Key Largo 2019

So!  It was my birthday yesterday!  (Yes I'm old, moving swiftly on).  

For maybe the best birthday present I've ever been given, we snuck away for a little weekend break "up North". 

Ha!  By "up North" I mean Key Largo, 2 hours away.

I do love a road trip as I think you know. Heck who doesn't?  (Seriously though, is there someone out there who doesn't like a road trip?? Please leave a comment if this is you!).  Funny though, the weather was not what I expected of a drive through the Florida Keys.  Overcast, cold and WINDY, it got cooler and cooler as we drove towards our destination of the Key Largo Bay Marriott Resort and Hotel.

A little stop off, along the way, at Tonio's for a spot of lunch. It was positively blustery but a perfect little dive place, just like I like 'em!

We arrived and checked in and we were delighted with our room. It was big!  

But cold.  The weather was cold.... 

As demonstrated by me wearing of long trousers in this photo (taken on the way home from dinner)

We had an early enough night (yes, I/we're old. Moving swiftly on).

Happy to report that we woke up to sunshine the next morning!

After a light breakfast I headed to the beach.  Seriously cute little beach with the sunbeds lined right up to  literally the shoreline which was very nice - nothing like hearing the waves lapping as you sunbathe.  

I started my Meg Cabot (author signed!) book which was an entertaining little read. The gist of my weekend, it has to be said, was either beach or pool and fantastic it was too.

Lunch was sushi!

On the way back from lunch I stopped off at a yard sale/consignment sale/storage unit sale....where a woman admired my dress ("Is it a Lilly? [Pulitzer]") and gave me a pair of sunglasses for free ("They go with your dress").  How nice was that?!

And then dinner!  Wow.  We ate early so that we would catch the sun setting while eating.  What a view!!!  Great food too.  Would it be weird if I described it as an (all encompassing) experience?  Ooh not forgetting the wine also!  Malbec ;)

After dinner we decided to do something we never do and have some cocktails.  They weren't the fanciest (e.g. craft) cocktails, I guess they were just "resort" type cocktails, but they were pretty good. And as I said, it's something we never do, so just getting them in themselves was fun.

After another light breakfast (coffee and bagel & cream cheese mmm) I headed down to the beach and pool for a last few hours of relaxing before getting on the road home.

For something fun and NEW we stopped off for some bridge fishing on the way home!  I can't lie, it was not the best fishing. We have a lot to learn about what bait, hook, lures etc to use...but sure it was a start! You have to start somewhere eh!

And home!  Where I realized that I had left my bike at work and it was needed for the next day.  So I headed downtown - where I caught the Veteran's Parade and bumped into friends Dawn and Gwen.  It's a small island lol, you can't go anywhere without bumping into someone.

Finally we finished a lovely (perfect even??) weekend with dinner in our favourite place ever Half Shell Raw Bar.  

Already we are talking that a weekend away in the Key Largo Bay resort may turn into a yearly event.  Get's a big thumbs up from me!

Triviawhack

I hadn't been at Trivia in Viva saloon for aaaaages. With my recent addiction to Jeopardy (a new find for me since moving to the USA) my thirst for trivia has grown so it was indeed time to get back to honing the old brain cells of a Thursday eve.

I joined a team that was coincidentally made up of a group of regulars who for one reason or another did not have people from their team there.

As you can imagine, with many trivia regulars on our team, we were strong competitors and in fact (spoiler!) we won the overall competition. It was however a real team effort and some of the questions were answered by collaborative effort/common consensus.

But! There were some questions that were answered by one person and one person alone.  Which got us to talking and thinking. What is the word for this?  What is the word that you can use to report how many questions you answered that no one else on your team knew "Yes, it was a good night, we won, and also I got 3 xxxxxxx's which I was delighted with"

My suggestion was that we needed a word like googlewhack. My definition of a googlewhack is when you enter something into google and it returns literally one search result only.  On further investigation today I find out it is broadly that...but with some rules and parameters etc.  Read more about it here.
Anyway long story short it appears that the word we may have invented to describe our trivia situation is TRIVIAWHACK! So if you and your trivia team start using this word you read it here first, it was coined by a group of trivia afficianados in the Southernmost city of the US, Key West Florida.

Oh! And for the record! I got ONE triviawhack that night.  I can't even remember the question now (ooops, come on brain!!!) but the answer I provided was Raleigh, Sir Walter Raleigh.

Thanks to Megan, Jeff. Robert, Jenni, Matt, Cliff, Debbie, Drew et al.  And the wonderful Chris as MC. Keep triviaing on!

Easter Sunday in Paradise!

Easter Sunday is a big deal at home in Ireland.  Well in my family anyway. We have a big dinner similar to Christmas in my parents house with all attending.

Yesterday was no different with my sister Katie travelling from Galway and Enid making her way over from Southside to North on the bus(!!).

It was however very different for me this year!

Winn Dixie Easter pie

Pie debacle:
Patrick went off on Sunday morning to do some grocery shopping and came back with No Key Lime Pie. Drama and despair (on my part) ensued.  It turned out that Publix was closed (nice for their employees, bad for someone desperate for Key Lime Pie like me) and the pie in Winn Dixie is never as good as the Publix one.  Faced with No Pie or Second Best Pie a decision was made to take a trip back to Winn Dixie to get some Key Lime Pie.

Side note.  The Publix Key Lime Pie is so special there are internet articles about it

So with the pie ensconced in the fridge and dinner planned for the evening what to do for the day?  Well first I cleaned my house from top to bottom.  Those of you who know me well know I am not the most domesticated person (housework bleugh) but it was way overdue and it felt so good, and still does today, to have it done.  After that I took myself off downtown to meet up with Dawn for a little drink.  Totally unplanned but you know me I find it hard to refuse invitations!

Andie and Dawn were in the Green Parrot where Tony, Andie's husband, and his band were playing.  Latin jazz funk, very cool.  The Green Parrot is fast becoming my favourite bar in Key West - cool atmosphere, good drinks, GREAT bands and music, and free popcorn :) It was a fun afternoon with some good craic chat and conversation with the laydeez.

From there Dawn and I went to La Te Da to their "Sunday Tea Dance". It was pretty animated and raucous. It reminded me of Apres Ski in Europe - 4pm in the afternoon and everyone is jumping around and dancing on tables like it's 2am in a nightclub.  Ok so  that's Apre Ski in Chamonix, France,  La Te Da wasn't aaaaaas wild as that.  But for a slow Sunday afternoon on a sleepy Duval Street (at that time of the day) it definitely has the most action going on.

And then that evening I got to eat the most fab dinner ever of SurfnTurf - steak and lobster tail.  The lobster tail, although looked small before cooking, revealed a big massive lump of meat which with a small smathering kerrygold butter was divine. The steak was lovely too.

And the Key Lime Pie...dear God the pie. It may be only the second best pie on the island but last night it got my gold medal  Good job Winn Dixie!

After dinner I watched an old (recorded) episode of Jeopardy.  I had watched it before but was happy to watch it again because I am Completely Obsessed With, and Addicted, to Jeopardy.

It was a great day!