Today I finally made it to the hotel gym, only here they are called "Leisure Centres", has all the same equipment and the pool is indoor and heated. It's very nice and will definately keep me busy for a bit each day - at least until we move into a house. So, there are some real differences here in Ireland, the food - everything comes with some sort of sauce on it and so far every restaurant we have been in apparently only knows how to cook chicken two ways. You can have cajun chicken or you can have chicken parmiggiana. I have yet to come across any food that is grilled, there is a lot of beef on the menus as expected. Your meals always come with two types of potatoes, one of which will be large fingerlings boiled and then either mashed or scalloped with garlic - really, really like those garlic scalloped potatoes. And everything pretty much comes with a small salad on the plate - which their salads are fantastic. Lots of variety in them and very tasty dressing, yet they do not drown the salad in dressing they just drizzle it on. Even in the pubs if you order any meal with chips it will come with some sort of salad on the plate. Even the cole slaw is tastier here. Catsup is much sweeter, so I don't really like that. Hamburgers are called steak burgers and they taste a bit like meatballs. The bread is wonderful and I had the most amazing salmon the other night.

Today I did laundry and the oddest thing - the washer and drier are the same machine - however, I have been working on the same load for about 4 hours. It's still drying, it may take me two days to finish the two loads of laundry I have.

We have learned that the town we are moving to has a "boil order" for the water, so we can't drink it and the order will remain in effect for the next 2 years at least. They are working on a new water treatment plant but it wont be ready for a couple of years. They have some specific bacteria in the water that if you are born and raised in Ennis you should have no trouble, but if you are an outsider - mmm might be a problem. They do have floride in the water but you can't drink it....crazy.

I learned today that we did not bring the cabling to plug the camera into the laptop so I can't upload any pictures until we go buy one. It may be in a week or so. However, I thought I would provide a couple of links so you all could see where we are, they'll be at the end of today's post.

Adrian has just come home from work, his job here will be pretty easy. He works from 7-3 Monday - Friday. Today he is not feeling well so we will stay in tonight and try to find some soup in the form of broth for him.

http://www.shannonheritage.com/Attractions/BunrattyCastleFolkPark/

http://www.shamrockhotelbunratty.com/Bunratty_Shannon_Shamrock_Hotel_Conference_and_Leisure_Centre_Home.html

http://www.tourclare.com/ennis.php