shaped raspberry chocolate torte made by the aforementioned Erin, because she loves me and I don’t cook), and on my lunch break I went to HEB and got typical tasty outdoor fare: gourmet cheese, sausage, olives, etc. After work, I met up with Matt and we headed to the park for a delicious picnic!

After which we went up into this giant balloon!

Which was really fun because it was just the two of us up there for about 20 minutes, enjoying the peace and beautiful Houston skyline. (I’d forgotten my camera, so all of these pics were with my phone, thus the suckiness.)

et voila! Secret date festivity: accomplished. It was cheap, cozy, fun, and included food and booze!

Last Sunday was Matt’s turn to plan secret date. (It was also the last day in February, because Matt likes to cut it close.) He kept a close eye on the weather, and when it cooperated, fun commenced! We went to the Houston Zoo, a place I had never been before and had always wanted to visit. The day was lovely and we had a wonderful time, walking around and looking at (and squeeing at, in my case) adorable animals for three whole hours. You guys, look! At the animals!

I don’t know what’s up with this dude, but I like it.

Sleepy kitty!

Hop into my pocket, cutie pie!

Yay, I love you, animals! But my favorite was Toby, the red panda. He was so sleepy in the tree! So sleepy that we couldn’t get a good picture of him, so here’s one I stole from the internet:

I like him because he reminds me of Zelda, my ginger puppy:

Doggy bag!

At the zoo, we ate burgers and fries (food!), and afterwards, we headed to my favorite pretty-weather bar, Volcano, for tasty cocktails (booze!).

And that, my friends, is how you plan a successful secret date. I urge you to try it! Or not, whatever.

Hi all!  Sally here, back from an epic trip to Argentina, and I just don’t know where to start!  Well, first, let me just say that you all need to go because it will blow your pants off, even if your pants are posh.

We spent the first part of our trip in Buenos Aires, and y’all, that business is HUGE!  It’s got 11 million people! That’s almost 3 million people more than all the boroughs of New York!   Our first day, we went to Recoleta, which has the super crazy cemetery that is like a mini town inside.

It is where all the rich people go when they die to hang with their ancestors and have intense arguments about whose sepulcher is better. It’s like a little town. A really cozy town. How cozy, you may ask.  This cozy.

Or am I confusing “cozy” with “snug”? Also what’s up with that family member who was cremated?  Was he rebelling, or were they just running out of room and gave him the shaft…like “so sorry great-great-great grandson, we just didn’t plan on our lineage lasting that long, so you are only allowed to take up one square foot of space”?

Looking at all these sepulcher’s made us thirsty, so we had a cup of coffee under the most beautiful tree ever.

That is some major Disney movie meets Princess of Mononoke tree action.

Now, we’re getting to the world of tasty business, which is what I know you’re all here for.  I have to say that Argentina does coffee best, and here’s why.  When you order a coffee, you not only get chocolate or cookie with your coffee, they give you a shot of sparkling water or orange juice to cleanse your palette.  GENIUS!

Some places even give you a cute, tiny bowl of ice cream.  WHAT?! I don’t even like coffee that much, but I ordered it every day because it was that awesome.

I know that poshdeluxe readers are also, well, readers, and you’ll all faint when you see how awesome this bookstore is.  It is in an old opera house!

It’s about time that a bookstore was housed in an architectural equivalent to what the store provides.  Also, there was live music at the coffee shop where the stage used to be.

Speaking of live music, Buenos Aires is the birthplace of tango, so we had to go watch some! We went to a couple of awesome cafés, and one place had some serious dancing business going on:

But back to tasty business. You have all perhaps heard that Argentines love their meat.  They are serious about meat.  I suggest bringing some bulk forming laxatives with you when you go, because you will be eating meat, bread, meat, cheese and meat.  I would like to show you what is considered an appropriate and perhaps even meager amount of meat for four people.

It needed two grills!  After a couple days of that, I sought out every vegetable I could find.

Besides meat, which is the cornerstone of any meal, Argentine cuisine is greatly influenced by both Italian…

….and Spanish fare.

Food is rarely, if ever, spicy, and Argentines love themselves pasta and pizzas.  I think I had pizza seven times, and once I had it twice in one night!  The best pizza hands down was the hearts of palm & salsa golf pizza.

It looks delicious, no?  What is salsa golf, you may ask. This may gross you out hard core.  It is equal parts ketchup and mayonnaise.   But trust me, it is DELICIOUS on pizza!

I had two other favorite things to eat, and those were the Spanish-style antipasti plates.

Um, DELICIOUS!

And then, there are empanadas, which are hands down the most delicious things in Argentina.

They are especially more delicious when you have them before having bean, hog’s foot & tripe soup.   The contrast in tasty vs. untasty only further elevates the glory of empanadas.

