The One and Only Ireland

The Last few days Dan and I were exploring Ireland, the country where in addition to the Careful, Children Crossing road sign, you can see Cattle Crossing, Causion Cross Wind and Leprechaun Crossing road signs.

The country that in addition to the gazelle and cow road signs, you can find a road sign that from a distance looks like the Puma logo (but actually notifies the driver of a merging road)...
The only country where you can smell the beer in the outside fresh air and find empty beer-cans thrown at the national road in the middle of nowhere, and still find a sign such as this:

The country where you can find an advertisment sign for Castle for Rent, a place called Kilbritain, and a chain of islands called after the cattle family (The Bull, The Cow and The Calf)...

The country where you can find a roadkill every 1000 meters and sometimes even every 100 meters. Mostly foxes and crows, yes I actually did mean crows, but also other kinds of birds and badgers (and no, I didn't even think about taking a picture of it...).

The only country where you can find yourself on a national road such as this,

and find that the maximum speed allowed is 100 km per hour.

But also the only country where you can find that kind of breath-taking landscapes.

More about our Easter holiday, in my next post.

Salad is not food enough

Why is it that every time I go to a restaurant and ask about a vegetarian dish, they say proudly: "we have salads!" ??
The fact that I've decided to not eat "food" that was once alive does not mean I will eat like a rabbit and only have green leaves.
Yes, it means I don’t eat chicken, or even schnitzel (some people don’t find it fleshy enough), I don’t eat fish, even though it's very very healthy, and I don’t eat any animal that produced or sucked milk. I think that covers it all.
Another important rule of mine is that I don’t eat anything that originated from water e.g. ocean, sea, lake, river or even a puddle if possible. There are no exceptions, except rice.
If you were wondering, sushi is also out of the question, even though they are filled with vegetables.
Yes, I eat dairy and I eat eggs. Chicken eggs that is.
So I say NO to salad.

When the waiter adds: "we have a vegetarian pasta!" with the same enthusiasm and proud tone as mentioned above, I think to myself (sometimes out loud): if I wanted to have a good pasta, I'd have gone to an Italian restaurant. Besides, usually my own pasta is much better than the none-Italian-restaurants pasta...
So only sometimes I say no to pasta.

So what bothers me the most? The fact that most waiters and chefs think I should eat vegetables. Can't they be more creative? Are they afraid of the challenge of feeding vegetarians? They are mislead if thinking they can feed carnivores with a big piece of meat and some mashed potatoes, and they’ve satisfied everyones needs.

Us, the vegetarians, are human-beings, and we also have needs, a bit different than others, but still, we don’t ask for a lot…