Filed under: Belfast
It snowed last night in Belfast – but more on that later. We are having an amazing time. I had time to upload the videos. Both are about 30 seconds. The first if the mural that follows you. I hope the effect comes through. It was very cool and creepy.
And here’s just a bit from the tour guide.
Filed under: Belfast
Today we took a black taxi tour of Belfast. It was terrific. Our driver/tour guide was named Jimmy. He was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the history of Belfast. The first part of the tour, the bulk of the tour really was spent touring the areas where “the troubles” took place.
The unrest has been going on since the 1620’s but more recently I’d say they drew new flames around 1968. The fight was between Catholics and Protestants, Irish Nationalists and British Loyalists. The deadliest year was 1972. You can read more in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles). A ceasefire began in 2000; last year even greater steps were taken towards a lasting peace. Today we learned that an Indian community now owns one of the churches (or maybe hospital, it was a ton of info to remember) and plans to turn it into a mosque – that ought to help dispel some tensions.
One side note – Jimmy remarked to me that Patrick’s mom was very knowledgeable about the history of the area – I had to tell him that she is very knowledgeable in anything news-related. She is impressive that way!
Our tour started on the Falls Road, which is a Catholic area. Then we toured Shankill, which is a protestant area. And we ended with a tour of the place where they built the Titanic and the city center.
The Falls Road and Shankill are parallel from each other – and really only a “peace wall” separates them in most places. I took a ton of pictures – mostly of the murals and different views of the peace walls. I’m going to just post them into 3 groups:
Falls Road
Shankill
Titanic/Others
I also took a video of an amazing mural of gunman in Shankill, whose eyes and gun seem to follow you as you walk by him – kind of like those Jesus pictures that open and close their eyes. I hope the effect is apparent in the video. I may not get to that today.
Falls Road:
Shankill
OK it’s gettign very late now. I wanted to post these tonight. I’ll post the pictures of the rest of the city tomorrow. I am hoping that Patrick really will fill in some details here. All of my energy has been spent on pcitures.
Filed under: Belfast
We arrived in Belfast. Our timing was amazing. We caught the bus in Cabinteely at 11:58 and somehow managed to catch the train in town at 1:35. I forgot how much I like to take the train. Lily and I worked on our times tables. We got into Belfast at 3:30. We booked into the hotel, which is very nice. In fact they could not have been nicer at Jury’s about getting us a room that would accommodate 5 people.
We walked around a little bit. The girls have quickly learned not to ask for quarters or euros – but pounds. We had a nice dinner at the hotel – where again they could not have been more accommodating. The waiter, Lily’s new best friend gave us refills of rolls about 4 times!
Filed under: Dublin
On Monday we met up with Kevin, KC, Quinlan (8), Brenna (3), and Rowan (4 months, I think). They are from Minnesota but are living for the school year in Galway while KC teaches at NUI Galway.
On the way we stopped by Trinity because we had some extra time. We met up with Kevin and crew at St Stephen’s Green and went to a playground. I swear it was 60 degrees. The kids really enjoyed playing and we enjoyed talking to the parents. After playing we went to a very OK – but perfect for kids – restaurant for lunch.
The Kevin’s crew headed back for the train to Galway and we made our way home. We stopped by the National Gallery – where we got the family packs for the first time. They are great! They include paper and crayons (colors) and a scavenger hunt sort of thing for different ages. We really enjoyed it.
Filed under: Dublin
Friday night we went out to an Italian cooking lesson. I was very excited; Patrick was not. We had plenty of time so we took the first bus into town which we thought would leave us walking for about 20 minutes. An hour later we’re still walking through Ranelagh, Rathmines, and Rathgar – some very beautiful neighborhoods, which I’m sure are even more beautiful if you’re not wearing high heel boots!
We called the cooking school and found out that the class had been cancelled – Patrick’s prayers were answered.
So we went into town, had a nice dinner, and popped into the International Bar for one drink before heading home. Fortunately or unfortunately we ran into our new best friends Chris and Anna from Manchester.
It started when Chris asked me if there were any Irish in Dublin. Often it can feel as if there aren’t and as if Polish or Latvian has become the national language. I had to laugh because I was part of the proof that there aren’t any Irish left.
What’s funny was that Patrick and I had been kind of talking about that at dinner. Right now there are about 1-1.5 million people in Dublin. They are predicting 2 million by 2019 – and most of that increase will be immigrants.
