10 Questions About…

After the girls got out of school we headed to Killiney. Killiney is a beautiful part of Dublin. It feel more like Wicklow, which is next door and more remote and hilly than Dublin.

We walked along the Vico Road. It boasts a view that people like to compare to Naples. In fact, lots of the roads have Italian sounding names. The homes in the area are amazing too.

We climbed up Killiney Hill. It’s not too strenuous but is a bit of a hike. The view from there is amazing. You can see the Sugar Loaf (mountain in Wicklow), you can see across the Dublin City Center, you can see across to Howth (where regular readers may remember we saw the seals last year). There are many WPA-like structures in the area where folks were employed to create monuments. Patrick has a story that if you walk around a specific monument 3 times that you’ll get your wish.

Aine wished to be back in Minnesota. That’s a Mama’s girl. Not that we aren’t enjoying Dublin – we are.

After the hill we climbed down to the beach. Aine was the only one who was prepared with her swimsuit under her clothes. Usually I have my swimsuit handy too but it just didn’t work out for me this time. We did wade through the water. Kate and I worked on our skipping skills. The rest of the crew dug a hole for Aine and then we buried Aidan up to his neck. It was pretty impressive!

I arrived n Dublin early morning on Tuesday. Patrick, Lily, Aine and Michael came to pick me up, which was very nice.

To celebrate the big arrival, we had a nice lunch at the Italian restaurant in Cabinteely. I know few readers will be eating there anytime soon – but they now have a great patio in the back. It was almost too hot and sunny to eat outside – not that we’d complain. After lunch we went to Cabinteely Park. It is a beautiful park.

They are starting to add some sculptures, as you can see.

After the park we went to the library – where I could get online. It had been nearly 24 hours since I had been online in NY, so I was starting to shake.

We spent our last day in Dublin packing and trying to tie up loose ends – not necessarily successfully. Patrick’s mom and I went to Dundram Shopping Center and had a fun and fancy lunch at Harvey Nichols. (I had to meet a client there anyways.) The girls went to school and all came back with nice cards and gifts from their friends. They were so sad. While we’re all looking forward going home it will be a little sad.

Despite the fact that we had about 200 things to do – we went to the Abbey to see Three Sisters. Originally by Anton Chekhov, this version was adapted by Brian Friel, who kind of ties into Patrick’s research. The play was long and OK. The big thrill was sitting by Colm Meaney; he was the dad on The Commitments and I like him!

Last night we saw Madness!!! We met up with our old friend John Newcombe. We had dinner at the Bleeding Horse pub. (The Bleeding Horse got its name because it’s a place where people from the country would stop with their overheating horses. To cool them off they bled them.)

Anyways – the show was great. I caught loads of it on video.

My dream concert would be Madness, The Who, Southern Culture on the Skids – and maybe El Vez. Of that group, I had never seen Madness so this was a big deal for me to go to the show.

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The girls were off from school 2 days last week. One day we went into town. I can’t even remember what the excuse was but I found a few pictures from the day. A couple of the pictures are taken in Stephen’s Green and the others are from Grafton Street with the pretend statue Elvis. (Pretend statues are kind of the rave in busking these days.)

On Wednesday we all went to Ailbhe’s house for dinner. Ailbhe is a friend of Lily. Her sister Cait is friends with Kate. They have 2 boys (Liam and Ciaran) around Aine’s age. The parents (Ann and Barney) were kind enough to invite us for dinner. It was a great night.

The kids ran around the house just like they would at home but haven’t been able to do for a while. One of the neighbors (Maria, a fellow library mom) stopped by and never left. I may have had my weight in wine. But it was a great night.

On Friday we had parties for the girls. From 3:30-5:00 we had 18 preschoolers. From 5:30-7:00 we had the 8-9 year olds. I won’t say it was fun for me but it was pretty painless.

You can get an idea of the activities with the pictures below.

Patrick was tired – from what I don’t know since I planned and prepared the whole thing; I was hungry so after the party we went for an Indian meal. I love Chicken Korma.

This week is arts week at Johnstown Girls School. SO the girls have had tons of art projects going all week – pottery, film, plays… The girls especially enjoyed the pottery – but really the whole week has been fun for them. (I love the idea of a whole week on the arts!) Below are 3 clips from Lily’s play:

On Tuesday there will be a vote in Ireland for the Lisbon Treaty. It’s a big deal. The Treaty (and I’m hugely paraphrasing here) makes the European Economic Union more unified by giving the EEU more governing power. There are huge debates about it over here – will it make for a stronger Europe? Will it reduce the power of each participating country?

Part of the reason it’s a big deal is that Ireland will be the first country to vote on it. It’s been getting a ton of air time. So I was really impressed when Lily started asking about it. We talked about it for about 10 minutes; she was very interested. I thought I had a girl political prodigy on my hands. Then she asked her big question – the real reason she wanted to know – how would this effect Eurovision?

Eurovision is an international song contest. Ireland’s entry this year was a singing turkey puppet named Dustin. While he didn’t make the finals, I thought some of the acts that did were stranger.

On Sunday we went to Killiney Beach with friends. Actually we went with some of the friends we saw last night: Paul & Mary and two of their kids Imogen (age 6) and Lochlann (age 2).

It was way to cold for me to go into the water – but the dads and kids had a great time in the water and Mary and I – and for the most part the younger kids had a good time watching them. Killiney Beach is kind of a funny place. It’s beautiful. It’s kind of rocky and hard on the feet. There’s a much bigger drop off than we ran into in Lahinch. And the DART (the local train) runs right behind it – but if you’re on the beach with kids that’s a big plus. Also it’s a big plus if you don’t live near Killiney but live close to a DART station – it’s a quick trip out.

We topped off the day with a stop in the The Club in Dalkey – a nice pub that at least seemed happy to have kids.

On Saturday, we went into the docklands for the maritime festival. The weather was amazing. The festival nearly made up for the fact that we’ll be missing Grand Old Day this year. There were loads of booths set up with different crafts and food. We tried the paella, which Patrick and I always liked backed when we lived in Spain. This paella wasn’t quite a good.

The girls went on the merry-go-round. I think the big girls decided that they are officially too old for merry-go-rounds, especially if the horses don’t go up and down. The girls did a craft project and we just sat and enjoyed the day.

We also met up with a friend from home – Shelia, who recently got her PhD in art from University College Dublin. (Patrick goes to UCD.)

At night we met up with some of Patrick’s friends from years ago: Paul & Mary, David, Des and Tom. Well, they went to see iKeano and I met up with them later. We stayed out way too late but had a great time at Café in Seine. It’s a loud pub/disco with lots of people looking for love but it’s a fun place to go with a crowd.

After the pub we ended up at Eddie Rockets, the girls’ favorite restaurant.