Quiet Weekend - 8 weeks til return date

It's Sunday evening and I have had a blissfully quiet weekend. I read, slept, ate, and just bummed around. After nearly 6 weeks of company, I needed some R&R. I loved having everyone here, but I was worn out! It feels like fall here (well actually winter the other day), so I'm going to make a pot of chili.

Now it is back to work to try and get lots done before I head back to the states in 8 weeks. See ya all soon!

Return Date, Visitors & Misc.

I have officially set my return date. I will fly back to Denver in mid-November, celebrate Thanksgiving with my family and return to work in the Denver office on November 26. I will be home to celebrate the Christmas season with family and friends!

I have a very full apartment right now! My cousin, Cherie and her friend (Susannah) and Susannah's sister (Corie) are all staying with me. The beds are full and someone will have to sleep on my very modern no-fluff sofa tonight. We just returned from church and some sightseeing in Dublin. We had a picnic on the steps of the church in Trinity college and tried to get some shelter from the rain. They have 3 more nights in Dublin before they head to Paris for a few days.

In other news, it appears that my apartment complex is very popular for other people on assignment with my company. There is one guy who is in the building next door and we can wave to each other from our balconies. (Kinda like the building on Friends). Well, a new Canadian guy come to Dublin a couple weeks ago and he moved into my building yesterday. Not just my building, but MY FLOOR! For someone who usually keeps work and personal life a bit more separated, it is weird! Cherie, Susannah and I were leaving for some touring yesterday and we ran into Jeff with all of his boxes moving in to the building. I guess I'll have to think twice before I run to the grocery store in my sweats for coffee! :)

Also, I forgot to mention in my last blog about my manual driving skills. So, as many of you know, I have not learned to drive a manual and over 90% of the cars in Ireland are manual. It is very difficult and much more expensive to rent an automatic car. So, when Bill was here, he drove. One evening in Edinburgh, Scotland we found a great parking lot and he let me drive. I have to say that just a couple weeks before I had done the same thing with my dad and managed to move the car about 5 feet as I jerked it 5 times and killed it each time. So, when I was driving the second time I was sceptical that I would even get the car to move, but I am happy to report that I drove it in figure 8's in a parking lot and didn't kill it once. I still haven't gotten out of first gear, but it was a vast improvement. At the rate I'm going, I may be able to drive a manual car around my 80th birthday! Maybe I'll have a late life crisis and get a sports car for 80....hmmm. Hopefully that brings a smile to anyone reading this!

Bill's Visit

Bill just left for the airport a couple hours ago and I'm washing the sheets and getting ready for my next round of visitors who arrive in 4 days. Bill and I had a wonderful time traveling in Ireland and Scotland. We visited some of the Dublin landmarks - Dublin Castle, Christ Church, Grafton Street and Temple Bar before leaving town. We rented a car and headed to the south of Ireland. We made lots of wrong turns getting to Powerscourt Gardens (in the Wicklow Mountains about 1/2 an hour south of Dublin), but we saw the most incredible scenery and Bill loved driving the manual car fast on the narrow winding roads. We stayed in Waterford and Lismore, and saw the Waterford Crystal factory, Lismore Castle and Cahir Castle. We also just meandered around some of the small towns in the Ireland countryside (Passage East and Dungarvan). We had a slow pace and just enjoyed our time. We happened across an arcade and played air hockey and later that night our B&B had a pool table. I'm sad to say that Bill won both. Seeing as my pool skills are severely lacking, I need to brush up on my air hockey skills!

I managed to work a little bit in the middle of the week while Bill was exploring Ireland and then we flew to Edinburgh, Scotland for a few days. We were not planning to rent a car, but after our earlier driving experiences, Bill decided to rent a car so that we could get to St. Andrews famous golf course. I did some exploring in Edinburgh and walked the royal mile our first night and then the spent most of next day at St. Andrews. I have to admit I don't fully comprehend the significance of St. Andrews to the game of golf, but Bill explained that it is the home of golf where it has been played forever. We looked at the prices to play the Old Course and found out that you have to apply over a year in advance in writing to apply for a tee time, which may not even be granted. Once you do get a tee time, the cost for 18 holes is about $275. I'd rather go shopping than play golf anyday :)

We also saw the Britannia Royal Yacht, which was the British Royal Family Yacht until it was decommissioned in 1997. Prince Charles and Princess Diana also honeymooned on the Britannia Royal Yacht. It is now docked a couple miles from Edinburgh city centre. Our last stop was the Edinburgh Castle which includes the stone of scone and the crown jewels. Jewels are always nice to look at, but the ones in London are much more impressive. Then we headed back to Dublin. Now its time to prepare for my cousin and two friends who are arriving on Thursday. I also need to spend some time focusing on work!

Parents Visit

My parents just spent 9 days travelling in Ireland. It was wonderful to have them here and also to join them on some of their adventures. They did some sightseeing in Dublin as well as Belfast in Northern Ireland while I was working. Then I took a few days off and went with them on a road trip around Southern and Western Ireland. My dad very accurately called it a blitz tour of Ireland. They saw as much of Ireland as possible in their limited time. They were able to visit my church in Dublin, see the Book of Kells, Grafton Street, Dublin Castle and Christ Church as well as my office and ride the train South to Dun Laoghaire and North to Howth.


I had a couple of surprises planned for my mom to celebrate her birthday, which was the middle of their time here. I had a few of my friends over for an appetizer party and had a birthday cake already baked and put candles on it and we sang. My mom was out on the deck and she came into the apartment singing happy birthday thinking that it was one of the friends birthdays. She was certainly surprised. As a birthday present, I got seats to Riverdance. It is incredible how fast their feet move. We sat right up front and got into the energy of the performance!

