Glendalough

This past Sunday we took a drive south of Dublin and into the Wicklow mountains. We meandered our way through the countryside on narrow winding roads. The scenery was beautiful; green as usual but also with flowers in full bloom as we are well into spring. We were treated to many broad vistas and noted the more manicured and lush landscape when compared with the rugged Rockies we are used to. (Interestingly enough Ireland does not have a large number of trees as the island was deforested long ago to build ships and dwellings. There is a large effort underway to restore the forests. )
We drove from one little hamlet to the next until we arrived in the Glendalough Valley. The valley is the site of a Monastery that was settled by St. Kevin in the 6th century. We hiked through the valley past two small lakes all the while exploring the remains of the settlement. There are a few small churches, houses and graveyards. The most interesting site is a well-preserved four story stone tower used as a lookout and for protection at time of attacks. In all the rural setting was a welcome change of pace for the city exploring we had been doing so much of.

Dude, where's my dryer??

Well after a month in Ireland we have settled into a routine and figured our way around some of the differences here. Nothing is drastic but added together it does make for a different experience. The largest difference is of course space or rather the lack of it. As with most places around the world property is at a premium in Ireland and you don’t get as much living space as you are used to in the states. Our first apartment in stepdaside was two bedrooms and less than 1000 sq ft. We have since moved into a town house of sorts and it has three bedrooms (as well as an extra room from the converted attic) and about 1600 square feet. The living space is fine, we each have our own room there is space to home school and the kids are not always underfoot – well maybe I should ask Yvette about that.

As you size up the living space you start to see the tradeoffs made to make the best use of what’s available. The main difference is the lack of storage and considerably smaller appliances. Let’s start with appliances. In the apartment we had an all in one washer and dryer, not stacked truly all in one. Put the clothes in they get washed then dried and come out done, of course its 3 hours later and they looked like they’ve been balled up under your bed they’re so wrinkled – but that’s ok because you can fit two pair of pants and two shirts in each and every load. Well in the new place we don’t have the wrinkling issues because we have no dryer, and from the looks of it neither do any of our neighbors. Yes in a country where it’s overcast and rainy a great deal of the time to preferred method of clothes drying is the line outside. This is particularly fun with your unmentionables ;)

Next there is the heating / hot water system. All heating here is via hot water so there is a boiler you need to manage in the kitchen. It heats the water, which is feed through a radiator system to heat the house. It works well but there is not really a thermostat so the house cycles between really hot and chilly, furthermore it’s an expensive system to run so it’s not always on. Glad we are not here during the winter. The boiler also creates the hot water for the washer, dishwasher and shower so we run out often in spite of having a 15 gallon storage tank upstairs (remember it’s not always on). Lastly, we have a frig that’s about ½ the size of ours at home, it works fine and we are happy to this larger “American style” unit since the more standard equipment is a little larger than the your kids dorm room refrigerator. By the way, have I mentioned there are no outlets in any of the bathrooms? Well Yvette has mastered drying her hair with her compact mirror in the bedroom.

As I mentioned before once you live here for awhile you start to notice the lack of storage as well. Our few suitcases of clothes fit fine but frankly we would need to make a few trips to the goodwill to shed many of our current belongings before we could get all our stuff to fit – no walk in closets here. Then you start to think about all the other crap we have and where would we put that, things like our bikes, sporting gear or even holiday decorations. I would hate to be tripping over Matt’s hockey bag all the time. No need to worry about the lawn mower though our garden (i.e. yard) is only 20x20 I could mow it with a weedeater.

London and the ToothFairy

I feel it’s only fitting to start this post by making the tooth fairy’s international reach known. That’s right Becca lost here front tooth outside St Paul’s Cathedral while we were site seeing. That night she put it under her pillow and the tooth fairy replaced it with one pound sterling – a great deal when you consider the exchange rate! So second graders everywhere (and especially at Explorer) rest assured wherever you may roam if you lose a tooth the tooth fairy will be there!!!