Another thing I like about Argentina, is how they approach food.  I never thought I would make it to 11pm to have dinner.  I mean, how can I eat if I’m ASLEEP?! BUT, there is always an afternoon ice cream, coffee, or drink to be had to help you push on through. One of my favorite places was this really great, old café in San Telmo where they bring you peanuts with your beer.

I thought that is what America was supposed to do.  Come on America!  Get back in the saddle!

One of my favorite place we ate, hands down, was a place on the Tigre River. Brencho’s dad’s old boarding school mate took us on his boat, and we drove an hour down narrow, windy channels to get to Los Pecanes, a hotel in the middle of nowhere.

I mean, just look at this place!  It is only accessible by boat!  They had the most delicious empanadas you could imagine, and it was all you could eat and felt like a friendly potluck with complete strangers.

Can you possibly get a better spot to lunch?

Also, in Buenos Aires, there are tons of awesome museums that only cost about $0.70 to get into and you get to see crazy stuff like this:

Just a little creepy. And this was at a religious museum!

Anyway, we then went to Bariloche in the south in the Andes, and that was some pretty business.  I mean, look at the view from our restaurant window

And gas stations look like they are in Twin Peaks.

Also, why in the hell do they create such cute telephone booths? So cute, I wanted to smash my cell phone and only use this phone booth.

Now if I showed you how ridonkulously pretty the Andes are, you would go into some sort of brain stupor, so I’m going to try to restrain myself on the scenery pics. Let me skip ahead to some requisite activities when in the Andes.  One of them is drinking mate. It is basically a gourd that you fill with yerba leaves and hot water and pass it round.  It’s the Argentine way of making friends!

Brencho is a master.  I, however, completely scalded my tongue.  I actually hurt myself a LOT in the Andes. I got bamboo shoved into my hand, I fell through a dock, got bronchitis and almost fell off a mountain. America has made me soft.

Another thing you have to do in the Andes is go fly fishing on the beautiful lakes next to glaciers, OBVI!  And I caught the biggest one!

And when you get back from your day of fishing, you have to eat your fishies!  We grilled him back at the cabin at the stone grill with this amazing view.

While having appetizers and wine here…

My favorite night, which was the night before we left, we went to Miramar, a really awesome bogedon that I found in the New York Times (I owe you one NYT!)  We had an awesome waiter named Ramon.  They had frog legs on the menu, but I opted for the safer snails.

(Thanks Kevin Moloney from The New York Times for such a delicious picture.)

Ramon was so surprised that such a gringa would be ordering snails that he gave me a snail fork he made himself out of silver wire.  I love you Ramon!

And, uh, don’t worry about his horrified look.

Well, that’s that.  You must go as soon as possible.

To end on a sweet note, I think Brencho would be upset if I didn’t put at least one picture of flan in there.  He had it about 10 times when we were there (about ten times less than he had ice cream).

********

Here are some links to awesome Argentine things…

The NYTimes photo story that took me to Miramar.

Argentina is, of course way into soccer. You can tell by the how hard this commentator breaks down at this Maradona goal. This is actually the first Argentine thing Brencho introduced me to.  It is called the Hand of God goal.  There is a new Maradona.  His name is Messi, and he is amazing.  Watch out for him at the world cup this summer.

Also, if you guys didn’t already know, I am obsessed with Design Sponge, and they often have kick ass city guides.  This one will definitely make you want to go! (As if I hadn’t already convinced you with all this tasty business.)

[Note: No children were harmed in the making of Deviled Corn Dogs. Good taste and our arteries may not have fared so well.]

Scene: One random day in December, at a lovely, but messy, semi-suburban home.

BR: I saw this recipe show up in my Google Reader today. It’s from ThisIsWhyYou’reFat.com. I think we should make it on New Year’s when everyone comes over!

MSWR: Oookaaaaaay…

BR: It’s called Deviled Corn Dogs. People are really excited about it. The Google Reader share generated over a dozen comments and included awesome suggestions like adding “Baconnaise” to the recipe.

MSWR: [shudder]

BR: You buy pre-made corn dogs and cook them, then remove the sticks slice them in half, take out the dogs, mix up the dogs with other good stuff like tater tots and mayo in the food processor, then pipe the stuff back into the corn dog shells and bake them.

MSWR: Whoa. This recipe requires to you re-process the pre-processed hot dogs? You don’t see a problem with this?

BR: The only problem I see is that I’m not eating one RIGHT NOW!

MSWR: Blech. Will this be interfering with my turnip greens and black-eyed peas?

BR: Not really. It’s just going to make the entire meal infinitely more awesome.

MSWR: Will I have to do any work?

