Filed under: Edinburgh
So it turns out that while Scotland is very near to Ireland on the map, it’s not so close on the ground. Actually I knew that going in but it certainly gives me time for blog posts!
We started out yesterday on a bus to town (Dublin), got a coach (fancy bus) to Belfast, took a taxi to the harbor, got a boat to Stanraer, now we’re on the train that takes us to the big train that takes us to Glasgow, where we’ll change trains for Edinburgh and probably we’ll end up in a taxi to the apartment in Edinburgh. Whew!
So far the boat is the favorite mode of transportation. There’s a kids’ play area, arcade, pub, restaurant, seats to watch movies and more. You can walk around the whole time if you want. Aine and Kate got their nails down. We had choice seats right at the back of the boat where we could watch Belfast get smaller and we could see land two hours later when we got close to Stanraer. The sailing was a little choppy – and they wanted us it would be. But – and I remember this from taking the boat from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire years ago – it doesn’t seem so bad if you can get outside and see the water.
My Internet connection is spotty. I have a whole new appreciation for folks who are stuck with satellite. That’s what we had on the boat – I couldn’t do much. We’re going through rural Scotland now – I’m afraid Aine is going to hurt someone’s feelings by asking continually if we’re still in the middle of nowhere.
As long as this is, I’m glad that we have a chance to take our slow boat/bus/train/taxi trip. Obviously we spend a lot of time in Minnesota and Ireland. SO the girls know how life is different in each – but we don’t always have a good gauge on what differences are uniquely Irish or Minnesotan as opposed to European (or British) and American. For example Aine has asked me about a dozen times if there will be a pool at the hotel. (No there won’t be. As there is rarely a pool at the hotel in Europe and we’re not staying in a hotel, we’re staying in an apartment. Because there are apparently few to no hotel rooms big enough for a family of 5 in Europe.) I can generalize across Europe because we did look into visiting a few places – Scotland won.
Filed under: Belfast
We’re officially on vacation! It was a quickly devised plan – but a good one. We’re heading to Edinburgh. As Irish Grandma says, we’re taking the slow boat to Scotland. We started yesterday by taking the bus to Belfast. We headed into town where we saw (from a distance) and commemoration event at the GPO (General Post Office) for the 1916 Easter Rising. We could have joined the event but we were a family on a mission – lunch, new shoes and bus. It did make me think that it wasn’t so long ago that a bus trip from Dublin to Belfast during the Easter holidays might not make Fromme’s list of safest vacations.
Anyways we got to Belfast. We had about an hour left of daylight so we ran around the city center for a while. We saw the City Hall, Langan River and a bunch of empty shops. Apparently they take Easter Monday more seriously in Belfast. Even the Crown Bar was closed for a few days – the girls were bummed. (Actually they have been in the Crown Bar but they didn’t love it in the way they don’t love most pubs.) We ran into some troubles finding a restaurant that would take kids. We’ve noticed before that on the one hand Belfast pubs are generally better than Dublin pubs; on the other hand it’s tough to find a place that serves food and kids – because so many restaurants are pubs.
We ate. The girls drew a picture of their wishes. I had to add Kate’s (below). Apparently she’s not really looking forward to the boat.
We slept in our very OK but definitely right-prices hotel. We walked for about 20 minutes and went to the Stena Line launch – and that’s where we are now. We’ll take the boat to Stanraer and train to Edinburgh.
Filed under: Minneapolis
My other big activity back home with seeing Macbeth at the Guthrie. Macbeth was the shortest and bloodiest of Shakespeare’s plays. This performance was particularly bloody! It was directed by Joe Dowling who always seems to take a show as far as it can go – and then a little bit. I hadn’t seen Macbeth in years. I found it a little bit tough to follow, which I think was a sign of how tired I was. I would go into greater detail but I know I have a PG audience.
I went to the show with friends Kathleen and Bernadine. We had a very nice dinner at Spill the Wine beforehand.
Filed under: Minneapolis
It was great to be home –mostly it was 10 days of work. Well work and really good restaurants. But one night Dad and I went to see Bob McChesney (founder of FreePress.net) and John Nichols (Washington correspondent to The Nation.)
They were in town promoting their new book: The Death and Life of American Journalism. They were interesting because of the tremendous amount or research they had clearly done and their perspective. They had a couple of points that I noted. First that the idea that the constitution was intended to be revisited every 20 years or so. That answers a lot of questions.
