Category: Blog

I know I said in the last post that the next post would be on Larne. I lied. That simple. I know many of you are waiting on that post to make your vacation plans (insert sarcasm here). Anyway, we went to Bangor, which is on the other side of Belfast Lough from where we are now. It’s not very far as the crow flies (seagulls in this instance), but, since the trains do not follow the crow path, we had to go to Belfast then back up the other side. We really like the other side of the bay – it’s a bunch of smallish towns/villages with great personality. I could totally see living there with the easy commute to Belfast.

The Daughter decided that she would stay in Larne, rather than accompany us out to Bangor. A weekend apart was a good idea. While we do try to give each other space, we are still in close quarters. And it will get even closer next month when the oldest Son, our Daughter in law and Most Adorable Grandson come to visit! We are so excited to get to have them here and show them around, but we will all need a little patience as there isn’t a whole lot of space. Back to the original subject: Bangor…what a great town! It’s the third largest city in Northern Ireland. This took us totally by surprise as I wouldn’t even call it a city! But, then again, this is a small country.

We arrived Friday evening and got checked into our Airbnb. It’s sort of weird to have 2 rentals going at the same time, but we usually prefer it over a hotel room. This particular place, other than being very nice, had two huge things going for it – an ice cream shop directly below and a BBQ place across the street! Okay, it was also located on one of the two main streets and was just up from the water. Saturday morning we found a wonderful place for breakfast, then set off to explore the town.

There are two large parks right in the main part of town. We absolutely fell in love with the first one, Ward Park. This place was wonderful. The first thing we noticed was an arbor that must have been stunning earlier in the summer. It was still beautiful with some of the roses blooming. At the end of the arbor is a memorial to the men of Bangor who died in World War I (called the Great War everywhere in Europe that I have been).

As we were admiring the war memorial I kept hearing parakeets. Normally you don’t hear parakeets in the wild (especially in Northern Ireland). This confused me, because I was hearing a LOT of parakeets. For once, I was not delusional…there is a bird sanctuary in the park!

After we left Ward Park we headed to the old castle grounds. There isn’t anything of the original castle left, just part of the one built in the 1800s. But the grounds were a really nice park, with loads of paths all through it. The Victorian era walled gardens have been restored and are open to the public. What a fantastic place!

There area where Bangor is located has been settled for a very long time, but it was not a formal settlement until about the 6th century when a monastery was founded there. Because of where Bangor sits on the bay, and having a monastery located there, the Vikings loved to raid the area. The monks and villagers would build things and the Vikings would come by and destroy them. This went on and on…During one of these raids (most likely), someone made the decision to bury the handbell used to call the monks to prayer to protect it from the destruction wrought by the Viking raids. It was then forgotten about (or, whoever buried it didn’t survive the raid). In the late 1700s someone was digging around in the ruins of the Abbey and found it. Fortunately it was well cared for and eventually given to the city. It’s on display in the town museum, which is located in what remains of the castle.

Saturday evening, after an excellent pizza and perhaps a smidge too much prosecco, we finally made our way over to the marina. We had walked past but not explored down in that area. The light was perfect, the water was calm, it was still nicely warm out. Absolutely gorgeous! We walked along the North Down Coastal Path for quite a ways. The Coastal Path is a 16 mile coastal walk. We would like to walk the entire route someday.

We are very glad that we took the opportunity to go out to Bangor. The weekend was thoroughly enjoyed and we walked enough to justify ice cream both nights.🙄 We were fortunate that the weather gods smiled upon us too! So many people must have agreed with this too – the train going out to Bangor on Sunday was packed! We were definitely glad we were going in the opposite direction.

Bel fast. Not belfust. I’m going to have to break myself of that habit. And I had visions of doing this post Saturday night after our adventure in Belfast, then bragging about how prompt it was. You can see how that all worked out, right?

We are settled in now, found our favorite walking path (along the sea, of course), favorite shops, favorite coffee shop. All those important things. Next post I plan to show you around here, but, for now, let us focus on Belfast.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. I know a fair amount of the history here – anyone surprised? I will try not to bore you with too much of it (while trying to share with others that might not know much) of the goings on here on this island of Ireland. So, I think I was envisioning a city that looked like it had been through a battle. Maybe a tank or two still hanging around. This is not what we found. We found a beautiful, lively city with a compact city center – easily walkable – some lovely buildings, an incredible city hall! Like, really incredible. When the Victorians decided to build something grand, they did not let a little thing like “Do we need a massive city hall for our smallish city?” get in their way.

The city hall is gorgeous,with beautiful grounds around it. And, as I said before, it’s freaking huge! Belfast is not an old city (by my definition of old). While it has had settlements in the area for a thousand years or so, as a city it’s been around since the 1700s, but only achieved city status in 1888. The oldest structure still standing in the city is McHugh’s bar, built between 1710 and 1715. And, while Belfast has produced many wonderful things – at one point it was one of the largest producers of linen – it has one major claim to fame: the Titanic was built here. When the Titanic was built it was the largest passenger vessel on the seas. When it was launched in Belfast Harbor thousands of people turned out to watch. There is a saying: She was alright when she left here. You’ll need to ask her English captain or her Scottish navigator what happened.😁 At a later date, we will go to the Titanic Museum and tour the last surviving ship of the White Star Lines. But, for now, I will show you the lovely memorial at the city hall-

Another place we went that we thoroughly enjoyed was St. George’s Market. This is an indoor market (huh, imagine that. Let’s put a roof on the market in a place where it rains, to some extent, nearly every day!) that has an incredible variety of merchant stalls. This place is awesome!

After walking a bit to try to work off some of that sandwich (no, I did not eat it all. I do have a limit to the amount of bacon I can eat), we decided to take the hop-on hop-off bus to have a look all around the city and decide what other places we wanted to explore. We elected not to get off, which worked out as the bus was very full and not many people were able to get on at each of the stops. The first stop was the Titanic Quarter. This is located in the area where the ship was built. Harland and Wolfe, the ship builders, still have a presence in Belfast which is pretty cool. The Titanic Museum itself is quite the building (no good pictures of it though. Guess you will have to wait until we actually go to the museum next month). Also in the area is one of the last surviving battleships of World War I, or as it is known over here, The Great War. We intend to tour this ship as well. In this same area is a large filming studio with a mock up of a ruined castle outside…if you have been hiding under a rock and haven’t heard of this little show called Game of Thrones…this is the studio where it was filmed. When it wasn’t out filming in many other locations around Northern Ireland, that is. What a boon to tourism that show has been to this area!

