Ireland trip, days 8 and 9: Dublin

Well, Friday wasn't really worth reporting... went to work, taught all day, love my job, you know. After class, I rejoined Tuti, Granny, and e-baby back at the apartment and we had a leisurely dinner in. I needed the rest, since I have caught another cold, and this one is entirely in my ears. OUCH! I am half deaf (more than normal, heh) and the pressure inside my ears makes me wonder whether I'll have a ruptured eardrum. I hope not, but we fly home Monday morning so I'm a little nervous.

This morning was my first full day to really see Dublin, and I've been itching to do the historical walking tour of Dublin ever since I read about it in October. It did not disappoint. The guide was a history graduate of Trinity college and he clearly loves his job. He told us at the beginning that this was less of a tour and more of an attempt to squeeze 3000 years of history into 2 hours, an ambitious goal. While I already knew the large moving parts of Irish history, the tour filled in a lot of the gaps I had, and cleared up a lot of the confusion I've had over the Catholic/Protestant wars over the centuries.

After the tour we had lunch at the market in Temple Bar, and split up: Tuti took e-baby home for a nap, Granny went in search of tickets to a performance of Mozart's Requiem at St Patrick's cathedral, and I wandered Temple Bar and bought way too many souvenirs.

Dublin's a fine city, but it's no Galway. The old parts of town have beautiful architecture. It's the off season now, and the streets are so crowded with people that it isn't comfortable. I imagine that in the high season, it's horrible.

Tomorrow's our last day here. I'm not sure what I want to do. It's a SUnday so lot sof places will be closed. If the weather's nice, I'll look for a playground so that e-baby can have a nice final day of vacation.

Update: Pictures!

I finally had a stable internet connection for posting pictures from the trip. HERE THEY ARE. They are arranged by location, with Chicago (on the way there), Cork City, Galway, and Aran Islands being the chronology, if you wanted to keep them in order.

It's just a big camera dumpsite, so there will be some you don't care about seeing, but flik through and ejoy what you like!

Ireland Trip, days 6 and 7: to Dublin and to Work

Yesterday I woke up early to buy some dramamine to try and relieve this dizziness I've had, and then we took the train to Dublin. Still clear skies, but Heaven Almighty it was COLD. I don't know how Dublin elt so much colder than Galway, but it was. Since I planned to stay at a hotel near the conference while the others stayed at an apartment in the city center, I went along to check into the apt and walk around awhile.



Dublin doesn't have the same WOW factor that Galway has, but there's history oozing from the cracks and there's music in the air and I love it here. Even if it's a little bit seedy, that doesn't disqualify a city from greatness in my book.



Our hosts for the conference took my colleague and me out to dinner last night, and today I taught all day. Great class, great students, lots of lively discussions, I love my job.



Now I am pooped. There isn't much more to say, so I'll bug out here. Tonight I sleep at the hotel on my own again, teach tomorrow, and then afterwards I'll head downtown to join the ladies for the rest of the trip.

Ireland Trip, days 5 and 6: Galway and Aran Islands

We missed the ferry to the Aran Islands on Monday, so instead we spent the day shopping (shucky-darn). There is a pedestrian quarter near Eyre Square that has about lots of little shops and boutiques; some are tchotchkes and souvenirs, but there are also music stores, art shops, sweater shops (we are in the land of cableknit wool sweaters), cafes, bakeries, shoe stores, you get the idea. We also had our first pub lunch at a place that had little living areas straight from the early 70s instead of regular seating. We sat in a nook with a couple of couches and overstuffed armchairs, a big coffee table, and canonical vintage mustard, harvest orange, and avocado colored flowery wallpaper. The food was good, Granny had a pint of Southwick ale, and it was hard to leave when we were finished. Then we took a leisurely walk along the canals and shore of the bay to the town of Salt Hill for some tea. We fed about 30 swans on the way back. I have pictures- it was madness.

Dinner was a low-key broccoli and sirloin steaks.