Second, they promoted uncensored government support of the media. They pointed out that countries that supported the media had more civic engagement and other great things that naturally I’ve forgotten. But they had an idea that each citizen should have $200 in government funding to give to a nonpartisan, nonprofit news source. I love that idea. Someone in the audience was worried that other people would give their money to the wrong resources, like to sports coverage – but they had clearly had that question before. They pointed out that sports coverage is rarely nonprofit. They added that most people would give their money to a news source – even if they never really read the news source. Because most people appreciate that access to information is essential. While the questioner looked skeptical, I think they had a goodpoint.
Hello, Our mom is in mn. We have done some things while she was gone. 1) We went to the national leprachaun musem. When you walked in there you went through a tunnell that was like supposed to make you feel like you shrank in to leprachaun size. Then you walked under the giants causeway. Which was cool only a little boring. Then you went to this room with GIANT furniture. It had a giant love seat and giant table and chairs that you could climb on. Then this room with a map of ireland and told like where in ireland faries lived and so on. then you went through the rain room. This room was a little cheap. It was just a room with umbrellas stuck everywhere. then the rainbow. This was a hallway with multi colored strings hanging from the ceiling that you ran through. Then of course the pot of gold at theend. Which was a tiny pot of gold painted rocks. Then an orange room. It was like a celtic tiger room or something. Then a hallway with a story on the wall and trees on the otherside of the wall. Then it ended with a room where they told stories and you could draw pictures. 2) We also went to my dance recital. It was it Johnstown (my school). 3) We have seen LOADS of movies and flown tons of kites.4) Ate at a restaraunt called seapoint which has the best french fries ever!
Filed under: St Paul
The River is as high as I have ever seen it. I tried to take some pictures. I really took pictures for the girls back in Ireland so I took pictures of things that I thought they would recognize. I don’t know that the pictures are super impressive if you don’t know what the River usually looks like in these places. They were expecting near record-breaking heights (or would that be depths) for the River – but the River crested on Wednesday, a foot short of expectations in St Paul.
The amazing thing is that despite the high levels of water there has been little to no damage. Rover Road is closed near both downtowns but we walked by these areas are they seem OK. The bridge in Stillwater was closed the other day.
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- boarding up route to downtown buildings
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- see larger version to see 1965 water mark in distance
OK this is a big long rant – but since I had the platform to say how feel about American Airlines I thought I would use it. (Most regular readers can probably skip it – if anyone with a connection to American Airlines happens to see it, you can know that I will happily pay more to avoid your airlines and I’m very sad that I have two more overseas journeys scheduled with you.)
I left Cabinteely at 6 am on Sunday to go home. When I got to the airport I waited in line for 2 hours because the plane had been delayed for 5 hours. It sure seems as if they could have emailed or texted that info out to people. It sounded as if the plane hadn’t left Chicago so they knew it wasn’t going to arrive in time. (We heard multiple excuses for the delay – starting with maintenance, which is something I hate to hear. If there’s a problem with the plane – please use a more trusted plane!)
Because the flight was delayed I missed my connecting flight from Chicago to Minneapolis. They could find me a flight to St Louis – but I had to point out that wasn’t very helpful since I was going to the other Saint city. I did get an 8 euro credit at the restaurant. A breakfast is 9 euros – it’s that kind of attention to detail that really puts American Airlines on the map. Luckily for me I had plenty of euros and dollars – but the plane was 90 percent Americans. I suspect many of them left the last of their euros at the pub the night before! What I didn’t have was an adapter. I had calculated that with 7 hours on my laptop battery that I should be OK to leave the adapter behind for the kids (with my Irish cell phone). So I had a computer for half of the day.
Also American Airlines flies small planes overseas. They are turbulent and no private computers/TVs in the backs of the seats ahead of you. For folks who don’t travel overseas often this may sound petty – but it makes a long journey to try to watch a tiny TV from the window seat 8 rows back.
So you’re probably think getting from Chicago to Minneapolis would be pretty easy. That’s what I figured. What are there – 40 flights a day?! Nope. They could get me nothing. I am still in Chicago. (I left Cabinteely 27 hours ago.) I have a flight at 11 am. That’s 7 hours from now.