As we drove around on the bus, we got a much clearer picture of Belfast. There are still neighborhoods that have walls between the Unionists (generally Protestant) and the Republicans (generally Catholic). You can see evidence of past violence, but all we saw was people going about their lives. Great strides have been made within the communities to stem the violence that once took over everything. For those that might not be familiar with the history of this area (like, why are there two Irelands?), here is my very brief summary. I’ll try to get this right…

In the late 1100s, the English (I’ll call it this to avoid confusion. Really, it was the Normans) army came over at the request of an Irish king to help repel invaders. This king had no idea of the centuries of conflict he was causing! Okay, so now the English are in Ireland and they like the place, but feel it needs to be a little more “English” and a lot less “Irish”. This led to bringing over some English nobility to rule over the Irish peasants, regardless of whether they were peasants or not. Move on a few centuries and you have the Protestant Reformation – King Henry VIII dissolved the convents and the monasteries, and essentially outlawed Catholicism. This did not go over well with the deeply faithful Catholic people of Ireland. Interestingly enough, the area that this really did not sit well was in Ulster, in the northeast part of the island. In fact, this area was such trouble that the English government began to import English and Scottish Protestants (called the Plantation of Ireland) and settled them in Ulster. Fast forward another few centuries of conflict, Ulster is now deeply Unionist (being a part of the United Kingdom) and Protestant, with pockets of staunchly Republican (wanting a free Ireland) and Catholic populations. You now have powder keg that has been lit. Now I will try to wrap this up…there were many events, and this is an extremely simplified explanation – please realize that I am leaving a lot out! In 1922 Ireland was made an independent republic – minus 6 counties in Ulster (the other 3 counties in Ulster remained with the republic) that became Northern Ireland and part of the United Kingdom. You still have Unionists and Republicans battling each other in the north. Both sides have caused much death and destruction over the decades, but Belfast was a city divided and at war with itself, and it was particularly violent in the 70s, 80s and 90s. The Good Friday Agreement was signed by both sides in 1998 and both sides have worked hard to find peace. The current uncertainty with Brexit is causing a lot of concern around here, but that’s another subject entirely! Hopefully, this brief explanation will cause some people to be interested in knowing more about the history of Ireland.

Anyway, back to our brief tour of Belfast. I did not know that C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) was from Belfast! There is a beautiful square in the east part of the city dedicated to him. There are bronze sculptures of many of the characters from the stories around this square. We drove by the Parliament buildings – which are not being used right now (although the politicians are still being paid, because the UK told them they weren’t behaving – go figure). We drove through some lovely neighborhoods and some not so lovely neighborhoods. All in all it was a fantastic experience and I look forward to seeing more.

Belfast, and Northern Ireland, definitely deserve to have people come here. The Republic of Ireland gets the majority of the visitors, with a few maybe making a day trip to Belfast. While it feels different up here, more English I guess, the accent is super cool! Liam Neeson is a good (and understandable) example. It’s like a little southern Irish, a little British with a healthy dose of Scottish thrown in. And they love the use the word “wee”. It’s so cute. Everything is wee, even if it isn’t. 😜

Yeah, I know…another big gap between posts. Ever so sorry. There’s just been stuff, you know? A little over a week ago the Daughter and I flew from Belfast to Berlin. First time on Ryanair. Hmmm. It got us there and didn’t lose our bag – I would call that a success. We were there for a couple of celebrations for my nieces. A fun time was had by all.

I have been to Berlin a few times before this, but haven’t always gotten out to see the tourist sites. This time I thought I would be a good blog-type person, get out, see the sites and take photos – I know! Gasp. Let me start by saying that Berlin is quite warm in August. Not nearly as warm as it has been this summer, but still warmer than I like. I find that my tolerance for really warm has gone away and I prefer mildly warm. Therefore, I ate a lot of ice cream. There is no wrong time for ice cream or gelato.

Okay, so on to the sights. Berlin is, of course, filled with history. It is also filled with beautiful old buildings here and there with lots of newer construction in between. I shouldn’t need to explain why it is this way. There are many places you can still see war damage, even after 74 years. Most of that is in what was East Berlin, and the old buildings that were undamaged or salvageable there are lovely. There are many large parks and the streets are frequently tree-lined. In Pankow, where the Brother resides, it is even more filled with trees and flowers and parks. One of my (and many other people) favorite things about Berlin are the cross walk signs. A lot of other cities have followed this idea, but I suspect Berlin was the original – one of the good things left over from the Communist times. Rather than a walk/don’t walk, or a hand, they use a cute guy with a hat.

The ampelmannchen (yes, I know it should have an umlaut over the second a) is adorable. So adorable he has his own stores!

Now for a stroll down Unter den Linden, the main drag, where the historical/tourist spots are – these are my favorites

One day the Daughter and I went to Modulor, an art supply mecca. We didn’t even go upstairs…it was too overwhelming. The Daughter had requested some drawing pads and pencils – and boy, did we find them! Then she had to narrow down her choices. If you are an art person (in any way) and find yourself in Berlin – be sure to go there!! Of course, being Berlin you find odd things –

The festivities for my nieces were wonderful – the party last Saturday was a blast! We met some amazing people and got to know some better that we had previously met. A fantastic time was had.

All in all it was a great trip, but it is nice to be back in the cooler weather. Now we settle into living in Northern Ireland and begin our explorations of this place. Next weekend we will go to Belfast. I look forward to seeing more of that city!

We made the Great Northern Migration yesterday. It was a long drive, but we made a couple of significant stops – and one seriously insignificant one. We got out of Newcastle West just before 9 in the morning and arrived in Larne just after 4 in the afternoon. Here’s the path –

I do have to admit that it was handy that I had already driven to Dublin when I picked up the girls, since it is the exact same path up to the airport turnoff. However, just before getting into Dublin we decided we wanted to eat. The decision on where to stop? McDonald’s. We rarely ate fast food when we were in the US, so I honestly can’t remember the last time I was at McDonald’s. The chicken strips were not bad though!

Heading up the M1 out of Dublin, I had a stop planned to see another ancient High Cross. Actually, there are three at this location. Monasterboice (Gaelic lesson: monastaboika) is an ancient (5th century) monastery in beautiful rolling hills.

Shortly after leaving Monasterboice we crossed the border-

You could definitely tell where the old border crossing was, but it is completely open now. Let’s hope it stays that way. It’s strange how the roads and towns have a different feel to them. Not bad, just different. And the Union Jack flying everywhere!

After crossing the border, we headed east to county Down. I had a goal. I figured out where the traditional grave of Saint Patrick is! No where else in Ireland claims his burial site, which is a good indicator of possible truth in this location. Christians have worshiped at this site for 1600 years, and a church has definitely been on this site since the 1100s. Likely there were earlier churches, but nothing remains.

