Filed under: Dublin
Mostly I like coming to Dublin – but one thing that makes it a little sad is that my normally perfectly placed birthday seems to fall while we’re here so often. And I don’t love spending my birthday here. Ever since everyone forgot it a couple of years ago I tend to at least mention it – but I don’t really make plans. (Mostly because the only thing worse than not celebrating would be planning to celebrate and having it backfire.)
The weather was really nice on my birthday. In fact, I think the weather was much better here than at home. We ended up going for a big lunch at the Italian restaurant near us. They no longer serve seafood chowder so I got lasagna. I figure that while lasagna is never great, it’s also rarely terrible.
After lunch we went into town. There was supposed to be a festival happening in the docklands. In practice – not so much. So we ended up walking to the far end of the docks for nothing. Except they have added a big Ferris wheel to the area. And clearly I had a momentary lapse of good judgment and decided that we should go on it. It just seemed like we ought to do something fun for my birthday. But some readers might not know, I am deathly afraid of heights. Both Lily and I are.
But we got on. The Ferris Wheel started to rotate. We went up and the commentary started. And then the wind picked up. I could feel the little cab shake and I could hear the wind. And the commentary told us we were 60 meters up. (To be honest, it would have meant a lot more to me in feet – but I knew it was high.) So I made Patrick push the panic button. And Lily and I alighted after the first rotation. The guy in the ground – who works there – said he hates heights too and never goes up. Could have used that bit of wisdom before we set out.
My day capped off a couple of hours later when Patrick gave me a size 16 skirt.
I don’t have any pictures. I should have made some attempt to catalog it – but we got on the train at 7:00. We couldn’t get reserved tickets so we were watching the train station board to get the platform. And when it finally showed up we were quick. We had to be about the first people on the train. We settled into primo seats around a table. Sat back to relax and realized that we were in reserved seats. There was nothing on the outside of the train to indicate reserved seating – and by the time we realized it we have lost our first to the train advantage. SO we sat where we were.
There was a couple who walked by us – and I’m pretty sure we were in their seats and they took pity on us. So we waited for any other potential seat takers. And we waited. Eventually we realized that the train was overbooked. People were sitting in the aisles and we weren’t the only ones in reserved seats who hadn’t really reserved. But we got lucky and we got the seats, which was super lucky!
So we had a nice ride on the train all the way to Holyhead (Wales). We arrived around 11 – but that was OK because we had plenty of time to get on the boat. It left at 2:40 am. Really it was us, the mail and about 8 other foot passengers. We and the mail were sober.
The girls mostly remember people telling jokes on the way from the train station to the boat. I was getting afraid on the walk to the boat that we would be walking onto a boat from 20 years ago with benches for seats – fortunately it was a very nice boat. It was just a terrible time to travel. We were very happy to get off the boat in Dublin (no hassle in immigration), into a taxi and walk out into Cabinteely!
Filed under: Dublin
Our last night in Dublin the girls met their friends at Cabinteely Park (the big park near the house). It was fun to see everyone, but sad. The girls have made some good friends were sad about leaving them.
Filed under: Dublin
On our last day in Dublin we had lunch on a boat (La Peniche) on the Grand Canal. The day was absolutely perfect – super sunny, not too hot, but warm. There were 10 of us, our gang, Shay and Rochelle, Mikey, Irish Grandma and Fearghal. We all ate upstairs in the sunshine.
They don’t usually cruise down the canal on Sunday, but we got lucky and they made an exception. It was so much fun to see how the boat moves through the various locks and dams. It’s a system of getting through one door, closing it until the canal fills with water, then going out the other door where the canal seems to run higher. (I know high doesn’t make much sense but that’s what it seems like.) Also we got to cruise under very low bridges. I think even Aine could touch the top/bottom of the bridge as we went under.
The food was gorgeous! I had duck pâté and sea bass. (In other words fancy food.)
Then we had some excitement towards the end of the meal. We were docked. There was another family on the boat. They had two girls about age 8. They were running around the boat and one of them fell in. Luckily her sister screamed. I started to run down the stairs but Shay jumped off the boat unto the land and was able to reach her in the water.