On our road trip allowed us time to see some of the Irish countryside and also some of the sites along the way. We went to several castles, Ashford castle, Ross Castle, and Kilkenny castle. I have to tell you that I can’t remember all the centuries and historical info, but Ashford castle is now a very fancy hotel. Ross Castle is very old and is a historic sight and Kilkenny castle has been refurbished to where it would have been in the Victorian Period. One of my favourite parts of our trip was a day touring around the Dingle Peninsula. It is the most western part of Ireland and it is very picturesque. It could explain why I took over 400 pictures while my parents were here!


We also made stops at the Cliffs of Moher, Muckross House, Charles Fort, Rock of Cashel, and Glendalough. My father was quite frightened to take my Mom and I to the Waterford crystal factory. We made it out of there with 1 crystal piece each and we didn’t completely break the bank. ☺ Our last stop was Powerscourt Gardens just south of Dublin. I had never seen flowers and gardens like these. My mom compared the gardens to Versailles in France. The gardens were not as large, but every bit as beautiful and amazing. I took over 140 pictures of just flowers. You have to love the digital camera!

It was an amazing blessing to spend time with my parents and to travel with them. They completely wore me out! They departed at 3:30am yesterday and they are now safely home in Colorado. I have only 4 nights to get ready for my next visitor. Bill arrives on Saturday and we also have a full travel schedule. Now I need to get the sheets and towels all washed and ready!

Upcoming Dublin Visitors

I am very excited for my visitors to start arriving! My parents will be here on Saturday...only 4 days away. My apartment is scrubbed, I have bought extra groceries and I have packed a suitcase for them to take home. Now I'm just waiting til they get here. We will be spending a few days in Dublin along with taking a road trip around SouthWest and Southern Ireland. I just found out that we will be in Tralee during a festival time. There is a pagent called the Rose of Tralee early in the week and then a festival.

Only 5 days after my parents leave, my next visitor arrives. Bill is coming from Dallas, TX and we will spend some time in Ireland, visit Waterford and a few towns in the South of Ireland and then fly over to Edinburgh, Scotland for a couple days. I am hoping to see the castle of Edinburgh...I have heard that it is amazing!

Then 4 days after Bill leaves, my cousin Cheri and her friend arrive. They have not ironed out their travel plans yet, but the are flying into Dublin and out of Paris.

I know that I probably won't have much time to Blog in the upcoming weeks, so I wanted to let you know what I am up to. I'll be busy just washing the sheets and towels around here! :)

I also formally extended my time in Ireland for 1 month. I am scheduled to go back to the states on November 16. My office in Ireland has requested a longer extension, and I am going to wait and see how it goes. Regardless, I am planning to go back to spend Thanksgiving with my family.

I have also put together pictures from when Ami visited. Send me an email if you are interested in the link to the slideshow. Just to warn you it is 100 pictures, but you can scroll thru them fast.

SiSi's and Marks & Spencers

I went to lunch with a girl that I work with at this tiny little Italian place in the town where we work called SiSi's. When I say tiny, it is tiny for even Ireland. it has 4 tables and maybe 10 chairs. I ordered the lasagna and it was excellent. I only ate about half of it and was full. I was really wishing that I had a refrigerator back at the office so that I could take it and enjoy the rest for dinner. Not sure if I wrote this before, but there is no refrigerator and no microwaves in the office. NONE! It sure makes taking your lunch challenging. The girl that I was eating with jokingly said that I could ask the restaurant if they would keep it for me until after work. Even though I knew she was joking, I decided to ask. Crazy enough they said sure. I don't think I have ever asked a restaurant to hang onto my leftovers and refrigerate them for me! :) I picked it on my way to the train after work and happily enjoyed the rest of my lasagna later.

Marks & Spencers is a UK based company that has stores in Ireland that sell high end foods. Similar in produce and meat quality to Whole Foods. M&S specializes in prepared but uncooked food. For example, they have this wonderful chicken breast with wild mushroom sauce that comes in a little tin container and you just place it in the oven. It sounds like microwave meals, but they aren't frozen, they only last a few days and actually taste good. So, I went in there yesterday only to discover the shelves were nearly empty. I had been in a different M&S on Monday and it was nearly cleaned out too. I thought it was just because it was a holiday weekend and nearly everyone was off work Sat-Mon. I got back to the office and asked a bit and found out that Ireland has severely restricted food imports from the UK due to the recent confirmed cases of mad cow in England. I have not encountered a nearly empty grocery store before. They have about 3 sections of shelves about 6 feet wide and 6 feet high that are normally filled with all of the breads, croissants and pastries. Just to put something on the shelf, they have filled all 3 sections with hardened meringue cups. I think anything that they had in storage they are putting on the shelves just to not have a completely empty store. It was very odd. I know that there are recalls of certain food from time to time in the US, but they have never impacted my ability to buy a variety of grocery items from produce to meat to baked goods. I went in search of yogurt and strawberries and whole wheat bread. I walked out with empty hands...very strange.

Fire Alarm

About 6 pm the most horrendous sounding fire alarm started going off in my apartment. It was so loud that I could barely stand it...I wanted to sit on the floor and put my hands over my ears like small kids do when they hear a loud noise. So, in my sweats, I grabbed a jacket and my handbag and turned off the stove where I was cooking dinner and went down the stairs. An hour later the alarm was still going off and there had been no fire department and no management personnel. One of the girls that I was talking with mentioned going to the pub and so 4 of us went to the pub around the corner for drinks. An Irish girl, a Canadian girl, an Irish guy and me. None of us knew each other before tonight. It was a blast! We talked about Dublin life, places that I have to see in Ireland, jobs, European travel, etc. It was one of those rare occasions where you have your evening planned out and it goes completely different than expected and yet it was so much fun. Now I actually know a few of the people in my building.