The Cathedral is pretty, but has been extensively modernized. It was in ruins by the 1700s, so the renovations are understandable. You usually won’t hear me say that😆. But the real reason we were here was around the side of the cathedral-

We had planned to go to Carrickfergus Castle, which is only about 20 minutes from Larne – and then a day of traveling caught up with us and we were done being in the car! Oh…I didn’t share these photos:

Now we are in Larne, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, with a bunch of Euros (especially coins!) that we will still need next week when the Daughter and I fly to Berlin. I’ll probably get hit by a car crossing the street because I’ve gotten so used to being on the left…

After our surprisingly amazing trip to St. Berrihert’s Well and to see my first ancient Irish High Cross, it was on to Cashel. Cashel is really cute as a town. There’s pretty much just one main street – it did surprise me that the town has remained so small. The wonderful Husband is fully aware of my love of nice hotels (with big, fluffy towels, nice bath products, cushy beds), found the perfect place, Bailey’s Hotel https://www.baileyshotelcashel.com . The building dates from 1709 – which, of course, makes me happy. Nice breakfast too.

We spent the afternoon just strolling around the town, having tea and cake (should be its own food group) and enjoying the atmosphere. There are a couple of ruined monasteries right in town, along with many other building of interest. One church that really captured our attention was the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Absolutely gorgeous. As always, I lit candles for our family and friends and for our crazy adventure.

A bit more exploring and then it was time to get ready for dinner and the show. The Mother had arranged for tickets to Bru Boru. The theater is at the foot of the Rock and is a delight. There is a history of music in Ireland downstairs with some beautiful reproductions of ancient musical instruments. Dinner at the theater was enjoyable – but, the show.. the show was fantastic! Many of the musicians and dancers featured here over the years have gone on to join Riverdance. The night was a mixture of singing, Irish dance, humor, random musical moments, incredible skills with various musical instruments – followed after the show with additional time with the performers in the bar area. They would sing songs at request and some audience members performed as well. Definitely up past our bedtime, but so worth it. Highly recommend the experience.

The next morning we headed up to the Rock. It’s a relatively easy walk from most anywhere in town (although you do walk uphill…which should be expected…). The Mother and I visited Cormac’s Chapel first, also called the Golden Chapel, as it is made from golden sandstone. It’s called Cormac’s Chapel after the Irish High King who commissioned it. It was completed in 1134 and is relatively untouched since that time. Even during the time of the Reformation, the importance of this chapel, as is, was understood and it was left unscathed. It is one of the few examples of the Romanesque (as in Roman, right?) design. Simple and stunning.

We were fortunate to have an excellent guide to show us around – and (bonus!) the tickets to the Rock were included with our rooms! Got to like that.

After leaving Cashel we headed to Cahir at the recommendation of the excellent Leo, property manager extraordinaire. The town is cute, although we didn’t get around it much. We were expecting a castle, and boy, did we get one!

When Oliver Cromwell showed up to take the castle after the dissolution of the British monarchy (didn’t know that? I won’t go into it as I tend to get rather passionate about the subject- and those who know, know that I have very strong feelings regarding Mr. Cromwell and his destruction of history), he gave the Butler family (this was their castle) the option to leave quickly and peacefully with their possessions, or he would blow the castle down. The Butlers chose to leave quickly and peacefully, therefore, the castle is still remarkably intact.

A lovely stop. I’m so glad Leo mentioned it!

I wish I had photos of the drive back, but the official photographer for the group was exiled to the back seat so the Daughter could sit up front. Google maps (which we have named Dana) thought we should have a…creative…trip home. It was beautiful. Trees creating covers for the roads, tiny villages in the middle of nowhere. Blind corners with large trucks coming the other way over the center line. Indeed, a grand adventure had by all!

Several months ago the Mother of myself said she wanted to go to Cashel and see a show that she had seen before on previous trips. It was decided that that weekend would be a mutual birthday gift from each of us, to each of us (The Daughter, the Mother and I all have our birthdays within 6 days of each other). The Mother got the show and dinner arranged, the husband arranged a lovely hotel, I made the car reservations…and researched what to see along the way. I scored this time!

Saturday morning, bright and early (although not as early as some Saturday bright and earlys have been), we all headed to Limerick to get the rental car. A stunningly…ordinary…Opel Insignia. Think Honda Accord without any style. Later, we were to realize that the a/c was ineffectual too. Anyway, we set out on the road to Cashel, intending to make a stop out in the boonies, at the holy well of St Berrihert’s and the location of one of the ancient High Crosses. The roads got smaller and smaller, the Husband and I were having flashbacks of the Galway weekend and wondering just how bad this was going to get. We thought we had arrived at the right spot, fortunately for us a local asked if we were looking for the well, and kindly told us we weren’t quite at the right spot. We needed to go back to the crossroad and take a left. We went back to the crossroad, turned left and said “this can’t be right”. It was.

When we decided that the field must be where we needed to be (had to be divine intervention, because no way did that look like where we needed to be), we took a stab in the dark and headed across the field. It looked like there might kind of be a path.

We kept walking through the field. And walking.

When we finally came out of the bog we were met by a beautiful site.

It is likely the location of an ancient monastery. The stones of the enclosure may or may not be stones from the monastery. Sometime in the 1940s the enclosure was built because there were many carved stones from the ancient building still there. Whoever built this created something that somehow still feels ancient.

This has been a pilgrimage site for hundreds, if not a thousand, years. Mind boggling. I will go back here again one day. I was so overwhelmed by the place that I didn’t pay attention to enough of it – I couldn’t quite take it all in. We all felt that way.

After not spending nearly enough time here, we moved on further as there was said to be a holy well near by, St. Berrihert’s Well. St. Berrihert is believed to have lived in the 7th or 8th century. He must have been a special person, because his well is magical.

The trees all around were tied with bits of cloth and small gifts. It is this amazingly secluded place that is filled with peace. I could have sat there for hours. We each had a drink of the waters (I prefer to go natural and use my hands, rather than the provided cups) and felt ready to tackle the hike back to the car! While the rest of the weekend was absolutely enjoyable, this place was the most special. Truly, truly beautiful.

And on to Cashel! I will be kind and make that a separate post😋

A couple of weeks ago the Daughter’s Best Friend and I took the bus to Adare. It’s only about 20 minutes away and it is exactly what you would picture a quaint Irish town to look like, thatched roofs, castle and all.

The town of Adare is very old – the first mention of it was in 1226. One of the Abbeys still stands (Trinitarian), one is in ruins (Franciscan) scattered about the golf course (which itself was founded in 1900) and the Augustinian Priory is now a Church of Ireland Boys’ School.

One of the places Adare is best known for is the Adare Manor. This is now a very exclusive, highly regarded hotel. You don’t even get onto the grounds without either a hotel or dining reservation. I would have loved to go to high tea there just once, but all of my children are too grown to fetch much money and I suspect that my son and daughter in law would object to me selling my grandson. So, I only get to see this –

However, the Desmond Castle (same Desmond’s who built the castle outside my window) is available to tour. I waited until the girls had arrived to do the tour as I knew the Daughter’s Best Friend would absolutely want to go!