BR: Nope. I was thinking that this would be a great project to take on with the men.

MSWR: “Men”. Riiiiiight. OK, have fun.

End Scene.

Scene: New Year’s Day, same house.

MSWR: So much cooking, so little kitchen space, aaaaaaaahhhhh. If you want to make the deviled corn dogs, you’d better start now. I’m getting out and handing over the camera to a dude.

BR and Assorted Male Guests: We’re on it. Here’s what you do:

Cook the bacon.

MSWR: What’s the bacon for? That’s not in the recipe you got off the interwebs.

BR: Are you forgetting the golden rule of cooking delicious, manly food?

MSWR: “When in doubt add bacon”?

BR: Close, but there is never any doubt. Continuing the process…

Bake the corn dogs and tater tots. Then, carefully remove the corn dog sticks and slice them in half lengthwise.

Remove the corn dog innerds.

Place corn dog innerds, tater tots, mayo, spices, bacon grease, and crumbled bacon in a food processor. Include Cholula, Hot Sauce of the Gods.

Take ‘em for a whirl.

MSWR: Ewwww.

Female Guest #1: You’re doing what with the what now?

BR: Can we use your pastry piping bag and tips?

MSWR: Um. I guess. The tip’s pretty small, though. Maybe a ziploc bag would be better. Don’t be messing up my piping bag with that goo.

BR: Let’s try the tip first.

Male Guest #1: This isn’t working, I’m just going to use the ziploc bag.

Male Guest #2: Let’s top some of them with cheese and bacon and leave some others plain.

BR: Now, we bake!

[5 minutes elapse] Meanwhile, guests are busy discussing what the deviled corn dogs represent for the coming year, if the turnip greens represent money and the black-eyed peas represent luck. Love life, perhaps? Clogged arteries?

BR: Yum! These look AWESOME. I can’t wait for a photo before I put one on my plate.

MSWR: They look ok, actually. I guess I’ll try one. I’ll just pretend like I didn’t see what all went into the mix. At least there are vegetables on my plate.

Female Guest #1: I can’t pretend not to know the horrors that dwell within. I can’t unsee what I’ve seen. I’ll pass.

Female Guest #2: No thank you. Are you people actually going to put that in your mouth?

Vegetarian Male Guest: I’m definitely trying it.

MSWR: It’s ok, not quite as gross as I expected. It tastes like highly processed food-like substance piped into a shell of highly-processed, sweet food-like substance. Maybe too sweet in the shell.

BR: Nom. Hmmm, probably didn’t need to add salt.

MSWR: This was fun, but I definitely don’t need or want another one of those ever again in my life.

BR: Nom. Oh crud, I forgot that we were going to add ranch!

MSWR: Yes, that’s exactly what it needs, more fatty ingredients. Wait, are you eating another one?

BR: Nom.

The End… or is it! Dun dun dun!

I’m popping in today to write about my trip home for Christmas. I go home every year to do what most people do during the holidays: eat far too much and do as little as possible whilst fighting with various family members. This year however, we shook things up a little: my lovely girlfriend Jen came over for a visit.

I think it’s safe to say that Jen came back to Texas safe in the knowledge that there are two things you really need to know about Ireland. It is a beautiful country, and it is unmercifully cold. I have some photographic evidence to back up both of these statements.

You can’t tell, but she’s having a great time. We took this picture on a trip to the Cliffs of Moher whilst travelling around my favourite part of Ireland, the west coast of Counties Clare and Galway. Ireland is suffering the same cold snap affecting the rest of Europe at the moment, so things were pretty rough. The main road to my uncle Brian’s was flooded, so we had to (very slowly) take an alternative route. More chance to check out cool scenery though.

This part of Ireland is called the Burren, which is famous for being a karst region in Ireland, made up mostly of limestone. This makes for fantastic scenery. Oliver Cromwell famously sent a scout into the Burren, only for the grim report to come back that “There isn’t tree to hang a man, water to drown a man nor soil to bury a man.” Yup, Oliver Cromwell. Not a nice guy.

It also means there are some interesting geographic features, as my old teacher Mr. O’Brien would describe them. My favourite are turloughs, or winter lakes. Due to the higher water table in the winter and  the limestone bedrock, the Burren has lots of small lakes that turn up in winter time when the water table rises and disappear during the summer. Thanks to the unbelievable weather these lakes had frozen over.

See the fence over the frozen lake?

Of course, my main reason to go to the Burren is to see family. I don’t always have American tourists with me, you know. Here’s a picture of my cousin Cliona.