Aside from the excitement of lost teeth we have a great time this past weekend in London. We continue to be blessed with spectacular weather and were actually wishing for shorts on Sunday as temps soared into the high teens (that’s the mid to high seventies for those using the Fahrenheit scale). With the great weather we were able to go nonstop from morning until evening and walked 18 miles between Saturday and Sunday as we criss-crossed central London. We had great fun at all the major sites Big Ben, Parliament, Tower of London, London Eye, St Paul’s , Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard. We walked through all the famous squares and rode the double decker buses (the hot and stuffy buses) through town. At one point we were on our way to Trafalger Square and we headed the wrong direction through Piccadilly Circus and ended up in the heart of the shopping district; just as we turned around Matt noticed we were in front of a toy store. Well this wasn’t just any toy store but Hamleys toy store which is reported to be the largest in the world so of course we ducked in. The place was frenetic with kids, toys and demonstrations everywhere on the five floors of the store. We managed to escape but not before purchasing the kids some new skates that strap to their shoes and light up as you go – they are kind of a take off of heeleys . Actually the skates proved handy as we spent a great deal of time in the beautiful parks going through St James, Green and picnicking in Hyde Park. We did our best to travel as locals and navigated the city by foot and on the tube. We strolled up and down the Thames and crossed the Millennium Bridge.

London is a spectacular place and we all really enjoyed it, everywhere you look there is something to see, something old, rare or with historical importance. All in all though it may have been Becca who was the most interested. She has just learned about the UK in school and seemed fascinated to see it come to life. She was intrigued with Big Ben, which proved bigger than she ever imagined, loved Buckingham palace, lectured us on speaker’s corner at Hyde Park and she couldn’t wait to see the Beefeaters or the Crown Jewels.

As you can imagine we were exhausted at the end of each night, we would all sit quietly on the tube ride home but the kids would get energetic for the last bit home as we walked and they skated back to the hotel with there wheels flashing in the dark and everyone’s attention focused on the colorful toys. That’s all for now, taking this weekend off to catch up on some errands and get further settled in the new house.

More pictures here

Moving Day

Well we finally found a place to live. In the spirit of "just in time" planning we found it Wed., signed the lease yesterday and move today (Friday) which is the day we need to be out of our curent apartment. So we will pack up our little car (about a 1000 times) and drag our stuff over.

The new place is basically a townhouse and a little bigger than our current apartment -- the kids will each get their own room. This is of course a good thing as they tend to keep each other up at night talking and giggling -- ahhh to be a kid again ;)

We will post some pictures of the place and neighborhood next week -- we are leaving for the weekend later tonight.

Castles and Cliffs

This weekend we took off to the west side of Ireland to see the Cliffs of Moher. We started bright and early in Saturday morning at 5:30am and headed to Heuston station where we boarded a train to Limerick. It was a nice ride but we all nodded off for most of the trip. We loaded onto a coach and briefly toured Limerick. Limerck is on the river Shannon and was officially chartered as a city in 1197. From Limerick we headed out into the countryside and headed for Bunratty Castle. Bunratty Castle was built in approximately 1425 and was the stronghold of the O’Briens – kings and later Earls of Thomond. The castle has been nicely restored complete with 15^th and 16^th century furnishings. We were able to tour the entire castle from the towers to the dungeon. It was a very impressive place.

Outside the castle was a Folk village which gave us a real understanding of how common people (farmers, blacksmiths etc.) lived in 18^th century. All the buildings were relocated but are original. With thatch roofs, turf in the fire place and working farms with pigs and chickens it felt like we stepped back in time. We really enjoyed the area but wished we had much more time to investigate all there was to see.