There’s a beautiful view of the castle looking back over the river but apparently it was too much to hope that I had taken a photo of it. So sorry.

This town is definitely worth a visit. There is also several super cute shops😁We had an early dinner at Aunty Lena’s pub, one of many dining choices in town. We were very pleased with our meals. No photos of course…

The Mother of myself arrives tomorrow and then we are off to Cashel for the weekend! Very much looking forward to this. Yes, I will be terrorizing the roads with my driving. Stay left. After we return it will be time to prepare for the great move north – hard to believe our three months here are at an end😥

The daughter has arrived, with Best Friend in tow😱I would like to say that it was an uneventful arrival, but it wasn’t. The flight was fine, left Seattle on time – arrived Dublin a bit early, but I expected that. For me, the drive was no problem and it was fun listening to the radio! This was on 4 July and there were a number of commercials that mentioned American Independence Day. Especially appliance retailers – special on “American style refrigerators!” Sigh…can’t get away from it. But, back to the arrivals of the girls. The trouble began when my early 20s daughter arrived in Ireland on a one way ticket. And was honest to the immigration officer that she was unemployed (as of leaving the US). I get that they were concerned that she was planning to disappear in Ireland, but she got grilled. I was sending screen shots of our transition to the UK at the end of this month and that maybe is what convinced the officer that this person’s mom really was on the other side of the gate and they really weren’t flakes (at least to the general public). To compound the pain, something was broken in the baggage system and the luggage was being unloaded by hand. Nearly 2.5 hours after landing I had both girls with me and we were out of there! Note to Irish immigration officials: love Ireland, but we really will be leaving at the end of this month!!

We gave the two girls a day to catch their breath, try to figure out what time zone they were in and wander about the town. Then Saturday morning we were on the early bus to Limerick to catch the morning train to Dublin. The last time we were in Dublin was 5.5 years ago and it was in January. I would recommend going to Dublin in January: yes, it was cold and rainy — so what? I would rather that than masses of people we dealt with this last weekend. Dublin is a great city that I really enjoyed when we were last here. Vibrant and interesting with a wonderful blend of old and modern. This time, not so much enjoyed. But there were highlights! Showing the girls St.Patrick’s Cathedral and Christchurch Cathedral was lots of fun.

After a quick walk by of the cathedrals we headed to the Guinness Storehouse. Note to anyone going here…reserve your time and prepay for tickets online! So much faster. Guinness is fun, especially if you’re interested in the brewing process, but even more so if you’ve ever wondered how this one beer, from a small island in the Atlantic, took over the world. Don’t discount going because you’re not interested in beer. However, see above regarding not going during the summer… One of the most fascinating items in the building is this carving. It’s a 12 foot tall pint glass that is not unlike a totem pole-

We had limited time in Dublin, and a lot of ground to cover, so we had made the decision to utilize taxis. When we left Guinness the decision was made (by the excellent Husband) to take a carriage ride to our next stop! That was so much fun!

After a brief refreshment stop at one of our favorite places, Queen of Tarts (the Victorian sponge cake is to die for!), we went back to our AirBnB flat for a little downtime (and no crowds) before heading to O’Neill’s on the edges of the Temple Bar area. O’Neill’s is a favorite of ours and the Carvery is a place to get an excellent meal at a reasonable price. There is always a wide selection of food items to suit anyone’s taste and O’Neill’s itself is a worthwhile stop. I have never been into the (in)famous Temple Bar bar, but the singing coming out of there was entertaining (70’s classic rock, which is what you will find a lot of in Dublin. I don’t know why)-

The next day was brunch at The Bakehouse. I can’t recommend this place enough! Everything is good. After fortifying ourselves, it was off to see the Book of Kells at the Trinity College Library. Note to anyone going: always book online! We were grateful that we had. This is supposed to be an enjoyable experience (and it was last time), but the crowds were horrific. If you’re okay with wall to wall people, fine, but some of us weren’t. We moved through there so fast! After being in the Book of Kells area we moved into the Long Room in the library. I love this place, but did not take the time to linger in there . Even if you’re there with thick crowds like we were, make certain to take a good look at the harp – this is one of three of the oldest known Irish harps in existence. So graceful and beautiful. This is the harp that is the national symbol of Ireland and it dates from the 1500’s. Also, take a good look at one of the few remaining copies of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which was read outside the General Post Office on 24 April 1916 by Patrick Pearse at the start of the Easter Rising. Then make certain that you walk past the General Post Office, noting the damage that still exists on its facade.

Early 20th century history is not my strong point, but I have tried to make a point of learning about the Irish struggle for independence. Some people think it began with the Easter Rising in 1916, but it had been going on for centuries, just at varying degrees. So many people lost their liberty and their lives trying to make Ireland a free land. Hundreds of years — think about it. Then, when you’ve contemplated this a little, go to the Garden of Remembrance: it’s about 1.5 km past the Post Office. I feel that this is one of the most overlooked or disregarded sites in Dublin. It’s beautiful and peaceful, plus it makes you think a little.

This was a fitting end to our whirlwind tour of the major tourist sites in Dublin. The girls can come back another time (like in January…) and see everything again, with a little more enjoyment!

Egad…time has gotten away from me. I would like to blame it on something really cool sounding, but it’s just simply that I’ve been lazy 🙄I have had to work a bit more than I had intended to – sigh.

Enough of the lamenting…it’s summer (finally) in Ireland! I see blue skies and it’s been upper 60s. There are promises of mid 70s through this week. Last year it was much warmer but I’m happy with 70s.

Our amazing property manager, Leo, kindly took us out to a couple of off the beaten path places last week. Since she is a local girl she gives us a great perspective (and she seems to know everybody!). We drove to the nearby village of Askeaton where the Earls of Desmond had one of their many castles. This one is a bit older than the one here in our town, built in 1199. When the earls abandoned the castle in about 1580, and left it to the English, they didn’t go quietly, they blew up the walls as they left.

To the left of the castle building is a later structure, built in 1740. This is one of the two Hellfire Clubs in Ireland. Hellfire Clubs were for rich, bored men to party, gamble and, in general, behave badly. There were many other rumors of things that went on in these clubs – none of them good.

Down the road from the castle is a Franciscan Friary built in 1389. This might be one of our favorite sites in Ireland. It is beautiful. It is also a sad place – in 1579, after an English commander, Sir Nicholas Malby, tried (and failed) to take the castle he turned his anger on the Friary. He burned the buildings and killed most of the monks, along with destroying the Desmond family graves here. In spite of, or maybe because of, this violence, this is a peaceful place.