You see? I can embarrass younger cousins from thousands of miles away. My dad is the oldest of nine and has dutifully taken on the responsibility of making fun of all his younger siblings and their offspring at every opportunity. I’m in training to take over. It all works in a hierarchy though; my dad’s younger siblings are free to torment me and by extension Jen. For my uncle Brian this mostly consisted of driving about ninety miles per hour down roads barely wide enough for his car while interrogating Jen about trivial matters instead of watching the road. It was great!

After a couple of days of Jen being terrorised by my uncle Brian and some more rather hairy country driving, we returned to Cork, where it seems things have gotten a little ghetto since the economy crashed.

We decided it might be prudent to get out of the city, and braved the icy roads to visit the lovely town of Kinsale.

Kinsale was the site of the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, when a combination of Irish and Spanish forces were defeated by the English, more or less settling what is now known as the Nine Years War and resulting in the “Flight of the Earls”, the end of the Irish political aristocracy. Today, Kinsale is noticeable for being picturesque, having a comedy festival, and sporting numerous oddly named retail establishments.

It’s never really struck me before how easy it is to recreate postcard-type photographs in Ireland. You’ve got the little village by the sea:

and the medieval tower in the middle of nowhere:

This was even before I took Jen to Blarney Castle.

Incidentally, the gift shop at Blarney had quite possibly the most cray tote bag ever.

Jen kissed the Blarney stone, and is now officially an eloquent person everyone! Yay! She needed it, because it was time to make merry and meet all the people I went to school and college with, and still talk to, all while drinking quite a lot of Guinness.

Ok, ok. We were having too much fun to take any decent photographs of the pub shenanigans. To make up for it, I decided to post a picture of the family dog in  a snuggie.

Rolo, our American Spaniel. As you can see, the members of my family enjoy both celebrating the Christmas spirit and making animals look ridiculous. He seemed okay with it! We even had little Santas holding our olives and sun dried tomatoes in place (we were trying to impress our visitor).

I tucked in to my favourite meal of the year. Yum.

All in all, I think it went ok! My family succeeded at not imploding or otherwise being embarrassing in front of our visitor, and I think Jen enjoyed meeting so many people in such a short space of time. You did very well Jen. Maybe you can show me up in the comments! Though I’m not lying everyone. Really.

Bye Ireland. See you in December.

A birthday party for my dear sister, Robin:

And my dear friend Josh:

Some of you may know these people but you probably don’t. See Josh grew up in America but he now he lives in London. Robin is spending the year in Edinburgh getting her master’s degree. You see the trend, yes they have friends here but they also have friends in America who would like to celebrate with them.

Enter Matt and Lindsey and computerz:

Step 1: Stalker

Even though I’m good friends with Robin and Josh I don’t know all their friends (weird right?). So I scanned my email for the few group emails they’ve sent out and picked out the emails I didn’t know. I also scanned their facebook account for the past month or so for any activity coming from friendly voices I don’t know. Finally, I painfully went through each of their friend list and made note of the people I’ve heard them mention that I didn’t have contact details for. I made a list for each, Robin’s list was titled ‘Robin’; Josh’s list was titled ‘Josh’.

Step 2: The Plan

Have a plan before you contact people. This is my plan:

This is what we were physically doing. Pretty cool right, but more on that later. Obviously, their friends across the world can’t fly to London to play birthday for one evening. So I came up with a way for them to play with us and us to play with them.

youtube: I created a youtube account for both Robin and Josh for their friends and family to upload videos. Here’s an example:

Step 3: Contact

I’m quite used to contact people with newsletters, etc. So I just set up a separate mailchimp account and loaded it full of Robin and Josh’s friend’s emails. And sent them instructions to create genius. And genius they did, look at what my mom did:

Step 4: Party

As you can see in the map in step two, I had a pretty full day of surprises planned. I set up a website for Josh and Robin to host all their videos and a live feed of all the photos and tweets going. It really gave a little connection between us and everyone else watching around the world.

This all got me thinking about what the soap opera is, and what it does for women.  (I’m not excluding dudes because I know you’re out there!)  It all brought me back to a talk Camille Paglia gave about poetry that I attended.  She is a huge figure in the feminist community and is was way badass.

That is the look she gives before she is going to eat you.  That is why I was blown away when she digressed and waxed poetical about soap operas while canonical pieces of poetry took a back seat.  Stand aside Emily Dickenson, the average woman learned more from daytime tv!  Now, a part of me (the snooty liberal arts student) dismissed this outright, but a part of me (that watched Days of Our Lives religiously in high school) rejoiced.  That’s right people, I was obsessed with Days of Our Lives, and I am here to tell you why!  And not just because Marlena dominates as demonstrated by the photo below:

Camille said that often women take a long time to process events.  We like to chew, to reexamine, to ask girlfriends for advice.  I mean, how else do you think the tradition of tea-time and girly nights got started, people?  This is perhaps why we get mad when guys give us advice.  We just want to TALK about it.  Soap operas are the shining example of this.  Something happens, like your husband cheats on your with your twin sister, you’re going to have to digest that before you claw his eyes out, right?  You were always going to claw his eyes out.  Girlfriend doesn’t need to tell you that.  But you need to talk about the pain he caused.  Soap operas are a model!  I am so with Camille on that one.

