Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

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Photo Friday – Fáilte

I spotted this flower box art roadside in a very small Irish town called Connolly during one of our off-the-beaten-path detours. Fáilte. If I had to choose one word to sum up our time in Ireland it would be fáilte. It means “welcome” in Gaelic, and it’s exactly how I felt no matter where we went. Pubs, bed and breakfasts, in taxis and on foot, nearly every single local we encountered was warm and friendly to us and we felt completely welcome. It’s perhaps my most favorite thing about Ireland, and I can see why people simply fall in love with the whole country.

September 18, 2015
Dublin Part I: A Handful of Highlights

When I put the itinerary together for a week in Ireland, I decided that a couple of days in the country’s capital at the beginning of the trip would allow us to adjust to the time zone before getting behind the wheel of a car. You’re welcome, citizens of Ireland. (I would especially recommend this approach to anyone who isn’t used to driving on the other side of the road – please don’t try to drive when you’re jet-lagged if you can avoid doing so!) Besides, Dublin looked like somewhere we’d enjoy exploring, so we parked ourselves there for two full days.

After landing in Dublin and getting settled at our hotel (we stayed at the Radisson Blu Royal; a fantastic hotel in a perfect city-center-but-quiet location), Chris and I had two things on our minds: exploring the city, and eating lunch.

Being food-driven and hungry from travel, lunch won as the priority. Our fun cab driver from the airport highly recommended a popular chipper just blocks away from our hotel as the best place for fish and chips in the city. We were sold and headed to Leo Burdock to join the likes of Ray Charles, Lisa Kudrow, and “Justin Timberlake’s Parents” as patrons. I mean, if it’s good enough for the Timberlakes, it’s good enough for us, right? Note: The food is excellent, but portions are huge! We could have easily split one meal.

With full bellies and a goal to stay up late enough to conquer our jet lag (we made it to exactly 7:45pm), we set off to wander the city and cover a few planned highlights, starting with Trinity College. As an avid reader and book lover, I enjoyed getting a peek at the Book of Kells, but the highlight for me was visually perusing the treasures of the gorgeous Long Room library. We booked advance tickets online which allowed us to skip the queue at the door. They also let us in hours ahead of our scheduled time when we arrived earlier than we planned. And on a Friday afternoon in late August, the crowds were totally manageable.

After getting our bibliophile fill at the library, we continued to wander and eventually found ourselves on a tour at the Irish Whisky Museum. More on that in the next post, along with our time at the Jameson Distillery and the Guinness Storehouse (there’s a clear theme here)

I have to come clean though: when it comes to big cities, I harbor some pretty polarizing love-hate feelings. Now, hate is a strong word and it’s not quite the right word, but I tend to get a little overwhelmed in crowds so I often feel a bit awkward and out of place in larger cities. I’m also (apologies to any smokers) really really not a fan of breathing second-hand smoke, which is difficult to avoid in the city. I’m pretty sensitive to it and I get headaches.

As for the love side though, I savor the ample people-watching opportunities. And I have such a great time photographing city details: architecture (oh, the architecture in Dublin!), people, signage, doors…I could spend the rest of my life in Dublin and not capture all of the wonderful interesting details.

Hopping onto one of the hop-on-hop-off tour buses gave our feet a wee break on the second day when we had more of the city to explore. We had amazing weather for about 75 percent of our two days in Dublin; the other 25 percent caught me without my rain jacket and wearing shoes that I didn’t want to get wet, so the bus helped with that aspect as well. Apologies for my grumpiness that afternoon, Dublin. Lesson learned: be prepared for quick shifts in the weather in Ireland. (Duh, right?)

Up next, we drink our way through Dublin via Irish coffees and pouring the perfect pint of Guinness!

September 16, 2015
A Road Trip Around Ireland

That’s right, we’re back from Ireland! And I’m so excited because this post officially kicks off my coverage of our two weeks in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.

