Thursday, October 6, 2011

Food, Mist, Faces, Ratios, Bells, Bikes, and Complimentary Colors

One of the most delicious things I have ever eaten is easily obtainable in Northern Ireland.  Not only is it easily obtainable, it is cheap.  When I first had this delicious thing (in Canada) I got home and got online, knowing that I would not be able to find it in any regular or even specialty shops.  On amazon.com I found a decent amount of it for about $8-10 after shipping.  Not bad for the most delicious thing ever, but still alot for a crazy frugal person like myself.  Halloumi Cheese.  It is really really good.  It is a cheese that has a very high melting point...meaning where regular cheeses would be a gooey, albeit, delicious glob, halloumi cheese would be standing firm.  You can grill it, you can pan fry it, bake it..I just saw what I thought was a great idea...cutting it into cubes and threading it onto skewers for shishkabobs.  I will definitely be doing that.  The best part is that here, both in the regular grocery stores and in the specialty stores/markets it can be had for cheap.  I got three times the amount that amazon.com was selling for a little less than the same price.

So I've been figuring out the best ways to use this fantastic thing...roughly two pounds of this fantastic thing.  The other night I decided to pan fry it in a little butter and compliment its saltiness with some malt vinegar marinated mushrooms and onions.  My wife made bread sticks.  It was a glorious meal.



Sunday was National Trails Day.  That means that most parks and hiking areas were free (if they normally have a fee) and that many of them had events going on.  Being in Northern Ireland on our own, my wife and I don't interact with people as much as we did back in the States.  She, being here for a grad program, is definitely interacting more than I, but still, not as much as we once did.  So we searched out a guided hike.  We figured this would make it more likely that we would actually be around people...people that enjoy the stuff that we enjoy...the woods.  We had a great time learning about both the natural and historical aspects of the area we were in.  Also, it was green and misty...something I was yet to get from Northern Ireland but had been waiting for...



This is part of a sculpture outside of my wife's school's library.  I'm sure I will get a shot of the whole sculpture at some point in time, but on Monday night lights were illuminating it from below, giving the face an eerie appearance...



I spent some time in the Botanic Gardens on Tuesday.  I have a hard time not being fascinated by anything that is displaying Phi, also known as the Golden Ratio, so when I came upon this rose, I had to get a shot.  My wife hates most floral pictures, but even she was able to see past the cliche macro flower shot and into the beauty of such a commonplace but still fascinating element of the natural world.  



Then, as it got darker, on my way out, I noticed the silhouette of this bell hanging from a pole.  It was, at one point in time, rang before the closing of the park...this was true of most parks around here.



I was walking down the street yesterday with my camera in hand, not expecting to use it, but then I saw a beautiful bike.  I knew it wouldn't be too long before I would get a shot of a bike, but sadly this one wasn't as good as I would have hoped.  I didn't have much time to take the picture, someone looked at me suspiciously, so I took a photo and left.  The bike was awesome, a red frame and yellow wheels...I wish I had more time...I could have gotten a much better picture. 



I also walked past a building that had a wonderful light shade of purple on the outside (aided by the dark purple sky at that point in the evening, no doubt) and a wonderfully complimentary green spilling out of one of the windows.


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