Tuesday, we got up extra early so we could catch the ferry to the Inis Mor, the largest of the Aran Islands and the very place that the opening sequence from the show Father Ted was flimed. The series' location, fictitious Craggy Island, was apparently based on a conglomeration of the three Aran Islands. And let me tell you-- the flyover scenes opening Father Ted? It looks Exactly Like That in person. There are over 7000 miles of stone fences (hand-built walls). People have lived on the island for literally thousands of years, and there is a ring fort dating back over 3000 years. There are actually 4 fort ruins, but I on;y walked around one of them. There is no handrail at the edge of the sheer cliff that drops hundreds of meters to the water below. It's windy up there. I am so glad e-baby stayed behind at the visitor center for that part of the visit.

We saw the world's smallest church from a distance-- it's on a hilltop an hour's walk from the road-- it is only 6 feet wide. That was nifty. Many of the houses still have thatched rooves. Our tour guide, Patrick Flaherty (one of probably 50 Patrick Flaherties on the islandof only 800 people) can count his family back seven generations on Inis Mor. Most people there go back at least as far.

The islands are also the origin of those cableknit fisherman's sweaters, usually cream-colored with such intricate hand-knit patterns-- you've seen them. As you might guess, we spent the better part of an hour in the large sweater shop and musuem. The store had a special for UPS Worldwide shipping flat-rate of 25 Euros-- any amount. Hee!

In other news, I've had vertigo since we arrived in Ireland and it's getting worse- now I'm just plain dizzy and seasick most of the time. I'm more than a little sick of it and hope that it goes away now that I have some dramamine-equivalent.

In other, other news-- How on earth have we managed to be in Ireland in winter for 6 days and never been rained out???? Charmed lives???? (Knock on wood)

Today we head for Dublin. More later!!

Ireland Trip, day 4: From Cork to Galway

Sunday morning we had a pretty boring morning of breakfast and packing, but e-baby did make a few new friends with a family visiting from Dublin. They had 2 boys, about 2 and 4 years old, who shared a common interest in chicken farming with e-baby. They spent lots of time talking to and feeding the hens while the rest of us got packed up.

We caught the 11:25 bus and had lunch in Limerick. The ride through that part of the country was dotted with the ruins of so many castles that I am pretty sure that at one time in Ireland, all your neighbors had castles. None were functional as anything but very ornate planters, but they were certainly impressive. The scenery was gorgeous, with stocky long-haired black and white horses, dairy cattle and sheep grazing, sometimes in the same pastures.

Arriving in Galway, we found a park with a playground on the way to the hotel, which was only a couple of blocks up the road. Our apartment is really slick, totally IKEA. I have pictures that I'll post on Flickr soon. Mom and I knocked over a Tesco's for groceries while Granny and e-baby played Princesses at the apaprtment (she has all her Disney princess action figures with her). Dinner was lamb, carrots and parsnips, and raspberry meringues. Mmmmmm.

We have 2 balconies-- one overlooking the bay and mountains. We see the spires of several medieval-looking churches reaching up between the row houses and their ceramic chimneys. It is so nice here that I really wish we'd skipped Cork and come straight to Galway.

Today we're going to try to catch a boat to the Aran Islands. The weather continues to be uncharacteristically sunny and dry.

Ireland Trip, day 3: Cork

* Yes, I know that my comments aren't working. I've dug around my profile and can't figure out why. Grr. Sorry. I wish I could hear from you!!!!!

Last night we slept 13 hours, and I had the worst case of sea legs alll day today, so I'm lucky not to have fallen down a flight of stairs, but otherwise everything was fantastic today. This morning we had a nice breakfast at the hotel, and took off walking toward any spire or dome we could see from the top of our hill. We also went to the market downtown, where I had some righteous shepherd's pie, and some belgian chocolates for dessert, and then I got lost in a wool shop, and came out with nine skeins of gorgeous lambswool, alpaca, kid, mohair and angora yarns. Droooool. They'll make some nice hats, as hats are the only thing I can crochet well. Anyone live in a cold enough climate to wear a wool hat? I can bring you one!

After lunch, I took nap duty with e-baby while Tuti and Granny visited more old churches. We went to evening mass at St Patrick's, which was a great excuse to see the inside of the church, and had fish & chips for dinner afterwards. We all had a chuckle when my mom asked whether the fish was fried. After that, the waitress was careful to describe everything (tea has hot water in it, beef stroganoff is like a stew but creamier, chips are made of fried potatoes). Because you just never know what kinds of things these Americans eat.

Tomorrow we head to Blarney castle and then on to Galway. I'll be sad to leave Cork. The people who run this B&B are so nice, and I'd love to come back here someday.