The water wasn’t super deep. She appeared to be able to stand or swim well enough but it was scary. I suspect the greatest real danger would be that she would get crushed between the boat and the dock. Also the captain said it was lucky that it hadn’t happened at we went through the locks since the water there would have been too deep to do anything. Since everything turned out OK it just added to the excitement of the day.
Filed under: Dublin
While many of the O’Donnell’s were in town we hiked up Killiney Hill and down to Killiney beach…
Filed under: Dublin
We were busy in our last week in Dublin. Patrick and I went to see two plays. First – Bookworms; it’s the story of a book club that invites the husbands to join one month. I loved it. It was very funny. It’s kind of how you would imagine a book club with boys – well if your book club actually discussed the books. In fairness, the book discussion happened off the stage, which is kind of what happens in my book club. It’s also a look at post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.
The second show we saw was more closely and obviously a commentary on post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. It was called Outsiders and was more of a monologue by David McWilliams. He’s an economist. And not to kill the ending but my favorite parts were when he talked about the economy of the good room. The idea being that everyone in Ireland grew up with a good room – the room that was way too good for family but where you had to sit when old relatives, priests or other important people came to visit. (In fairness, I think it exists in the US too but more in a grandma’s house.) Well the problem was that idea of the good room or keeping up appearances led the diplomats in Ireland to keep a façade of being able to afford the good times for longer than they really were.
He throws out a solution of encouraging Irish creativity and entrepreneurial spirit and relying on the Irish diaspora living all over the world to promote Ireland and Irish businesses.
Filed under: Dublin
One of my favorite things about the girls school here is the impromptu events. The principal went to hear Lily’s class sing in French She enjoyed it so much she decided the parents should be invited to invited to a concert the following week.
Nothing beats a 20 minute concert that features your kid in every song!!
Filed under: Dublin
Patrick went to a bunch of events at the Dalkey Book Festival – such is the life of the full time student. I managed to get to a one talk. It was fun – and we met up with some friends of Patrick after the event. SO that was definitely fun. Also we went on Sunday morning to the general events. We even got a painting.
On the way to the event we walked through a hotel with a host of Angels – which accounts for most of the pictures.
Filed under: Dublin
One of our favorite things in Dublin is the Street Performer Festival – and the weather this weekend was amazing. We went to the Festival both days. Our highlights were the break dancers and the quick change artists, which we had seen on American’s Got Talent. The were kind of fun on TV – but amazing live. We were very close – as you can see from the video and I still don’t know how they could change so quickly. It was great.
There was a big world record set during the festival – the 1550 people on hippity hops. Sadly we were not a part of it. Patrick’s brothers are heading to town so I sort of knew we would have a difficult time getting there on time – but that was OK. It was packed so it was probably more relaxing to not be bouncing.
Instead of the hippity hops, we went to the Garden of Lights, which was a big structure almost like a bouncy castle but with tons of light coming through. The pictures from in there were very fun. If the girls become rock star we’re ready with their album covers. There structure was created by 5 French architects; there are a handful of similar structures touring for the summer. This was the smallest. It’s funny how relaxing it felt inside.
We did some of the art projects and played a ton of the wooden games, which was fun too. The best thing about the festival is the size. There are 11 stage areas, a giant whale, the Garden of Lights all centered around Merrion Square.
Filed under: Dublin
Last weekend we had a fun and eclectic day. It started with Shakespeare in the Park – well it was light on Shakespeare but it was a perfect day for a picnic. After the picnic we headed to Thailand Day at the Chester Beatty behind the Dublin Castle. The dancing was very impressive and they were giving out free food – ribs and sticky rice. What could be better!
That night Patrick and I went to the Taste of Dublin in the Iveagh Gardens (in other words, outside). It was a ton of fun. It was expensive but loads of good food and wine. It was a glimpse of a demographic that has not been hit by the recession – or at least had chosen to forget it for the night. Lots of champagne and strawberries – or mojitos.
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