After we left Askeaton we drove to Foynes. If timing had worked out we would have gone to Foynes on the great driving adventure with the Cousin and the Brother, so this place had been in our minds for a while. What’s in Foynes – other than a super cute town on the Shannon River? The Foynes Flying Boat Museum (https://www.flyingboatmuseum.com ). It was the early 1930s and the idea of being able to fly passengers across the Atlantic was being realized. I won’t go into a ton of historical detail here, click the link to the museum website for more background. There’s a lot to see, but the highlight has to be the replica of a B314 Flying Boat. Unfortunately, none of the actual flying boats still exist. This replica was made by local craftspeople and is quite the sight!

I know this museum might not be on the main tourist routes but I can’t recommend it enough. It’s not that big, but it is worth the time. And, if you’re a Maureen O’Hara fan, be certain to go to the top floor!

Another stop on our little trip was at Leo’s house. She lives in a 300 year old cottage way outside of a little village. She and her partner have an amazing collection of vintage cars. How cool is that?

A grand day was had by all and we so appreciate Leo taking us around. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have meet some really wonderful people during our time here!

That’s what I felt like I was saying all weekend when we took our little jaunt to Ennis. As usual, we had a guided tour arranged. This particular guide is a local historian (as in, she’s working on her PhD in local history), so she knew her stuff. Ennis isn’t a very big city (25,000 or so) and the downtown core is very compact. Super cute – now – I’m guessing 100 years ago it was less cute and more…slummy.

The town grew up around the Franciscan Friary that one of the Irish kings founded (late 1200s) to atone for – ready? – killing his brother. Not sure there’s enough buildings in the world to atone for something like that. But the friary is really beautiful.

I know that is a lot of photos on the friary, but we very much enjoyed our time there. A unique thing did happen with this particular property: it was taken and dismantled during the Reformation (don’t even get me started), turned into a court house, became an Anglican church, eventually deserted. The Office of Public Works took it over in the late 1800s and did some major restoration work on it. The Church of Ireland still held the title to the land at this time. But, in 1969 the Church of Ireland legally gave the deed to the property back to the Franciscans! How cool is that? By this time, the Franciscan friars had built a new church just around the corner. The old site became a beautiful museum and the new church is lovely as well. That was just the start of things that surprised us about Ennis.

Another historical tidbit is Daniel O’Connell. His is a name every school child in Ireland recognizes like American children know George Washington. In 1828 Daniel was elected to the British House of Parliament. The problem here was that Catholics weren’t allowed to be Parliament members. Nor were they allowed to own land and many other things that most people take for granted. Additionally, the people who voted for him were taking an immense risk – their landlords knew who they voted for as it was an open vote- and could choose to evict those who did not vote as the landlords thought they should! The British government realized that denying Daniel his seat in Parliament was likely to cause a huge backlash in Ireland – this was the beginning of the English government figuring out that they needed to allow the Irish to be Irish and to live their lives as they wish. Ennis is rightly proud that this event occurred in their city!

Another thing to add to your knowledge of random facts: as many of you know, the Irish were less than pleased to be ruled by the British and they were quite creative in coming up with ways of letting the British know their feelings. In 1880, an agent for an absentee Ennis landlord, a Captain Boycott, made demands on the tenants that were not acceptable to them. The tenants decided to try a new tactic – everyone shunned the captain. This led to a change in the way things were handled by absentee landlords as other tenants followed suit…they too boycotted and the term came into usage! These are excellent examples of peaceful protests working, although it might not have worked so favorably earlier in the British occupation.

Enough for your history lesson for today 🙂

Many cities in Ireland have a memorial of some type to the time of the Troubles and Ennis is no exception. The one we particularly liked was for the 100th anniversary commemoration –

We stayed at the The Old Ground Hotel. The exact age of the original structure is uncertain, but could date back to the 1500s. There was a jail on the site at one time, as well as the town hall. It has been a hotel since 1895 and is absolutely lovely.

We, surprisingly, are getting the hang of this traveling thing. We aren’t getting quite so lost, or wandering around just looking lost too often now. That could all change once we switch locations of course. One lesson that has been learned was in regards to our local bus. Before Sunday most every bus driver was courteous and helpful and didn’t scowl too much at the Americans. They stopped at the bus stops that they were supposed to stop at (kind of what you would expect from a bus driver, right?). And then there was the driver Sunday afternoon from Limerick to Newcastle West…he really wanted to be a Formula One driver, but was stuck driving a bus. We made it here in rather record time, but there were several times we gasped at his driving choices. At one point he passed another driver, going into the lane of oncoming traffic – not a big deal, except that there WAS oncoming traffic that he expected to get out of his way. Then he sailed right past our stop, and this is a regular stop! When the Husband yelled out to him “stop!”, he barked back “you didn’t tell me to stop”. We just got off quickly…and were happy to be unscathed and on solid ground. There is always one like that I guess…hopefully only one.

We’re going to explore in our area for the next week and enjoy our peacefulness…for it will come to an end next Thursday…the darling Daughter and her best friend (who, at this point, is also considered our daughter) will descend upon us. Looking forward to their arrival!

We got up stupid early Saturday morning for our marathon trip to Cork, that we made even more complex by adding in an extra piece at the last minute. But we will get to that. It’s not that it’s that far to any point in Ireland, it’s doing these trips by public transport. I guess if you have always lived that way then it’s no big deal. But to us car loving, west coast dwelling (what’s public transport?) peoples it just not efficient. Yet it is. Whatever.

The bleary eyed travelers boarded the 0713 bus to Limerick Colbert Station. We did have enough time to grab a coffee (tea pour moi) and snack before our train departed for Cork.

I will say the train station in Cork is much nicer (read: cleaner, less grungy) than the one in Limerick! Cork itself is a lovely city. The downtown, old section is quite compact and easy to navigate. We had made the decision to walk to our B & B (Garnish House. Very nice. Super comfy bed!)…it looked closer on the map. It was a good 25 minutes while wearing my (rather heavy) backpack. Oh well, that helped justify scones. We had a little time before meeting up with our tour guide, Jack of Cork City Walks, so we wandered for a bit and had lunch at Burritos and Blues- ah! Mexican food, Chipotle style. Not bad at all. Jack was extremely knowledgeable regarding the history of Cork. Without that tour we would not have had any idea that Cork was once comprised of many islands, and the waterways were all culverted about 200 years ago. This area of Ireland has its own particular speech which can be very difficult to understand and I think the people of Cork take great pride in this 🙂 They also have a very tongue in cheek attitude, even more so than the rest of Ireland I think:

Cork was a walled city until 1690 when the walls were destroyed by cannon fire. How did Cork acknowledge this feat?

