10 Questions About…

Once we got up the energy, we went to Flick Park – near Katie’s house. They have a playground, a swimming pool (I think) and fishing. The fishing was really the big hit with the kids.

The dads were able to able to manage the worm control and fish-throw-backs – thankfully! I think every kid caught a fish, including Bridie, who’s almost 3 years old.

Saturday morning the girls and I went to the Book Fair in Cabinteely, which is the big park near the house. They got their faces painted. Lily was especially excited to see some of the children’s authors. I got to hear Cathy Kelly, Martina Devlin, and Pauline McLynn. The big thrill was Pauline McLynn. She is the housekeeper from Father Ted, we saw her (loved her) earlier this year in Taming of the Shrew, and I didn’t realize it but I had read one of her books – The Woman on the Bus, where the main character is named Treacy.

So I was like a semi- stalker trying to take pictures of her while lamely looking as if I was taking pictures of a kid (one of my kids again so as not to look like the stalker I was). Hopefully one of them turned out and I’ll paste it below.

We also got to peek into the big house in the park. The Cabinteely House was owned by the Walsh family, which ran the Irish sweepstakes. We didn’t tour the house but it looks as if it is partially restored and furnished. The guide told us that it is mostly used for movies now. He couldn’t be specific about which movies, because I think his movie knowledge was about on par with my own.

In the afternoon and evening Ailbhe’s family took all of the girls bowling and to play. The kids had a great time. It’s funny how the sort of thing we might do at home have become a super big treat here. Ailbhe’s family has a car, which is now almost a novelty to us!

While the kids were off, Patrick and I went into town. We left in the afternoon and stayed past the last bus. We saw the Street Performance World Championship, which was great fun! The acts were amazing and/or funny – sometimes both. I have a ton of video so I’ll add that below.

After that we walked around town. The weather cool but dry – which is Irish for amazing weather – especially after last summer of 40+ days of rain in a row. We had dinner at our very favorite French restaurant. Sadly they changed my favorite item, which just took me back to 1989 when they took the barbeque pits off the menu at Baker’s Square – but I’ve learned to move on and the dinner was wonderful despite the poor decision making of the chef.

Later we met Conor and Sophie (classmates of Patrick) in town and visited a couple of pubs. It wasn’t a big rousing night but it was fun. It was amazing how light it was at 10:30 at night. It felt like 7:00, which is maybe why we ended out so long.

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Sunday morning I had a walk around Dromahair. It is a nice town but I could see that some suburban looking development was on its way, which is kind of a shame. In the pub I heard that folks would really like the town to remain a rural village but the development is starting to take over. Dromahair is close to Sligo so I suspect that it the draw for many people.

Sunday morning we took a boat trip around Lough Gill. The weather was perfect! Lough Gill’s most famous island is Innisfree. I suspect many people will recognize:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. (see more)

The boat ride was really nice. The baot was nearly empty so we could run around – those of us who felt like we needed to run. George, the boat captain, gave a nice running commentary on what we were seeing, which including some poems and music. But it wasn’t too much – and the area is really beautiful.

After the boat ride we toured Parke’s Castle, which is really where the boat docks. It was fun to tour too. The Jordan girls knew the tour by heart – but they seemed to enjoy it too. They’ve done a good job of preserving the different ages of the castle. My favorite part was the pigeon’s tower. There they kept pigeons from other castles in case they needed to send a message via carrier pigeon. However, in time of strife or famine, they could eat the pgieons. (I’d be training those pigeons to go to pick up pizza in times of strife or famine!)

After the castle we headed to Dooney Rock, which reminded me of Northern Minnesota in a lot of ways. It’s giant rock (think Wisconsin Dells) that you climb up to see a view of the lake (this Lake Superior). We had the quickest picnic lunch thanks to the bugs but a nice climb with a beautiful view.

It was just what the doctor ordered before a 3 hour train ride home.

We went to Howth the first month we were in Ireland. We saw seals on that day but other than that it was a hellacious day. The restaurant we visited was terrible and we had to tie Aine down to keep her from hopping off the pier – into the 20 foot drop into the sea.

But even that day I felt that Howth was worth a second chance.

On Monday (a bank holiday) we went to Howth with Patrick’s mom. We ate in Dun Laoghaire on the way to Howth, which I have to admit would not have been my choice but soon we got onto the DART to Howth. The DART is the train that goes around the Dublin Bay. We live fairly close to the southernmost part of the bay; Howth is as north as you can go. It is a beautiful train ride.

The weather was perfect and we took a nice walk down the pier. From Dun Laoghaire, our part of town, we can always see Howth because it is directly across the bay so it was funny to looking the opposite direction – where we ended up looking at Bray. We also had a great view of Ireland’s Eye, a small island practically a swimming distance away from Howth.

After walking down the pier, the girls played on playground and we took a walk into Howth Village.