So Dublin is very international. I think it’s kind of fun. You hear lots of languages and accents. It’s a huge influx of young people too. I’ve already written a blog post on the impact of this influx on social services, such as schools. But from a fun perspective, it’s good but it makes Dublin (and possibly all of Ireland but I can’t say) a different place, which I wondered if that would have a negative impact on tourism.
According to our new best friends – it does. They were just in town for 3-4 days and they liked it alright but they didn’t have plans to return. I think it wasn’t what they were expecting and they thought it was too expensive. And they were working with Sterling which is twice as valuable as the dollar.
Anyways we had a fun night with them. We took a rickshaw to the last pub – which I believe was the last pub open in town. We stayed out way too late because our new best friends were in their 20’s. Anna gave me her email address, which started as anna1984… luckily I stopped myself before I asked if that was the year she graduated 🙂
Filed under: Dublin
Well we found a piece of Americana in Dublin – a huge shopping mall on the North Side called Blanchardstown Shopping Center. It’s pretty much like Rosedale without the thought towards parking logistics. We tried to eat at a TGI Fridays but there was a 30 minute wait.
We went with Patrick’s mom and brother. They were nice enough to let us tag along. Everyone got something new. I wanted to go out there to check it out at some point and really – it’s the kind of place you need to drive so it all worked out well.
That being said I don’t think we’re going back next week. There is a children’s theater so I suspect we’ll be back at again – just maybe not to shop.
Filed under: Dun Laoghaire
On Thursday we went to Dun Laoghaire. Most of the shops were still closed but we had lunch at a great Asian restaurant – Café Mao. We hadn’t had food like that in a long time so it was very good. The fried rice was actually like the fiend rice we’re used to from home.
We went into the few shops that were opened and enjoyed a walk down Dun Laoghaire pier – it’s about a 30 minute walk to the end and back. The sea seemed very calm. There was a banjo playing busker at the end of the pier – so that was kind of fun. The pier sort of gradually dips into the sea – but as Aine walked on the side of the pier I got a glimpse of how quickly the sea becomes deep and pretty cold looking. She wasn’t allowed to walk on her own for very long.
Filed under: Bray
St Stephen’s Day is the day after Christmas. Everything is closed on Stephen’s Day. I realized this when I walked down to the grocery store to get Diet Coke and they were closed. Very sad.
We spent most of the day relaxing but eventually we all piled into Fearghal’s car for a trip to Bray. It’s about a 10 minute drive from Patrick’s mom’s place.
There’s a nice walkway on the beach in Bray. The weather was pretty warm. So we had a very nice walk. The girls and I enjoyed skipping stones. Patrick was sick so we went to get something for him to eat. Fortunately or unfortunately the best place we could find was an arcade. So the girls got to play games while we waited for the food.
Filed under: Dublin
Here’s our Christmas agenda. I know several of you have been curious about what we were doing here:
We went to Mass on Christmas Eve. Lily asked Irish Grandma on the way home if we’d have to go on Christmas Day too. We were both relived to hear that the answer was no. The funny thing about Mass was that it was so full that some people (the late people like us) got their communion outside with the smokers and cell phone users.
Then we came home and just relaxed. We could have gone to the pub but we had our big night at the Pogues last night so we weren’t too desperate to get out.
Kate was the first one awake in the morning at 8:00. But she held on until 9:00 when we woke up everyone else. Aine got up around 8:30 but she kind of forgot it was Christmas and so she didn’t mind hanging out in the room.
At 9:00 we opened presents – tons of them. The girls made out like bandits with an electronic, doll stroller and handheld electronic games kind of leading the pack. Patrick and I took a walk around the park after the present opening. It wasn’t really cold at all.
We had Christmas dinner around 1:00. We started with an appetizer of salmon – wild salmon. Then we had turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, and more. Everything was wonderful. For dessert, we started with plum pudding, which I have to say I liked. The girls did not. But there was ice cream and after ice cream a chocolate cake appeared – and somehow Aine found biscuits later. I forgot to mention that we got crackers. For those who don’t know crackers, they are toys wrapped up like pieces of candy. Two people share it. One person grabs each end and it pops when you pull each end.
Then we just hung out. The girls played with their toys. Nemo was on TV. Patrick and Fearghal had a nap. And we phoned home.
So it was a quiet but very nice day.
Filed under: Dublin
While we were in town one day we went to see the Christmas decorations at the General Post Office in Dublin:
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