And then Starbucks came to town…one of the oldest buildings still standing in Cork (from 1730) was available and Starbucks moved into it. Apparently, it originally had a large Starbucks sign on the building. Cork city made the company take down that sign – and this Starbucks now has the smallest sign on of any of the stores (according to our tour guide of course)

Within the city center of Cork is the English Market. The market originated in 1610, with the current buildings dating from 1786. It is not unlike Pike Place Market in Seattle. Smells just as weird too. There are several amazing food stalls (the Husband had, as he claimed, the best espresso ever), and several…not so amazing one stalls:

This was a fun site too –

After we forced ourselves out of the incredibly comfortable bed on Sunday morning, we had an amazing breakfast (it was a B & B after all) and decided that we would take the little train out to Cobh. This town was the final stop of the Titanic before it set out across the Atlantic, and we all know how that ended.

When we got to Cobh (quick 25 minute ride from Cork station on the little commuter train) we were greeted by this sight:

How do you pronounce Cobh? Well, since you asked…there is no B in the Gaelic language. So it is sort of said “cove”, with a little “cobe”. For a long time it was spelled Cobe. Then, prior to a visit by Queen Victoria, it was renamed Queenstown. This was probably done because no one said the original name right. After Irish independence in 1922 it went back to its Gaelic spelling of Cobh. And nobody says it right anyway.

Our main destination in Cobh was the Titanic Experience. This is located in the White Star Lines building on the waterfront, the actual building that the last Titanic passengers boarded the ship from.

The Titanic Experience is designed to give modern people a feel for what the Titanic passengers saw and experienced at the beginning of their voyage. It was well done, but don’t expect Titanic artifacts. There were very few. We are looking forward to going to the big Titanic museum in Belfast when we go north.

We thoroughly enjoyed our whirlwind trip to Cork. We were sad that we did not get out to Midleton (whiskey heaven) and to see the Choctaw Indian monument near there. Why is there a Choctaw Indian monument in Ireland? That is actually a really neat story: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/cork-sculpture-recalls-generosity-of-choctaw-nation-during-famine-1.3118580

Next weekend is the much bypassed city of Ennis. We were so intrigued by the place when we stopped for breakfast on the Galway trip that we decided to spend a weekend there!

I have been sadly remiss in doing this post. I’m sure everyone is pining away due to that. Where did we leave off?…oh yes, driving. I need to remember that slower traffic stays left and you pass on the right. Talk about messing with your head.

Friday morning the Cousin, the Husband and the Brother (oh, and I) loaded up our trusty Opel and headed towards the Cliffs of Moher. Everyone has said that was a can’t miss site. They are amazing, they are majestic, they are the Cliffs of Insanity (Princess Bride reference. First one I might point out). As we got closer we suspected that we might have a problem..

The cliffs weren’t there. Okay, so they were there – if you hopped a fence and walked too far you would certainly find them – you just couldn’t see them.

There were a lot (LOT) of tour buses, loads of cars…paying €8 per person. And none of us saw the cliffs. We got very wet, very cold, some exercise climbing the stairs – thinking that if we went up higher maybe we could see something. Nothing. So we left.

Next stop on the journey was the Burren. The Burren is this crazy place that looks like you’re on another planet. It is beautiful (if still wet, and we were really cold at this point). Starkly beautiful. Burren in Gaelic translates to rocky place. How clever.

There was one more stop before heading to Galway itself. Our wonderful property manager told us not to miss Kilmacduagh. It was an enormous monastery founded around the 7th century, but mostly in ruins since the 1300s. The tower was restored about 200 years ago. Other than being very cold and wet we very much enjoyed this location.

Enough with the driving around (the Cousin had been popping dramamine like candy). Time to go to Galway! Yay! I loved Galway. Really, this is a fabulous town. In fact, we liked it so much that the next time we come to Ireland (2 yearsish) we plan to stay here. It’s hard to describe what is so likable about it – it just is. You can look anywhere and find photos of it, so I’m going to share a couple of rather pretty ones that one of us (can’t keep straight who took what photo anymore!) took –

Saturday morning we took a walking tour. This is one of the things we try to do whenever we go to a new city, and we try to do it soon after arriving. It really helps to orient us to a place and the local guides are full of great information. It’s usually very easy to find a private walking tour – just look up the city you are going to with the words “private walking tour”. They do vary in price but are usually less than $80. Ray ( https://www.galwaytours.ie ) was our guide for Galway and he did not disappoint. One of my favorite bits of the walk was going into a mall and finding this:

We stayed at the Western Hotel for two nights. Other than the shower was a bit wonky, nice place. One place that we all fell in love with was Pascal Coffee House ( http://www.pascal.ie/ ). So much so that we went there twice on Saturday and had intended to get take away from there on Sunday before we left…and they were closed! Sniff. I did promise to confine food photos to the photo page…go look there:)

Our goal after leaving Galway was the little beach town of Kilkee. That was to be our breakfast stop. Cute town, nice beach. But just south of the town is the beginning of the Cliffs of Kilkee. The weather was a bit overcast, but nothing like what we had when we went to the Cliffs of Moher (for which we are thankful). Now, I’ve seen lots of photos of the Cliffs of Moher and they are impressive. The big thing about those cliffs is how tall they are. The Cliffs of Kilkee aren’t quite as tall. Other than that, I have to say that I would travel to Kilkee again any day over Moher. These cliffs are AMAZING. They are made of slate, so they are a very dark gray, and where the water crashes up against them…wow

We made one last stop before the mad dash back to the Kerry Airport. Down at the end of the peninsula (like, where you can see the water on both sides) is the church of the Little Ark. I won’t go into the story of it here, but you can read this if you’re interested http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/kilbaha.htm . It’s worth the trek-

It was a wonderful weekend. Lots of driving and narrow roads. Lots of questioning if Dana (our name for Google Maps) really had any clue where we were going. She never did lead us astray…for which we are grateful. We are also grateful to my sister in law for arranging for the Brother to join us. A fun time was had by all. Although I think the Cousin should consider buying stock in Dramamine before the next trip to see us 😉

I honestly didn’t know whether I was terrified or excited at the prospect of driving here in Ireland. We were in Dublin a few years ago but did not rent a car. This time though, this time I knew I would be behind the wheel at some point. I mentioned to the property manager here that I wanted to get it right – and the next day I had the official driving handbook!

The Brother was flying in from Berlin (where he lives with his wonderful wife and twin 6 year old daughters), so the Cousin and I rode the bus to the Kerry Airport, about 45 minutes away. It is the cutest airport! I think it appeals to my love of small things 😉

The airport has one arrivals gate and one departure gate, plus a surprisingly good cafe. If you find yourself needing to be in the southwest of Ireland (Dingle peninsula, Ring of Kerry) this is a great and easy option.

Now to pick up our rental car…

Then, it was time. I was faced with no option but to drive.

