Almost 3 month mark

I can’t believe that I came here almost 3 months ago. I am just 2 days shy of hitting 3 months. I do apologize for anyone out there reading this that I have been delinquent in my posting and this will undoubtedly be a rather long post.

I have been rather busy in my posting absence. Ami, my friend, came to visit and we did quite a bit of traveling. We started off touring Dublin her first weekend here including the hop on hop off bus all over town, visiting Grafton street (the rodeo drive of Dublin), evening hitting a pub on her first evening in town. On Sunday she visited my church and then we had lunch at the market in Dun Laoghaire and walked along the coast of the Irish Sea. I worked Mon-Wed and Ami continued touring Dublin and the surrounding area.

I recently began a bible study here in Dublin. Our first week there were 3 of us. It may stay a small group, but Lauren sent out an invitation to the American Woman’s club in Dublin and she has had a couple ladies interested. We’ll just see what happens :)

As I wrote in my previous blog, I picked up a car in Dublin city centre on a Wed. evening after work and drove all of 3 blocks to my apartment and parked. Definitely some of my most stressful driving! I made Ami get up super early and leave Dublin before the morning rush on Wed. We had a GPS system that we called Suzi and she had a bit of confusion our first morning trying to get out of Dublin, but eventually she got back on track and was invaluable at navigating us on the small winding and rarely marked roads of the Irish countryside. On our way out of Dublin we found our way to where Bono and Enya have homes on a beautiful cliffside South of Dublin. We then had a morning hike around Glendalough and had breakfast outside near an ancient cathedral. Then we headed South to our lodging just outside of Wexford. It was a castle/farmhouse…interesting combination. There was castle ruins and then attached to it was a 4 story farmhouse. And it came complete with animals…. Once we checked in and left our luggage Ami and I were leaving to go out and find some dinner when I noticed something black and fairly good sized crawling in the hallway outside our room. It was too big for me to handle, so I notified the owner and he wanted me to show him the problem. It turns out it was a bat. Hmmmm I was not so excited at this point! The owner wanted me to pet it and I went running down the steps and out the door. It is a minor miracle that I was able to get any sleep that night. We had dinner at a local pub and even toasted to our Irish adventures with Baileys Irish Cream! The next four days were a whirlwind that included visits to the Kennedy Family homestead, Hook Head lighthouse, a ferry ride for our little rental car, a tour of the Waterford Crystal factory, several pub visits including some traditional Irish music, a tour and tasting of Jamison Irish Whiskey, kissing the Blarney stone, trekking up the hills to see Charles Fort (old military barracks) in Kinsale, and walking around the Rock of Cashel. I would say that was a fairly full 4 days.

I worked on and off the next week and we took at day trip to Northern Ireland. We booked our tour through a local company and arrived at the bus station around 5:30 am to embark on our adventures. We went to Belfast, Giant’s Causeway and an old rope bridge (it’s cool, but I can’t remember the name of it right now) and Derry. I made one big error…all I brought with me is Euros. I knew that Northern Ireland was considered a separate country from the Republic of Ireland but I forgot about the currency! Northern Ireland uses British Pounds and not Euros! After our touring, we had some time to wander around Derry and we found a bank that would exchange some euros to pounds so that we could buy something to eat. You live and learn! It turned out beautifully and we really enjoyed our day. We got back to my apartment late that evening.

Our next adventure was a weekend in London. I know that I complain frequently about how expensive Dublin is, but it is nothing compared to London!!! The dollar to pound conversion is so bad that you have to multiply the pound amount by 2 and then add some. For example, Ami ordered a chicken ceaser salad for dinner that evening and it was 12.50 pounds. So coverted to dollars it was over $25 and then you have to add the Value Added Tax (VAT) and their “service fees” and the salad ends up being well over $30 and it was similar in size to the ones you get at Panera for $6-7.

With the crazy cost aside, we had a wonderful time. Ami rode the London Eye and took lots of pictures. We went to an Evensong service at Westminster Abby, took lots of pictures of the Big Bend, saw Wicked (theater production related to Wizard of Oz), and we even say the time trials for the 2007 Tour de France! Those bikers fly by and then come the camera crews including a motorcyclist taking corners really fast with a guy on the back of the bike standing up with a massive tv camera. It was quite a site to see. We went to the tower of London and ogled the crown jewels. What is a girl to do when she sees a 530 carat diamond! :) Ami and I were in such awe of the crowns, scepters and rings that we rode the moving walkway 4 times just to stare at the jewels! We got back to Dublin on Sunday evening and Ami took the bus back to the airport this morning. It’s hard to believe that she was here for 2 ½ weeks. Now I have to get some real work done this week!

I almost forgot about our stop at Harrods department store! I tried on some beautiful shoes made by Prada, Jimmy Choo and some others. One pair of shoes I looked at was ½ off and the discounted price came to about $600. It was fun to dream. We even tried on some funny feathers. We saw a wedding reception in one of our hotels and the women really do wear hats with feathers or these hair clips that have feathers attached that are around 18 inches in width. I had seen the likes of these before in fashion magazines, but I never really believed that people wore them!!! I think I’ll keep the feathers off my head for now! Now it is time to unpack and do some laundry after all our travels.