A visit to the Butterfly Farm in Straffan Co. Kildare
When making our plans for this weekend, my boyfriend and myself tripped over signs to the Butterfly Farm in Straffan Co. Kildare. Lacking any other ideas, we decided, a trip to the farm was worth a shot.

And rightly so: The Straffan Butterfly Farm is located in the lovely setting of the Irish countryside and can easily be reached via the M4 from Dublin. At the entrance, we were greeted by Iris, the heart and soul behind the Butterfly Farm. And the experience starts right at the entrance: With a well thought-out education area and exotic (living) animals like Roger, a rather lazy black and white snake, a couple of tarantulas (one of them clearly in “show-off” mood while we were there - quite amusing, actually), a living example of the biggest moth in the world (I should make a closer acquaintance with other members of his “family” later on...) and Iggy the Iguana.

In the education area, there is also a widespread exhibition of all sorts of well-preserved butterflies (both native to Ireland and exotic ones). They are beautifully exhibited in framed glass-boxes with internal mountings and presented in different categories such as “Butterflies of Ireland”, “Butterflies of South America”, “Butterfly Tails”, “Butterfly Eyes”. I have taken a couple of photos in the education area to give you an idea of the extent of the collection presented:

Afterwards, we head off to the “heart” of the Butterfly Farm: The Tropical House. The experience here can be described as anything between interesting, fascinating and funny.

Interesting because the little inhabitants just “fly by you” as you move around in their “home” and because there is an exhibition of the different stages of development of butterflies as most of the butterflies homed in the butterfly farm are actually bred there.

Fascinating because you would not get to come that close to those beautiful small creatures unless you travelled to their home-countries (which, in some cases can be a bit of a trip...) and...

Funny because some of them just don't mind their visitors at all – on the contrary: a jacket or a hand can be a welcome resting-place for a while as well. This is where I made a close acquaintance with one of the “exhibits”: He picked the back of my jacket and felt quite comfortable there. My boyfriend tried to take a picture of my new “best friend” - with questionable success. Due to the environment natural to the butterflies, both the humidity and the temperature in the Tropical House are not “camera-friendly” - and neither of us is particularly good with the camera... On the photo, you can see (or guess) the moth sitting right on my back:

The new film Bridesmaids is no doubt this summers funniest comedy for (and about) women in their mid-thirties and an excellent opportunity for a “girls night out”...In short, it is a story about love, friendship and all sorts of adversities. Lillian Donovan (Maya Rudolph), good-looking and ambitious, becomes engaged to Douglas, a wealthy banker in Chicago. She asks Annie (Kristen Wiig), her best-friend through school and college, to be her Maid of Honour. Sounds relatively easy... But when Helen (Rose Byrne), the beautiful wife of Douglas' boss gets involved in the whole thing...
At their very first meeting, it becomes obvious that each friend is jealous of the other's friendship with Lillian, by trying to out-do each-other with speeches at the engagement-party. Lillian however, who wants to be friends with everybody, persuades them to spend time together so that they get to know each other despite their obvious differences. After that, and, unlike Annie, not bound to any budgets, Helen gradually takes over the whole organization of Lillian's wedding and makes it something very special for Lillian and sometimes nearly disastrous for poor Annie.

The chain of unlucky events starts when the bridesmaids try to plan Lillian's bridal shower at a Brazilian restaurant. Annie, knowing Lillian the longest of all and what she likes, suggests a Parisian themed wedding but cannot convince Helen of that idea. After lunch, Helen again gets a hand over Annie when she uses her popularity to get the girls into the poshest bridal store in town. Again, the bridesmaids cannot come to an agreement. Unfortunately, the meat they had for lunch, had not been fresh. While all the bridesmaids (and the bride) try to get their entails back into some order, Helen secretly gets the chance to order the dress she favoured from the start...

The next milestone to the wedding, Lillian's bachelorette party, is good enough for the next personality-clash: Worried about her finances, Annie suggests to hold the party at Lillian's parents' beach house but gets overruled by Helen who goes off and books a trip to Las Vegas. Annie, afraid of flying with a very low tolerance for alcohol (especially in combination with sedatives) suffers a paranoid outburst and causes an emergency-landing in a place called Caspar, Wyoming.

After having been escorted from the plane by the police, Lillian finally decides to (officially) hand over the organization for her wedding to Helen. At this point, everybody thinks poor Annie should have had enough bad luck, but on the contrary: After having been told by her room-mates that she has to move out, she moves back into her mother's house, looses the plot at Lillian's bridal shower (which incidentally turns out Parisian themed...) and breaks up with her lover Ted after her car breaks down...

Things change however, at the day of the wedding, when Lillian suddenly goes missing and Helen asks Annie for help in finding her. During their search, Helen finally admits that everything she had done to Annie was because she felt lonely and jealous. With the help of Nathan, a young police officer and romance-to be??? for Annie, they finally find her totally stressed-out and slightly overwhelmed by the whole “wedding-thing” hiding away in her own apartment...

And now, ladies – off to the cinema with you. We are hoping, you will have just as much fun as our lucky editor Karen had.