It also brings people together for a cooperative female educational experience!  I used to watch Days of Our Lives with my mom as we played nerts (the best card game ever).  We talked about how we would deal with similar situations.  Like seriously, say you got amnesia and a man who claimed to be your husband found you in your happy, new Amish home?   Do you believe him when he says that you’re married to him and an oil baroness?  I mean come on people.  You have to trust him.  He has an excellently well-kept beard.  I say yay.  Well, what happens when you get home and you find out that you have a clone, AND you are the princess of San Cristobal?  WHAT WOULD YOU DO??!!  (Obvi run away from said husband and clone to check out this island you rule.)   Just like the larger society, women have to build a structure of what should be done in certain situations, and every situation has been played out in soaps.  I dare you to try to give me a crazy one in the comments that HAS NOT been done.

Which brings me to another point, where else are you going to find these ridiculous storylines?  The one up above ACTUALLY HAPPENED, to Reva Shayne on Guiding Light.

Now, interestingly enough, there are two camps of soap opera watchers.  Those who are into the absurd form and those who are into classic soap opera form and never the twain shall meet.  On the former end of the spectrum, you’ve got living dolls belonging to mean-spirited witches (a.k.a. Passions):

and the other you’ve got love affairs all over the place (think Young & the Restless).  Y & R fans are in the ivory tower of soaps. I mean, just look at the characters, they’re normal looking, above-average attractive people who probably don’t have time-consuming jobs, but have time-consuming lusts:

You can see it in their EYES!!!  Now, every dredge can be a part of the absurdist club (they even took me!)   I mean, if you are trying to convince people that someone is possessed by the devil, you kind of have to cater to the lowest common denominator.  In case you haven’t been paying attention, I am that lowest common denominator.

Remember Virginia Woolf and A Room of One’s Own?  Every woman needs to write.  She said other stuff too, but that’s the gist.  Soaps have even gotten a whole gaggle of women writing!  There is a whole fanfic world!  If you thought that Twilight fans were crazy, just browse through the 775 fan fiction options for Days alone.  Dude, it is so serious they have an MPAA-style rating system.  That’s right ADULT CONTENT!!  Daytime tv is too tame for these fans.  And don’t think that Y&R isn’t above that, cause they’re not.  But they do only have three pages versus Days’ 31.  I told you, there are categorical differences between fans.

So perhaps with all the gifts that soap operas give us, we should be thankful that James Franco is being a po-mo-neo-feminist and GIVING BACK!!  Huzzah my good man!!  Perhaps he wants to reach out to the true feminine element and show his support!  Also, he may just be so pumped to be chewing the scenery and practicing his manacing eyebrow lift.  But, from this interview he’s doing it just because he heard it was hard.  Good on ya, our little celebrity air conditioner.

BTW, if you want to read Paglia’s pretty awesome book on poetry, it is called Break, Blow, Burn, and it is for people, like myself, who tend to better associate with the struggles of daytime soap stars than with Dickenson.  Sorry, Emily.

You know, even though I always swore I’d never get married (oops), I kind of just assumed I’d one day score a honeymoon. I always thought that sounded really super awesome and fancy and sophisticated when I was a kid. And it really was!

I mean, of course it was a poetic celebration of the love that Matt and I share, two whole weeks where we did nothing but revel and delight in our affection for one another. Two magnificent weeks that will live forever in my memory as the most wonderful, serene, heart-wrenchingly gorgeous and romantic vacation I’ve ever taken in my life, a journey the scope of which pictures and words could never do justice.

But this is a PD joint, y’all! Get ready for some pictures of food and cute animals!

Our first morning was spent at a super cute B&B in Austin, Austin’s Inn at Pearl Street. And we enjoyed THIS breakfast on our balcony overlooking the lovely courtyard:

Matt, what do you think about being married so far?

“Breakfast and dance parties and presents and jewelry and cupcakes? I dig it.” Okay, maybe it was me who said that.

So after some scrambling, we made it back to Houston and to the airport just in time for Matt to announce to me that he sneakily upgraded our tickets to Costa Rica to first class! Squee! This has been a long-cherished dream for me, ’cause I’m poor but I like to pretend I’m rich. I’m awfully good at it! I learned from the best (ah-hem, Sarah). It was a really sweet surprise, and we had a super tasty dinner and drank Continental out of house and home, and ate cheesecake, and stretched out our legs (well, I’m short, I can always stretch out my legs. But that Tall Drink of Water I recently snagged was very appreciative of the extra leg room).