But the worst of it is how absolutely rude the American Airlines staff were. The folks in Dublin were just unhelpful and unapologetic. The flight attendants were fine – but I had a little room for them since I assume they were on overtime. (Of course they were being paid to be on the plane while the rest of us paid top dollar for the pleasure – but still I only saw one rude comment from a flight attendant. So that’s not too bad.)
The clincher really is that they made me line up *again* to get a standby ticket from Chicago – but they wouldn’t put me on standby. They would only book a ticket for the next day. So I have to line up in Dublin and Chicago for the same thing?! And the guy at the counter could not have been meaner. In fairness, I know I got the meanest guy. One of his coworkers moved the barrier ropes – and he started yelling at those of us in line for doing it! (Whacko!) Then when she admitted to doing it – no apology to us. He started by yelling at me for being in the airport on the wrong day. Remember – I’ve just arrived from Dublin. I pointed out that he was looking at my return info. (No apology.) Then he snaps at me because I have no ticket. The Dublin folks said to get one in Chicago. Finally he realizes that my problem was that the plane was delayed – I have not done anything. But still no apology, and no helpfulness. So then I kind of lost it, which always helps but I hate to fly and now I have to do it all over again in 7 hours.
Do you think American Airlines looks for the mean people or trains them for the wining American Airlines spirit?
Luckily Katie was able to get me and I am staying at her house. So it was a fun bonus to see the Lynchs – but I had 3 meetings scheduled tomorrow morning which I may or may not be able to reschedule. (That’s’ assuming I am able to get to home tomorrow.)
Filed under: Dublin
A new exhibit opens at the Science Gallery this week: Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. There are a couple of aspects of the exhibit. First, two sisters started the project sort of in homage of the coral reef. (Note: on my horrible trip back to Minnesota I met one of the sisters!) They started crocheting replicas. Some are very colorful – like healthy coral reef; some are white representing the coral reef that have bleached because they sense danger. The structures are kind of amazing. Then they invited more people to participate by sending in their crocheted coral reef and they had a big response from all over the world. We saw huge panels created by classrooms in Latvia. We saw luminescent coral reef crocheted by a woman who is in her 80s. We saw delicate doily-like structures and beaded structures.
The most geeky aspect of the exhibit is that crochet has served as a way for mathematicians to model a new type of geometry – hyperbolic geometry. It turns out that the kind of curved nature of coral reef and crochet can represent or demonstration a kind of negative geometry that takes place beyond three-dimensions. I’m going to attach the great TED talk where the curator talks about the math – rather than try my own feeble explanation. (This is the woman I met.)
So anyways, it’s very cool. Patrick and I went on the sneak preview night. Where they were giving out yarn and crochet hooks. I got one for each of the girls and at least two of them seem to have picked up an interest. I was never very good at crocheting, but it’s funny how it comes back to you. Sadly I was totally bust trying to crochet and drink at the preview when trying to balance the glass and crocheting my ball of yarn escaped and fell over a balcony – just missing someone’s head. (Super quick note – after the exhibit we had an amazing meal at Il Primo – put it on your fancy eating list if you’re visiting Dublin!)
Back to the Science Gallery, we enjoyed the exhibit so much we brought the girls back the next day. They loved it too. Trinity Science Students staff the exhibit and a young woman did a great job of explaining hyperbolic geometry to the girls. I know it wouldn’t make a ton of sense to them yet – since none have started geometry – but I figured someday they’d be sitting in a math class and it might come back to them.
Sheesh I nearly forgot to mention that the exhibit included two works by MC Escher. I think that may have been Patrick’s favorite part.
Filed under: Dublin
We went to the big St Patrick’s Day parade – with 600,000 of our closest friends. The parade in Dublin is great – but it’s a huge crowd. We sort of wrestled with trying to keep the girls on our shoulders or at least a head above the rest. Amazingly we did get some good pictures – if we were only as tall as we could reach our view would have been great. It is amazing to see so many people in town.
After the parade we walked about the city a while and ended up with lunch at Bewley’s. Unfortunately poor Kate was not feeling well. In fact on Thursday we ended up bringing her back to the doctor. She got a few minutes on a nebulizer, which I think made her very happy. Then we got her some good medicine and with any luck she’ll be breathing well again soon.
Filed under: Dublin
One day last week Patrick and I walked to the mountains. We’ve been trying to get in at least one good walk in a week. I took one picture. We didn’t necessarily get to the top of the mountain – but we walked for about 90 minutes and got a great view.
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