After Bunratty we jumped back on the bus and drove out to the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs tower 850 feet over the Atlantic and are an impressive site. From Moher it was on to lunch in the tiny costal town of Dolin, we ate in the Gus O’Conner Pub which was established in 1832. We continued along the Atlantic coast and past Galway Bay. Along the way the land was crisscrossed with rock fences that have stood for centuries. The walls were created with the rocks that were dug out of the ground so that the land could be prepared for grazing. The countryside was dotted with the remains of many castles and famine houses (old rock houses left as a reminder of the great potato famine of the 1800’s)

Back in Galway we boarded back onto the train for the long trip back to Dublin, as we passed through the countryside it’s easy to see why Ireland is called the Emerald Island, it’s green as far as you can see with stone walls, sheep and castles everywhere you look. Between signal problems and track work it took a few hours longer to get back so we ended a very long day at 11:30pm.

On Sunday we continued our search for a place to live and ended up in Malahide. What would we do there, well tour a castle of course. This castle one of the oldest in Ireland has a completely different look that Bunratty. Rather than cold stone walls Malahide castle is richly appointed with painted plaster walls, interesting paintings and ornate furnishings. Malahide castle has been occupied by the same family for 800 years and was only recently vacated (1975). Outside the castle is a huge park and the kids appreciated the time to run around after a weekend of site seeing. See a little more here.

U2

Well, I'm sorry to say we have not run into any members of U2 just yet, although there are many stories (urban legends!) of them showing up in the local pubs. Rest assured I will flood the blog with pictures and comments should I bump into Bono or the edge.

In the meantime all I can offer is the picture to the right which is reported to be U2's penthouse for hosting their rock star friends. It's right in the middle of the city overlooking the Liffee River. Rumor has it you can rent the place for yourself for 1200 Euro. So if someone wants to take a collection we would be happy to stay there for a night or two in hopes of increasing the probability of a sighting.

The kids and conversion

Well of course everything in Ireland is on the metric system so the kids are having to learn how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, miles to kilometers, pounds to kilograms (or stones). Now this is quite a bit of work for them as it involves all kinds of multiplication and division -- yuck!! As a result they are not always sure how far away something is or what the outside temperature is, however one conversion they have made quickly is from dollars to Euros!! Not that they understand the related value or conversion rate but they have learned to correctly run up to mom or dad and ask " Can I have 5 Euros for....."

This is not an April fools post ;)

Beautiful weekend in Dublin – the sun was shining and the temp was in the high 40’s low 50’s. It was welcome weather with after a dreary week of overcast skies drizzle and chilly temps. So we got all our stuff together, jumped on the train and headed back downtown. There is a lot to see in Dublin and like the rest of Europe all of it’s old! Back home there are those old houses we all grew up in that were built in the 50’s and are in desperate need of remodeling. Here it’s more like St Patricks Cathedral (see right) that was built in 1191 ….hmmm… 300 years before Columbus even “discovered” America so I guess it’s a little older. The Cathedral is quite beautiful; aside from the many staues and monuments one finds in most old churches it also houses a carved stone that was said to cover a well St Patrick used to baptize converts – it’s estimated the carvings are made sometime around the year 800 AD. Speaking of 9^th century we also saw the book of kells. This is a bible containing the gospels and was painstakingly copied and illustrated (by hand of course) by the monks of Iona in the early 800s! Where is the book located, well at Trinity college in the 200,000 volume library that was built in the 1700’s -- of course. We also had a chance to see the remains of the Dublin Castle from medevil times when it was a walled city. There is a long and rich history of conquest in Ireland and Dublin was forever a city under siege.

While we are taking in all these new experiences and culture it’s nice to have a little piece of home every now again. A subway does nicely in this regard for lunch. While they look a little different on the outside the food is exactly the same on the inside!

After a ride through town on the double decker bus (always a fav of the kids) and a walk along the Liffe river we headed back to the train through the park at St. Stephens. Here we took a rest and the kids joined a game of tag – they were quick to learn the new rules of the game called “alaveo”, and of course they now know in Ireland when it’s your turn to chase your not “it”, your “on”. Well back to work (and school) on Monday, I hope the weather holds. Click here for A few more picts if you are interested.