Our next flight, from San Jose to Puerto Jimenez (on the Osa Peninsula), was not so luxurious.

Look at our wee little plane! This picture was taken from our seats:

Uh, hello, pilot! But we arrived safely, and took a taxi (read: hayride, since we sat in the back of a pickup truck and there were cows) to the super secluded and gorgeous eco-lodge where we stayed, Iguana Lodge.

Yes, cows.

We went down this winding road far away from everyone and everything

and ended up here, at the Iguana Lodge.

Iguana Lodge is owned by Americans (Toby and Lauren) who visisted Costa Rica and were all, “Eff it, we’re staying here.” I can relate. It’s a beautiful place made up of a few private open-aired huts on the beach, and one big central lodge where they serve food and have books and games and yoga and stuff. The lodge was founded on the concept of sustainable tourism, meaning they only used felled trees as materials for the accommodations, and most of the energy used is solar, and they put money back into the community, creating a library and a school and scholarships and a sea turtle rescue project.

Also? It’s freaking gorgeous.

That’s the Pearl of the Osa, the bar/restaurant located on the premises.

Our stay included DELICIOUS breakfast and dinner, and we got our lunch and our many bevvies at the Pearl. It had a pretty sweet view, you know?

We spent a LOT of time there doing pretty much this:

We also spent a LOT of time sitting under the little tiki  huts on the breathtaking and remote beach, doing pretty much this:

This is our cabin, which was about 100 feet from the ocean, open with screens, my new favorite place on earth (sorry, castle):

That’s right, a sweet outdoor shower! I took sooooo many showers because I loved that part so much. I unpacked all of our belongings as soon as we got there, and just pretended it was our real home. And we spent a LOT of time on that covered porch doing, you guessed it, pretty much this:

Check it, Sarah, I took this picture just for you, from the cushions on our balcony sofa:

I mock you with my monkey pants!

Oh yeah, and dig the view from our balcony:

We sent to sleep every night with the sound of the waves breaking onto the shore. These were some SERIOUS waves, too, all day every day.

Oh, and there were doggies!

Bam-Bam

Fester/Chester (aka, we don’t really know what his name was, because it turns out he didn’t belong to the lodge)

and the cutest/homeliest dog on the planet,

Spike. I think you can see why he was named as such.

They all spent most of their time following us around and being cute, but Spike in particular adopted us. He spent our entire vacation with us. We took a 4-mile walk down the beach one day, and Spike followed us all the way there, got in the ocean with us, and walked all the way back, then settled at our feet when we plopped down to read.

He also spent every night sleeping on our porch, and once scared the hell out of me by sneaking into our cabin when it was raining, so when I swung my feet down from the bed, they landed on Spike’s greasy back. Oh Spike. You were so gross and yet so cute. I miss you.

That picture was taken during one of the many candlelight dinners we had served to us on our balcony! We were pretty much the only guests there during our stay, and Toby and Lauren made sure the staff catered to us. They were all so fantastic; the staff is kind and funny and helpful and great (all Costa Rican), and Toby and Lauren were really cool, too.

tuna steak with yuca au gratin and hearts of palm and chorizo and broccoli and stuffed peppers and yummy bread!

shrimp etoufee with carrots and beet salad and rice and grilled papaya and garlic bread and a chicken skewer!

chicken tandoori with candied rice and flat bread and hummus and avocado and cucumber salad! I can’t believe these are the only pictures I took of our many, many delicious meals at the lodge, but I did get some pictures of our desserts!

plum tart!

giant ice cream sandwich!

really good prosecco!

Friday nights at the lodge they have Pasta Night, where they make a huge vat of delicious spaghetti and meatballs with salad and garlic bread and lasagna, and a DJ plays salsa music and all of the kids from Puerto Jimenez come and shake it down.

This was pretty much the only time we saw other people  there who didn’t WORK at Iguana Lodge, so we had fun! See?

Other things we did on our porch besides eating and reading: we each got a massage under the covered area during a thundery rain storm, and we we each got a mani-pedi, too! GLAM! But it wasn’t all reading and sleeping and eating and drinking. Obviously, it was MOSTLY those things, but we had adventures, too!

We saw a big-ass snake!

We went kayaking through the mangrove swamp! It was pouring the whole time, and that sort of just made it even more fun and adventurous. It was just the tour guide and us (for everything we did, it was just the tour guide and us. Costa Rica during rainy season is all about YOU), and he educated us about the amazing eco-system the mangroves cultivate. He was really nice and smart and we had a wonderful 3 or 4 hours kayaking through the river and into the open ocean with him.

