In a small seaside town in SE England lives my childhood friend Markku with his lovely wife Hannan and their 4 (yes 4!!!) beautiful children. We spent a long wknd with them at their house and took in the sites in and around New Romney; including, but not limited to the following: Sainsbury's grocery store where we purchased the Foster's cases you see in the attached photo, a quaint country pub in town on a rowdy Saturday night (READ: deserted), the St. John kitch...

After a fantastic visit in Ireland it was off to England to meet another old friend from SF, Adriana. I hadn't seen Adriana for 4.5 years when she had moved to the UK. Went straight into her office where I got to meet up with Fred Westcott, my ole pal from Sydney! We grabbed a beer and caught up til Adriana was done for the day. After work we headed back to Adriana's hood in Camden. I dropped my stuff and we returned out for grub and drink. After our lovely Mal...

Three hour train ride finds me at an Irish train station greeted by yet another great old friend, Charlotte! We had a fantastic meal of homemade veggie stew and wine before taking on Sligo Saturday night. After hours of conversation, countless laughs, and a bit too much Irish cider we called it a night. Sunday welcomed us both with grey skies, rain, and some fierce winds - apparently what was ever left from the U.S hurricane rolled through the west coast of Ire...

A quick 11 hour flight time brought me to the beautiful island of Ireland. I was greeted at the door of my booked hotel by my dear, dear friend and former roommate Suzanne Finnegan. It's pretty incredible how quickly 3 years melts away with great friends! After a long catch up over getting ready and dinner, we were ready to take Dublin by storm. We hit up a few lovely places, but as you would probably suspect, where else would a couple of SF girls be at the end...

I've waited a long time to write this post as I was hoping to have some closure in the situation before doing so. The day I was meant to leave to meet Gina in London, Sept 14, 2011, I had a small incident on my way to the airport. We stopped for a 30 minute walk enroute to SFO to kill a little time (I was running early to the airport, imagine that!) and to take a last walk with my Mom, Brother and our little dog, Andy, before saying goodbye for at least a year....