We drove the car from the rental area out to the main lot and parked. I congratulated myself for getting to that point with no mishaps! The Brother was retrieved from the adorably petite airport and we set out to get home without incident. Goal accomplished. The most difficult part was judging lane position and how far to the left I was. My passengers were very good about letting me know that I needed to correct positioning 🙂

Freeways and major highways weren’t a problem at all. Roundabouts were weird, but not problematic. I’ll do a separate post on all that we did and saw over the weekend (it was awesome!), but let’s just say that it involved roads like this:

Another week has passed. We feel more and more at home here in our little town (village really) in Ireland. It’s hard to believe that this week will mark one month since we arrived. I even have a shopper card for one of the grocery stores!

Over the weekend we: the Husband, the Cousin, and I, boarded a bus for Killarney. I’ll have to do a post about Irish buses (someone remind me of this). These are not the stanky buses I’ve encountered in the past, these are NICE. A bit of trivia: if a town has Kil or Kill (Cill in Gaelic) in the name it means church. I know Killarney had a cathedral, so perhaps it’s referring to a main church, rather than village churches? Anyway, the drive was beautiful.

Our main planned activity for the day was a jaunting car ride. Jaunting cars have been around for at least a couple hundred years. They are generally a small (2-4 person) carriage pulled by one horse. Our horse was Pixie, and Pixie had an attitude. We also failed to get a photo of Pixie. Three people, all able bodied, with cameras, and none of us took a photo of the poor horse. Failure. The drive took us through a part of Killarney National Park. What a gorgeous place. It is nestled at the foot of the tallest mountains in Ireland (all of 1,000 metres, a little over 3,000 feet). What they lack in height they make up in beauty.

Also in the park are black cattle. Our guide informed us that this is where the black milk of Ireland comes from (Guinness, FYI). We also encountered an Irish submarine:

Within the park grounds is Ross Castle, a rather lovely tower house style castle. While we did not tour inside the castle, we did walk around it.

After our jaunting car ride we headed into Killarney itself. What a cute town it is. Did we take photos of the cute town? No. Sigh. We failed on the travel documenting side of things. Did I have the best chocolate muffin ever? Yes! Did I get a photo of it? Yes!

I guess we know where my priorities lie. Castles and food. No surprise there.

I promise to do better on the grand adventure to Galway next weekend. The brother is flying in to join our merry crew. Stay tuned for the first driving on the other side of the car/road experience. This could prove interesting.

I will leave you with this photo. I might have failed at taking other photos, but I’m pretty proud of how this one came out:

I have always lived on the West Coast (the right coast). I spent several formative years in Southern California, and where I consider home has a high percentage of Hispanic population, therefore, I consider myself fairly knowledgeable regarding Mexican food. Right or wrong, but I do. Tamales might just be my favorite food item. Okay, so the point here is that I like Mexican food and I have a decent knowledge of cooking Mexican food. I may not cook like an authentic Mexican cook, but I have things that I make decently, and I have things that I make like a gringo cooking Mexican food.

Fast forward to now. Ireland. Great place and I love being here. But we are in a Mexican food desert. I see that there is a Mexican restaurant in Killarney and we are going there this weekend, but I am afraid to try it. This is why:

We decided one day that we would have chicken taco salad for dinner. This is normally a very simple endeavor. This time it proved to not be so simple. The taco seasoning available (I chose to go with a packet rather than having to buy all of the spices required to make home made) was strangely sweet and odd tasting. I grew up on Lawry’s taco seasoning and it is still the one that tastes “right” to me. The option currently available to me was no where near right. I like refried beans on my salad and I was pleased to see that Tesco had some under their label. Ugh. They tasted rather like taking baked beans and mashing them up. Thus far I have not found pinto beans (or black beans) to make my own refried beans. Making pico de gallo went all right until I tried to find a jalapeno. I knew I had seen some fresh ones at some point, but none were in the stores now. I did find fresh cilantro (coriander here) though! All in all it was a failed experiment.

There are a couple of bright points: produce here is wonderful. Especially when the produce stand sets up on Thursday mornings and is available through Saturday. Cheap and yummy. Also, Irish chicken (or beef, or pork) is crazy good. The labels tell you exactly what farm the meat came from!

The taco seasoning issue will be solved when the daughter arrives in early July. She’s bringing Lawry’s packets with her 🤩

Now that we have been in Newcastle West for nearly two weeks we feel like we are beginning to fall into the rhythm of life here. There have been a few fun discoveries along the way!

Firstly, there are two different types of Irish lilt (many regional dialects, just like anywhere else though!): the kind you (a non Irish native) can understand and the kind you can’t. We asked a kindly older gentleman at the bus stop if we were in the right place. He answered us. We think. About every fifth word sounded somewhat familiar. I think his friend saw that we were stumped as to what the first man was saying and repeated it in a manner in which we could understand. We certainly appreciate not having to admit that we were not comprehending. And I’m pretty decent at understanding people with thick accents most of the time.

Another discovery: ugly, older American cars exist here. Now, I have to confess that I did not traipse through the yard to see if this was right hand drive or left hand drive. Just the fact that it was present was enough to confound me…

We have a town heron, she/he is a gray heron. We are using the name Harriet (the property owners called her that, so it stuck). Harriet owns the stretch of river in front of our place. She will chase off any other birds that dares to enter her territory. There are oodles (technical term) of rooks (smaller than crows) and they think they should be allowed to hang out here too. Harriet disagrees. I can spend a ridiculous amount of time watching her antics.

On the US west coast Dubliner cheese is widely available, as is Kerrygold butter. I like both immensely but I always wondered, are these REALLY Irish? Do the Irish eat these, or are they just sold to Americans, at fairly high prices, so they feel like they’re getting real Irish products? I am happy to report that on both of those items they are truly sold in Irish grocery stores!

It is a common thought that Europeans don’t use ice and Americans do. I would like to point out that the other night at the pub my husband was asked if I wanted ice in my Bullmer’s cider. He, wisely, said NO! But local guy sitting near us did have ice in his. Huh. Anyway, so, ice. We are blessed with a reasonably sized fridge and freezer. I think this size is common in this area too. Do you see ice cube trays to buy at the store? No. so, what do the Irish use to make ice?

I suspect that may be enough random musings for the day, but I could go on and on (Restraint? Moi? Si)…

No matter how strange, wonderful, weird, one-eyebrow-raising we may find things here, we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have these experiences. And I’m sure there will be many more fun bits to share as we go on 🙂

We have been asked by some locals what is the most difficult part thus far of this experience. We’ve fumbled for an answer, the most obvious to us is that it was incredibly hard to leave everything, and everyone, that we know and love behind. But, that was a given. At this point, and it is early days yet, I feel that the most difficult adjustment has been remembering that we are not on vacation. We are living here. It’s a different mind set (no, I cannot have dessert every night).

We have been very fortunate in having our hosts, Rick and Joanne here. They know so many people! In addition, they have both gone out of their way to make certain that our stay will be comfortable. This includes buying a small BBQ so my grilling freak husband can use it! Rick also took us to a couple of out of the way sights – I’ll detail those in a moment. Many thanks to them both for their kindness.

