Filed under: London
We woke up to snow on Easter in London. It was actually quite a good snowfall, but nothing stuck. We had a nice visit with Patrick’s brother John. He lives near Earl’s Court, which is a nice area. It was fun to see John; he hadn’t seen him in probably 5 years.
After visiting with John we headed to Camden Market, which was the one thing (after the Tube) that I really wanted to while we were in London. The market, if you haven’t been, is a big old market with tons of clothes and other trendy items. The big girls and I trekked around while Patrick, Irish Grandma, and Aine enjoyed soup in a nearby pub. (I should mention that the weather was not stellar and we were all sick during our trip. Aine especially seemed to lack a lot of energy, which meant we carried her a lot!) Lily got a couple of very unique pins. I liked checking out the fashions. We saw a couple of good Mohawks.
There was a big fire in Camden a couple of months ago – so a portion of the market that (as I recall) had antiques and furniture was closed but we didn’t mind.
After Camden we went to Covent Garden- a whole different scale of market. It’s not so markety or affordable but there are plenty of buskers (street performers) that are fun to watch. We were pretty tired hungry and very crabby in Covent Garden. We tried to find a place where we could all eat (no kids allowed in several places) when we finally found a very nice restaurant – Tutton’s. It ended up being the nicest place we ate in London – and it was very nice.
After Covent Garden we trekked up to Trafalgar Square, which was a fun walk. The closest thing we cam to church was the sermon in the background of the video below. I have to say that I appreciate the fact that no one mentioned this even though I know at least one person would have gone to Mass if left on her own.
Filed under: London
If I could spend my whole vacation on the Tube, I would. I love the London Underground. I love the fact that you can get from one place to another with very little hassle. I love watching the range of people who take the train.
Unlike the bus in Dublin – loads of people from all walks of life take the Underground- because the traffic on the road is generally so bad that it’s slower to drive or take a taxi.
It took about 2 minutes of looking at the Underground Map for it all to come back to me. It’s like a great game: you’re in Fulham Broadway. Only the District line runs through Fulham. You need to get to Camden on the Northern Line. What is the quickest/easiest way to get from A to B.
To make the challenge even more fun for me I had a couple of barriers added to the route planning. Several of the main lines were shut during the Easter break for engineering improvements. Some of the closures were well marked; some weren’t. Also Patrick’s mom won’t go down escalators. Up is OK; down is a no go. I won’t go beyond the second rung of a ladder so I say nothing about her lifestyle choice here.
One particularly challenging moment came in Great Portland Street. We had all just gotten off a bus tour. Patrick and the girls were woken up to get off. So he was carrying Aine. We couldn’t get to the Bakerloo or Jubilee lines because that required a down escalator. We asked the young and huge Underground worked what our options were. He didn’t seem to understand that walking the 5 minutes to the next station was not an option for us. So, I found a way for us to take the one train that didn’t require an escalator, avoid the closed lines and get home in fewer than 4 trains! I was dismayed when the next station we visited didn’t have an elevator either – but they closed one of the 3 escalators so that Patrick’s mom could walk down to the platform.
You may think that I’m being sarcastic but I’m not when I say I love the Tube so much that this was all kinda fun for me. (I may have been alone on that one.)
Filed under: London
We arrived in London late on Saturday night. They don’t give out any free drinks on Aer Lingus – none. When I asked for a Diet Coke, he stewardess explained this since she noticed I had an accent – which she noted as if my accent indicated that I was stupid – which of course annoyed me since I thought it was their policy that was stupid, especially after we left an hour late for an hour-long flight.
We got off the plane, onto a train to Paddington, Tube to Embankment, Tube to Earl’s Court, taxi to the hotel. It was too late to get food so we ordered terrible food from some takeaway. (I think it was called shoe leather burgers.)
Everyone is sick. Everyone is tired. We have a double bed and a twin bed for 5 of us. We woke up Easter morning and it was snowing!!
We just had breakfast and we’ll be heading to Patrick’s bother’s place in about 20 minutes. After that the girls and I are hoping to head to Camden Market – but Patrick is vying to get us all to church. We’ll see who wins that one. I’m trying to convince Patrick that stopping by Speaker’s Corner would be like church since I’m pretty sure there will be a minister of something there.
But things are looking up since there’s a Sponge Bob marathon on TV this morning. It’s all Sponge Bob, all the time.
Filed under: Dublin
Patrick’s advisor Tony Roche has us over for the nice dinner again. The guests were Katy Hates (Tony’s wife and an author in her own right), Tom Redshaw from St Thomas, Andrew Carpenter from UCD, and Lucy Collins of UCD.
I wore my new skirt, which I had only worn once before. As luck would have it, the other time I wore the skirt I met Lucy and Andrew. I’m sure that has been the source of much gossip around UCD and will probably cause them to grade Patrick’s PhD lower.:-)
We had a very nice time – with some fun heated discussions at the dinner table. And I think it was nice for Patrick’s future to see what a connection he could be between UCD and St Thomas.
Filed under: Dublin
As you might imagine, St Patrick’s Day is a big deal here. I was surprised how much bigger a deal it was than the last time I was here 15 years ago.
We started our day by using the free fun fair ride tickets we got at the scavenger hunt. Then we headed in to the parade. It was packed!
Somehow we mentioned to get a place where, if the girls balanced on the edge of a store window and me, they could see the parade. I was pretty impressed. There are marching bands – but there were also a number of cool float type things. I took a load of pictures. Most of the pictures do not include us – just the parade. Also a little luck went into the pictures since I had to hold the camera way over my head to get any shots.