I recently watched a video in which Bill Murray crashed a bachelor party (here is the abridged version) and offered some sage advice for new couples. In his speech to the groomsmen, he instructs them to buy a plane ticket and travel around the world with their significant other, and advises that if you come back and you’re still in love with that person, get married immediately. I agree wholeheartedly with his advice, and I’d go so far as to say you don’t even have to travel the world to test the waters with a partner. Just go on a road trip together somewhere unfamiliar with drastically different traffic patterns and road conditions than what you’re used to driving.

Chris and I have done many a road trip together and we’ve traveled to several places where we drove on the left (the “other side of the road” to us), encountered random farm animals standing in the road, or dealt with steep hills and crazy, narrow, switchbacks, but Ireland was our first long road trip with all of those challenges combined along with the distraction of some of the most beautiful scenery and cutest towns we have ever seen. And with that said, this post officially kicks off coverage of our time in Ireland!

As for the free relationship test, we passed with flying colors (and with only a wee bit of bickering) and I’m happy to say that our marriage is still very much intact. Chris did the majority of the driving and I navigated via GPS, iPhone, paper maps, signage, and deeply embedded directional instincts. Okay, so that last one wasn’t always as reliable, but I did manage to get us from Dublin to Kilkenny, Kerry, Galway, Donegal, and around Northern Ireland. And Chris managed to keep us completely alive and unscathed for over 1200 kilometers of highways, roundabouts, and extremely narrow farm roads.

But before I get to all of the road trip details and photos of each of the towns/counties we visited, we spent a couple of nights car-free in the city of Dublin. Those posts are up next so stay tuned!

September 14, 2015
Photo Friday – Bluemont

Chris and I have spent several weekends over the last few months working our way through the brewdoun.com list of Loudoun County, Virginia breweries. This past weekend we stopped at Dirt Farm Brewing for the first time where we were treated with this beautiful view of Bluemont’s farms and vineyards. I absolutely love Virginia countryside and I enjoy every opportunity I get to explore it. Stay tuned for more detailed posts about the breweries we visited!

August 21, 2015
Master Bath Mini Makeover

Pretty much any time I look around our home and think of updates that could be made, the total dollar amount instantly translates in my mind to plane tickets, travel accommodations, or adventure excursions. Don’t even get me started on the kitchen overhaul with a bottom line that basically equates to half of my dream trip to Antarctica. Functionally, everything in our house is in good shape and nothing truly needs replacing (knock on wood; 90s orange oak wood, to be specific). The basic builder-grade “finishes” throughout the house could stand to be upgraded though, so I’m thankful that a few easy and inexpensive fixes here and there make our little townhouse look a bit more updated without depleting our travel funds.

Last year I gave our guest bathroom a mini makeover, and it was high time I applied those same tricks to the master bathroom upstairs. I started by replacing the bare-bulb vanity lighting with a fixture from Shades of Light. And based on the drywall disaster that we found when we replaced the light fixture in our guest bathroom (giant ragged hole in the wall behind the old fixture; took us eight hours to fix it), I hired an electrician for assistance with this one. Good lighting is one of the areas I don’t mind spending money on because the quality seems to make such a huge difference, so I put the majority of our budget for this mini makeover into the Schooner Bath Light.

It’s really difficult to photograph a light fixture in a room with no windows or without dragging out studio lighting equipment, so I’ll just show you the stock photo and call it a day.

photo via shadesoflight.com

But the update that made the biggest impact (and at the least expense!) was putting a few coats of paint and some hardware on the orange oak vanity. I had my eye on a couple of new vanity options, but they were all in the quadruple digits price range so that’s when I decided to give paint a try instead. I’m really happy with the way it turned out! Here is the before (documented lazily many years ago with a point-and-shoot) and the after:

All I did was roll on a coat of Zissner primer, two coats of Sherwin-Williams Java, and then installed some hardware purchased at Pottery Barn. No crazy prep, no sanding, and pretty minimal dry time – I finished the whole project in a weekend.

Ta da! Next up, I’m going to try to frame out that giant mirror, replace the faucets, and update the flooring (and I still need to paint the orange oak quarter-round near the baseboards). But for now I’m loving the difference the warm chocolate brown cabinet makes in the room. And of course I’m loving that the $30 in supplies didn’t eat into my Antarctica funds.

August 17, 2015