He just knocked these oranges (that look like limes!) off the tree with his paddle and gave them to us. We made cocktails out of them later. Obviously.

We took a break on this secluded beach (even more secluded than at Iguana Lodge) before kayaking out into the open ocean.

He taught us how to crack open coconuts:

And then we feasted on coonuts and oranges and pineapples harvested from the swamp. It pretty much rocked.

FRESH COCONUT, WE WILL MEET AGAIN SOON. Now that I know how to open you, that is.

Then we kayaked out into the open sea, which made me feel like an explorer, ie, someone much braver and more athletically-inclined than I actually am.

Here we are after our rain-soaked educational adventure!

We also went on a boat tour of Gulfo Dulce, again just the tour guides and us on their boat on the single most gorgeous day of the entire vacation. Thank you, vacation, for scheduling your rain around our itinerary.

What is that you spy, oh happy Meredith? IS THAT A FREAKING DOLPHIN?

Yes, come closer, dolphin! Come closer! Frolic, and bring your friends!

Look how close he is to my head!

TWO DOLPHINS!

THREE DOLPHINS!

FOUR DOLPHINS!

Meredith and Matt PLUS DOLPHIN!

We also saw sea turtles and sting rays. All MANNER of sea life! I really enjoy saying “all manner of sea life.”

We stopped at this gorgeous island, mostly just to say, “Look, we’re on this gorgeous island!”

There we are, see?

And then we went back out on the boat into the bay, and just jumped out in the middle of the bay and started snorkeling. We took a page out of Erica Greenhouse’s book and purchased a waterproof bag for our camera. Matt took all of these very professional snorkeling shots. Henri, this is your cue to look away.

Mr. Tour Guide, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to take the coral.

Me in my Junior’s Life Jacket.

Matt’s not a little baby, so he went without a jacket.

Our last excursion was to go zip-lining through the rainforest. We were ready to go and looking pretty damned cute in our zippy gear!

Zip-lining is amazing, because most of the rainforest wildlife (ALL MANNER OF WILDLIFE!) inhabits the highest tree-tops where you can’t see them. Unless you’re zipping through the rainforest 150-ft up in the air, as we did. Unfortunately, our camera battery died before we could take pictures of all of the crazy sloths and toucans and iguanas and chameleons and macaws we saw that day, but we did manage to snag quite a few pictures of MONKEYS EEEE!

This one monkey jumped on the zip line and started booking it towards us. At first we were all, “Yay! Monkey wants to be friends!” and then as he got closer and angrier-looking, we were all, “Okay, dude, take your intimidatingly large monkey parts and get the hell away from us.” So he did.

That wraps up the 10-day portion of our Osa Peninsula/Iguana Lodge stay. Because I am intent to make this the single longest and most pictoral post ever published on poshdeluxe.com, I’ll just go right ahead into our 4-day stay in Escazu, near San Jose!

The cemetery next to the tiny little Puerto Jimenez airport:

The view back to San Jose on the scary little puddle-jumper:

Our new hotel, the Beacon Escazu, wasn’t so eco-friendly, but it was super tony and we did appreciate crawling into a bed with DRY sheets at night (open-aired hut in the rainforest = EVERYTHING is damp). The landscaping of the grounds, pool, hot tub and area surrounding the bar and restaurant was so lush and tropical, it was almost like still being in the rainforest!

Lovebirds! They’re on their honeymoon, too.

The pool at night.

Our room was spacious with THIRTY FOOT CEILINGS and a cool open shower concept.

The food at the Beacon was GREAT. And we ate lots of it. As we are wont to do.

Matt’s tuna steak.

My DIVINE pork chops with potato pancake.

Fancy embossed plates.

A somewhat disappointing creme brulee, that, despite the extravagant sugar sculpture adorning it, wasn’t crispy enough on top for satisfactory cracking purposes.

My enchiladas verdes.

Matt’s apropos Costa Rican plate.

REALLY good ceviche.

We spent most of our few remaining days eating, drinking, and reading by the pool (duh).

But we also ventured into town for some more eating, more drinking, and SHOPPING to replace the reading. We’re so adventurous!

We found the Princess Marina, the best and cheapest seafood restaurant EVER. We ate there twice. In four days. In a foreign country filled with exciting new restaurants to try.

My SIX lobster tails with garlic mashed potatoes, for something like $9.

Matt’s seafood fountain.

Blackberry margarita!

Our final full day dawned, and we decided to get dressed up (well, vacation “dressed up,” meaning no flip-flops for once) and…eat and drink some more at the hotel restaurant!

We toasted our amazing trip in the only way one can pay adequate tribute to such a spectacular vacation: shots of Patron followed by Imperial beer.