We stayed at the parade for about 90 minutes. We left a little before it ended. We were with Patrick’s Michael and some of his colleagues from Canberra. We snock down a few back alleys and found ourselves out near Christ Church – still on a parade route but not so much in the thick of it. We were starving and our timing was perfect as we got a table at a pub on the parade route. We couldn’t believe it.
We had a nice (not too healthy) lunch at the pub. Then we headed to the Guinness Storehouse. Rumor had it that there was a big festival there too.
Well we got a little worried when we walked into the Storehouse (by walked I mean paid to visit). We got a tour of the Guinness factory, which was cool but not super fun for all ages – though pretty cool. After the tour the 2 Guinness drinkers got their samples and we decided to head for the 7th floor.
The 7th floor is all windows and looks out over the City. It is amazing – and worth slogging through the Guinness stuff. Also once we got to the upper floors we found the festival stuff. Kate and I chowed on the free smoked salmon.
We saw band or two, hung out for a while and eventually went home. I could see that if you didn’t have kids you could spend the rest of your night here.
Filed under: Kilkenny
Sometimes I wonder why we ever try to leave Dublin. It rarely works out as we intended. Patrick’s brother Michael is in town from Australia. He has a car. So we headed to Kilkenny. Actually I’ve missed an important fact, Patrick had set up an interview with some woman in Kilkenny and apparently the rest of us were along for moral support.
Kilkenny is about a 2 hour drive away. We were almost there when Aine threw up all over herself and me. And I mean really threw up! You can’t necessarily stop right away so we drove until we ran into a hotel – where we went in and tried to clean up. About the only good thing I can say – is somehow she missed my hair entirely.
So we got back into the car, drove around town and eventually ended up in a mall to get new clothes. I was so soaked, I had to think about whether I needed to buy a new bra! Apparently Kilkenny doesn’t take credit cards – luckily we had cash but we spent way more money than we wanted on our trip and of course if always hurts more whne it’s cash.
Then we had 1 hour to spare before we dropped Patrick off about 15 minutes out of the city for his interview. So, we had a very OK quickie lunch. We dropped off Patrick and headed back to town to tour the Kilkenny Castle.
Unfortunately the castle was booked out – although we did manage to take an unsanctioned mini tour of the old part of the castle, which was very cool. I’m not always as interested in the restored portions as I am the medieval roots of the castle. Also I’m not entirely sure that the guides would have let us be as free with the cameras as we let ourselves be.
The Castle grounds are beautiful – unfortunately the playground area was mostly off limits. It had been cordoned off.
So that took up some time. We were waiting for Patrick to phone when he was done with his interview. He hadn’t called yet. So we looked for someplace to get a treat. Unfortunately Patrick left me with NO money, which was very awkward but it turns out it didn’t matter that much.
Most coffee shops were closed. We started looking for a place just as a big hurling match ended so everywhere was packed. We found a place in a hotel, but after 15 minutes of no one approaching us (and given the fact that I had not money) I suggested we go back towards the house where Patrick was.
So we drove back and there was an Italian restaurant – but apparently they didn’t have dessert. So we hung around until Patrick called (after his 3 hour interview) and then we went home. Patrick’s brother is a very good sport to driven him around like that and to get stuck with us.
Filed under: Dublin
On Saturday Aine went to a birthday party – which left me and the big girls alone to do the St Patrick’s Day treasure hunt. It was great! Our team was called the Super Searchers.
Teams of up to 4 people were invited to follow the hunt throughout the city. We had to visit 9 places, answer questions from each place and get a stamp. Spot prizes were given out – the team with the best time (not us) won a weekend in a hotel in Dublin.
It rained the whole day, we had several wardrobe malfunctions, we stopped for lunch in the middle of the “race” but we had a great time. We spent over 5 hours on the hunt.
Here’s the blow by blow: Continue reading
Filed under: Dublin
On Friday night we saw the coolest street show ever. Here’s the description from the St Patrick’s festival web site:
St. Patrick’s Festival and Dublin Docklands presents the Irish premiere of Pearl by the world renowned street theatre company Plasticiens Volants (France). This is an outdoor spectacle for a family audience. Giant inflated puppets will take over the dramatic surroundings of Georges Dock to tell this enchanting story of the precarious journey of a precious pearl. Audiences will be immersed in an extraordinary underwater world of flying fish, ‘joker’ squids, bewitched jellyfish and a scary sea snake. An extraordinary aerial aquarium on a city scale which is not to be missed.
I took a lot of video but I figured I’d just post a couple and give the link for the rest – for the interested minority.
Filed under: Dublin
The girls finished school at noon on Friday and don’t go back for two weeks. Aine’s Montessori class did a play for the last. Below is a video clip of the performance.
Our insanely optimistic plan for today was to follow the Bloomsday trail around Dublin. What I the heck is Bloomsady? Well, James Joyce’s book Ulysses is about a day in the life of Leopold Bloom and to a lesser degree Stephen Daedalus. The book follows their paths through Dublin on June 16, 1904. Every year, loads of people follow the map on the anniversary. We did it ourselves 15 years ago. I got it into my head that it would be fun to do the trip in the off season with the kids.
We didn’t get very fair – but the videos below highlight what we did see. And we’ll start again where we left off another day. If you want to read some fun Cliff Notes for Ulysses, check out James Joyce for Dummies.
After the trip to Sandycove, we took a drive around Killiney and Dalkey. It’s not really that far from where we live but the homes and the views are amazing! We drove by Enya’s caste and Bono’s house.
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