What have we done? What have we seen? Well, anyone who knows me knows that my first stop would be the bakery in town. I was most certainly not disappointed! Marguerite’s is absolutely delicious. I admit, shamefacedly, that I neglected to take a photo of my yummy pancakes. I shall whip myself with fresh pasta from Aldi for that mistake. Other critical reconnoitering was done at 3 of the 4 grocery stores in the village. The Tesco is a bit further walk – we will go there tomorrow morning. I have to figure out which ones I like best! We have learned to always carry a €1 coin and a €2 coin when going to the grocery store. Why? Because that is how you get a shopping cart. You put the appropriate coin in a slot on the handle (depends on the store what denomination of coin is required), this releases a chain and allows you to take a cart. When you return the cart to the cart park area and reattach the chain your coin is released. Funny, there are no carts just sitting in the parking lot here.

Yesterday morning Rick took us out in his car (I remembered to go to the passenger side!!!). He had a couple of out of the way sights to show us. The first place we stopped was St Bridgid’s Well.

Essentially, if you drink from this well you should be cured of any pains you may have. It is a naturally occurring, artesian well. The water was amazingly clear and crisp. So far, so good on the pains.

The next stop was at a path that goes through an old train tunnel. The path was closed for renovations (a second tunnel under the highway is being constructed so that the path connects with the Great Southern Trail). No, mom/dad, we did not hop a fence that said keep out…

Our final stop was at Glenquin Castle. It’s on this random back country road but happens to be one of the finest examples of tower castles in Ireland.

The caretaker did not answer the phone so we were unable to go inside. It was still a fascinating experience!

Enough ramblings for one day. Stay tuned for more “Thoughts From My Brain”!

I didn’t do any posts while we were in Connecticut. Bad me.

One of the places my daughter in law and I went was to Costco. Now, this is not a big deal in the Pacific Northwest – we had a Costco 5 minutes from the house. And there aren’t many areas in our general vicinity that were more than 15 minutes from a Costco. It was an hour drive to the nearest Costco from Groton. An hour! Not because there was traffic, but because it was that far away. How do these people survive? And then the parking lot…it was adorable. It was a mini Costco parking lot.

We had a wonderful time with our daughter in law and grandson. We didn’t get to spend nearly enough time with our oldest son though. Uncle Sam required his presence far more than we appreciated. We went to the zoo, explored Mystic Seaport, walked around Mystic itself (Sift (a newer bakery/cafe in town) – you stole my heart!) and just generally enjoyed our time there. My mom flew to Connecticut for the last couple of days that we were there. It was very strange leaving her behind. She heads to Germany today.

While we loved our time in Connecticut, it is now time for the new adventure to begin! I didn’t intend to start it by losing my passport while in the hotel in Boston. Okay, I didn’t lose it, I just couldn’t figure out where I had put it. After begging for some assistance from St Anthony it suddenly popped into my brain where I had stashed it. Not a good few moments there.

Let me start with the negative and get that out of the way…I now understand people who are driven to violence over seat backs being reclined all the way back. You see, we are spoiled, Alaska Airlines (always our choice if available) has a special seat design. You don’t get a seat back reclined to the point where it is 6 inches from your face. This lovely 757 – seriously didn’t realize these were still flying – has a terrible seat design. Yes, I do have long legs, but when that woman in front of me put her seat all the way back I could not even sit forward in my seat, I had to turn. It was hand’s down the most uncomfortable plane ride I have ever had. Done whining.

Now we are in Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, Republic of Ireland!!! As I sit here typing I am looking out the window at the partial remains of the Earl of Desmond’s castle from the 15th century.

We are very fortunate to be staying at a flat owned by a couple from Salem, OR so we have bonded over our northwesterness. Rick and Joanne happen to be here working on their other properties, so we have some time with them. Rick seems to know everyone in town! The bonus to that is that he took us onto private land that happens to have the remains of a Knights Templar stronghold from the 11th century!! Oh yeah, the history nut in me geeked out. This wasn’t some fixed up castle, this was incredible! We were able to climb around – carefully.

We are at the end of our first day in Ireland and it is wonderful indeed. Now to try to shake the exhaustion. We arrived at 6:00AM and have pushed through but brain fog is setting in.

This is it. All of it. And I have to say that while we thought we were organized, we really weren’t. The learning curve is rather large on this one. There will be significant rethinking of everything once we are in Connecticut. Where we should arrive right about dawn. But then we will be with Most Adorable Grandson (and his parents). That makes everything good.

Lesson #2 came at SeaTac. There was no pre-check line the direction we wanted to go, but we decided to use that security check anyway, instead of going down to the main one. MISTAKE. Yes, we got the cute little card that allowed us to keep our shoes and jackets on, but all of the electronics had to come out. Oh yes, all of them. This failed on the fun-o-meter. There we were, trying to find everything in our poorly organized bags, get it into bins, trying to keep track of the many bins it took – just a disaster all around. Lesson learned, thank you very much.

To the children we are leaving here in the Northwest, we will miss you terribly (spouses and grandpuppies included). To the many friends we have had to say so long to (and the many we didn’t get a chance to see), we will miss you terribly. To all of our wonderful family: stay healthy, get healthy, we will miss you terribly too. We will be back before you know it. Besides…we have to get all the stuff we ended up leaving at my dad’s! To all my shoes and clothes that I left behind, I will miss you terribly too 

So here we go: on another adventure together. The first adventure was raising three wonderful children together. Now, for another one…

Here we go….

This blog idea is a work in progress. Forgive me while I learn 

Who? What? What?!?!?! Yeah. Us too. The quick version of the back story here: I had some health issues about 3 years ago (things are much improved) but it made the husband and I take stock of our lives, where we are, where we’ve been and where do we want to go from here. We want to see things! We want to live in a different place and really get to know it. We want to experience the world. We were fortunate enough that his supervisors were willing to find a way to work with this crazy idea. He’s worked remotely for a while now – he’s just going to be really remote sometimes, to support us on our grand adventure.

The house is sold. The emptiness seems to make it easier to say goodbye. A wonderful, young family has purchased it and will add their memories to the ones we’ve made here. A house is more than the materials it is built from. It is the people and their thoughts, emotions and actions that make a house a home. The new owners know that they are getting a home. A happy home. Not a perfect home, but a happy one.

I’m wrapping up my full time employment. My boss couldn’t be more supportive. I will miss everyone there and it has been a fantastic place to work.

Saying goodbye (see you later really) to friends and family is hard. Saying goodbye to my therapist, acupuncturist, massage therapist, and medical providers (you know who you are!) is hard. Saying goodbye to this beautiful valley that we have been blessed to live in is hard. Tulips will always make me think of home. But a grand, new adventure awaits!

Come along. I hope you enjoy the ride –