The trip eventually had to come to an end as all trips must, and it was time to fly back home, but even that part wasn’t sad because we got to fly home first class and eat more tasty rich people food and drink lots of fancy first class cocktails! And then we got to come home to this:

and also this:

and also a giant pile of wedding presents from our incredibly generous friends and family! So I guess I don’t have too much to complain about. But still…

I want to go back to Costa Rica, man.

I’ll give you the basic details: my lovely girlfriend Jen and I decided to get away for the long weekend, but it took us a while to figure out where to go.  I suggested New York, San Francisco and Memphis.  Jen politely reminded me it was better to think of somewhere a little closer to home, perhaps a place we could actually arrange to visit at such short notice.   It took us a little while, but after some thought and a quick read of a classic poshdeluxe post, we had our answer: we would visit Marfa, Texas!

When I first arrived in Texas, three years ago, I was regularly invited to go camping at a place called “Big Bend.”  Naturally, I assumed these people were either making fun of me or completely insane.  Not only did the idea of naming a location with a name so clearly in danger of juvenile mockery seem a little unbelievable, but my Irish soul had long been marked with the nightmarish experience of our own particular brand of camping.

In Ireland, you see, camping involves being wet, and cold.  If you’re camping it is because you are a teenager being effectively forced to sleep in a tent by some form of school authority, or because you are at a music festival.  I’m sure there are Irish people that choose to camp, but I can safely say they are in the minority.  That’s not to say that nobody in Ireland camps; to the contrary, our hills and vales are full of German and English people wearing socks and sandals.  It’s just that the natives know better.  I know there are several reasons these doubts don’t hold true for camping in Big Bend, not least the fact that it does not rain as much.  Three hours into our long weekend though, and I was being given food for thought.

I had been excited about Marfa since reading the posh post, and had become more excited upon seeing the rather excellent There Will Be Blood.   I liked the barren empty landscapes, possibly because they offer such a contrast to my own (beautiful) homeland.  However, here we are travelling on the highway and I’m getting more of a Twister vibe.  I was Bill Pullman, not Daniel Day-Lewis! (Note: not that it’s a bad thing.  Bill Pullman is a friend of the show.)

Thankfully, things got better.  A lot better.  We made it to Marfa alive!  Now Marfa, apart from being a destination for hipster safari tours, is a very nice small Texas town that’s quite famous for some unexplained lights.  It being Labor (sic) Day weekend, Marfa people were celebrating in full force!  And of course, celebrating in full force, Texas style, involves lots of awesome food!

Come on.  You KNOW that looks good.

Most interestingly, the fact that everyone who was ANYONE was hanging out at the centre of town left us free to wander around town in splendid isolation.  Jen particularly liked this pretty cool looking building.

It’s the Judd Foundation, which I have since learned is must-see for people interested in Marfa’s vibrant art scene.  I am one of those people, but I didn’t get to have a look first hand because it was closed!  In fact, we were paying for our privacy by not being able to get in anywhere!

How could you, Leo?  I wanted to browse through your store and not buy anything! I would have said hello and thank you!!!

JM Dry Goods WAS open.  I bought a cool shirt.  Doesn’t this store look nice?  The people who worked there were nice.  As a cultural experience for me, this trip was working out really well.  It felt a lot like rural communities at home in Ireland.  Everyone is nice, they all seem to know each other, and everything is safe.  The difference is the scale.  Ireland is not densely populated, but it’s not anywhere near as BIG as Texas.  In that regard, the Marfa area felt like a different planet.

The sky is so big.  It’s really amazing.  We did more stuff in the area; we went to Fort Davis and Alpine.  We also went to the McDonald Observatory for a “star party.”  This was really cool: a very pleasant and geeky man points out constellations with a crazy enormous evil genius size laser pointer, and then we all stand in line to look at Jupiter through telescopes.  No really, it was great.  We also did a lot of window shopping in the very cool shops around the area.

We rounded off our trip with a quick visit to El Paso to see Jen’s mum.  I’ll give you a summary of the most important points: I ate way too much Korean food and took a photograph of a Cookie Monster pinata.

It was a great day.

So, I survived my trip to West Texas.  It was really fantastic.  There was a lot of driving involved, but who can complain when you have so much beautiful scenery to look at?  I’ll never get sick of that enormous sky.

LINKS

To celebrate my unabashed love of America, here are some links.

A lot of posh readers know, but Hugh Laurie is a very, very funny man.

Living in Austin has taught me to love college football.  Not just because of the Longhorns, but because of ridiculous things like this (stick with it through the first thirty seconds).

Some people aren’t the biggest fans of America.  Alan Partridge doesn’t know how to cope with an Englishman who really likes “American things.” I think I’ve said this here before, but Steve Coogan is a genius.