On Wednesday I went into town with Mom and Dad. We successfully drove into town and found parking and we got back in time to pick up the girls from school. We walked around Grafton Street and Trinity College so that was fun. We had a light lunch at Beweley’s Café – but really we scoped the ground for our night out.

We actually took the Luas (train) from Mom and Dad’s place in Sandyford into town. The Luas is super slick – I wish that we lived near it. It only took 20 minutes to get into town at 7:00! We had a really nice dinner and il Primo. It’s a funky place off Harcourt Street with really good risotto and chocolate cake. Then it was a quick walk to Whelan’s to see Kinky Friedman and the Jewboys. He is a singer, writer and former candidate for Texas Governor. His slogan was – how hard can it be?

It was a fun concert. We were lucky in that we got seats – in the balcony but seats nonetheless. Most people had to stand. The best line of the night was about John McCain – who “is old enough to hide his own Easter eggs”. I mostly knew Kinky from his profile on 60 Minutes years ago – but his stories were funny and the music was good! It was just dumb luck that I happened to see that he was playing.

Then we took the Luas home with the Manchester United fans, who were celebrating the big win in the Champions League game. They were rowdy but friendly. We were nearly nicked by the ticket police on the train. I had purchased the wrong tickets for us. I bought return tickets to and from the third zone – what we needed was return tickets from zone one to three. Luckily I caught this before we got on the train home. So we got tickets for zone one to two to match our zone three and the ticket police did get on the Luas to check. I haven’t been on the Luas before but I have to think that ticket collectors are rare. They only inspect periodically – and they caught quite a few people without tickets, including a very funny Man Utd supporter who had been sitting with us.

On Tuesday Aine and I went to Dalkey with Grandma and Grandpa. It was fun to drive down the Vico Road (coast road) to see the amazing views and the super fancy houses. We had a nice lunch at a pub called IN. Soup for Aine was only €1.50. No food is ever that cheap here.

After Dalkey we picked up the big girls from school and headed for the park.

Tuesday night Patrick and I met up with our neigbors from home (Therese & Jack) and their friends (Mary & Rusty) for dinner and drinks in town. It was great to see friends from home and hear the news.

Carnac answers: Three places we visited this week.

Dun Laoghaire

Last Sunday we went to lunch in Dun Laoghaire. So while many of my friends in Minnesota we getting slammed with a foot and a half of snow – I was walking down Dun Laoghaire Pier.

This is our least creative activity for a Sunday but it’s always good. I took a couple of pictures.

TechnoThreads

I forgot the camera, I could have cried. It was so cool. We are going back (to the Science Gallery) so that I can get some pictures so I won’t say much today except to describe a couple of the exhibits. First there were the hugging shirts. They are set up with sensors and blue tooth. So you give a shirt to your friend, and then if you hug yourself with your short on your friend will get a hug through her shirt.

Also there was a shirt made a Guinness, a shirt made a red wine, and a an organic short. There’s also an area where they are growing organic leather through mice cells. (OK when I go back I’m going to double check that one.) The shirts are about Barbie-size but it is a look concept.

Finally there’s some kind of combat shirt. It reacts to your fight/flight response. Or maybe the shirt’s response helps you decide which way to go. It’s was not working the day we were there – but again I’m hoping to go back.

Drumcondra

On Wednesday we went to St Patrick’s College in Drumcondra for the second annual celebration of John McGahern’s birthday. McGahern was an Irish poet, who went to St Pat’s. The event was organized by our friend Derek Hand. It included a talk and reading by Colm Toibin, an Irish novelist.

The event was very nice. The talk was good. There was food with the wine afterwards, which I always think is a smart addition. There were some bigwigs in Irish Literature at the event. The campus is a little bit like the College of St Catherine back home, (which is a nice).

My favorite thing of the night happened on the bus on the way home. St Pat’s includes a big teaching college. The teachers-to-be were having a big dinner dance or party. The teachers-to-be were drinking a little too.

So, we got on the bus with a group of tipsy young women dressed to the nines. There were very loudly talking in Irish. (I think you still need to know Irish to teach in a national school.)

They started to talk to some young guy – first in Irish. Clearly he didn’t speak Irish any better than I do. He gave the same tiny phrases that I would know. Finally he said. “I might be Irish but I don’t speak it.” To which they replied that they were going to be national teachers. To which he replied. “So why are you drinking on the bus?”

It was a great line and I feel he could have gotten many teacher-to-be phone numbers if he had tried.

Last night Patrick and I went to go to the Presidents of the United States at the Tripod. It was a great show!! Our timing was perfect. We got our drinks and the band started 5 minutes later. We scored a place to stand and dance right up close to the band – on one side.

I took a bunch of videos. I started with my favorite, which isn’t even a Presidents song. I’ve added all of the videos. Sorry I don’t have any complete songs but since I know I can only upload a minute or so, that’s all I tape.

One fun extra – someone got up on stage and asked his girlfriend to marry him. She said yes.

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