Canadiana

Since Maryann is the cultured half of our marriage, I am going to give her the keys to the blog to raise the level a bit. This is her first of many posts.

Ireland is a 6 hour direct flight from Toronto. During our road trip across the Emerald Isle, we often discovered that we really weren't too far from home. Upon our arrival in Dublin, our first stop for a quick lunch was a quaintly decorated tea shop, "The Queen of Tarts". Beside our table we spied something familiar and sweet - a display of jugs of maple syrup for sale, courtesy of la belle province, Quebec.

Later that evening, in our hotel pub, Darkey Kelley's, the beer coasters on our table were advertising Molson Canadian Beer. The bar had just installed a Molson's tap and were promoting their new beer. Also, while listening to a pub band announce their set list, they introduced music originating from Cape Breton.

In Kinsale, we were greeted with a huge familiar sign, advertising Tim Horton's coffee, available from a vending machine in the local Spar supermarket. What a surprise to get a quick fix of Timmy's coffee for our road trip. We set our radar for Tim Horton's at Spar markets for the remainder of our trip and were not disappointed.

Later that week, we encountered a group of students from High River, Alberta on Inish Mohr, Aran Islands. We commiserated and shared stories of how the Calgary floods were affecting our families.

In Derry, the common room of Paddy's Hostel was decorated with flags from around the world. A previous employee and resident had crafted a Canadian flag from scraps of calico and it was proudly waving from the window.

At Leo Burdock's, a Dublin fish and chip shop, we found a fish fryer who had an interesting sign on his tip cup. It said" Help send Justin Bieber to the moon". Apparently, this cook was not a big fan of our young Canadian popstar.

 
On our last night in Dublin, Bob met two little Dubliner girls who, upon learning we were returning home to Canada, exclaimed that they wanted to move to Canada. Why? Because that is where Justin Bieber lives. Ah, true Beliebers.

 I hate to say it, but it truly is a small world. Ireland became a home away from home.