Ireland trip, day 1: traveling and arriving

Thursday morning, ee-baby, Granny and I left RDU and flew to Chicago for a 7-hour layover. The flight was easy, and to kill while waiting for my mom (Tuti) to arrive, time we took a train to downtown. That was a good idea, since we had some o=good exercise and saw fun things, both good for keeping a 3-year old happy. We visited Millennium park where we admired our reflections in The Bean, and e-baby slip-slid on the piles of snow around the edges. After that, we visited the Art Institute and what luck! the entire month of February is FREE ADMISSION! We went to the family gallery and the Touch Galleries (where you can touch everything!) and finally wandered the Thorne Miniature gallery which was amazing. Google it, and if you're ever in Chicago, go see it. It was great, especially for e-baby who is a doll house enthusiast. To call these foll houses, though, is to belittle the artfulness and architectural beauty of them. It was getting to be time to get back to O'Hare, so off to the train station.

It's around this time that e-baby had her first fatigue meltdown, so I'll just say we got back to O'Hare with all our belongings and no injuries. That's all I'll say about that.

We still had 2 hours to make our flight, so the L-I-N-E at O'Hare security didn't worry us, and maybe it was good travel karma, but we were put into the shorter Priority line so by the time we got into the terminal, it was still nice and early. Tuti was waiting for us, we got onto our plane and were headed for Irekand!!

Nine hour flight (a delay and some headwind worked against us), slept about 2 hours of it, crocheted my brains out, landed in Dubin, immigration a blur, waited for a bus to Cork, and then, a five.hour.bus.ride. The driver was trying to kill us. He was slow, and he was cautious, but he BRAKED! accelerated BRAKED accelerated BRAKED accelerated up to every traffic circle and I was about to throw up the whole way. We met a really sweet man on the bus with a one-year old girl named Clara who really did look exactly like a cherub. He was taking her home to her mother and picking up his other daughter from her mother (a different woman) and just kissed and kissed lara the entire way. You've never seen a dad more smitten with his child, and it was kind of heartbreaking when he sid that when he could get a job, he planned to buy a car so he could drive and see them more frequently without taking long bus rides each way. He wasn't looking for pity, but he was tragic.

When we arrivied in Cork, we found our B&B and to see us, you'd think we'd never had indoor accomodations. Look! Beds! Look! Clean bathroom! Look! chairs and a table! Our B&B is called Gabriel House. It is situated atop a Long and Steep hill overlooking the city center. There's a simple garden and a chicken coop with 20 hens (e-baby's favorite part of Cork). Liam, one of the owners, showed her around when we arrived. People here are comfortble including children in conversations and activities, even though Ireland does not look like a kid-oriented place. It is beautiful here. Our nauseating bus ride through the southern-central countryside was all picturesque farms with distant mountains. I can't wait to see more.

And on that note, I'd better go get e-baby back from the chicken coops so we can start day 2!

Two Crochety Ladies

I haven't blogged in an elephant's age because every time I think of blogging, I'm either in the middle of work, in the middle of driving a car, or in the middle of 50 pounds of suggly children. None are activities I can pause for a quick trip to the old blogspot.

Last week was a week of crochet madness. You never know when these obsessions will strike, but on Monday I was at the craft store and found skeins of yarn in the dollar bin, and the next thing I knew, I'd make 3 hats and a scarf. Only one of the hats is nice enough to brag about, and even then, it's not at all the hat it was supposed to become. But hey, no one has to know that e-baby's white beret is actually a stocking cap in its Platonic ideal.

Speaking of e-baby, she wanted to crochet too, so I taught her to do a chain stich and she's made some doll scarves/bracelets. She and I made up a little song that helps her remember how to chain stich with her hands (I think the hook will have to come later). Before I forget it, I'd better put it on paper:
Put your pinchers through,
Other hand has a job to do,
Grab the string and pull it through,
Make the loop small.

It's a nothing little song, but it worked well to help her remembering what to do next.

I bought 3 more skeins of yarn to take to Ireland and a shiny new shiny (no really, it is shiny! It has LED lights inside!) crochet hook that I can use to wile away the many hours of insomnia and boring airplane travel without internet access. Instead of lugging tons of yarn all over Ireland, I figure I will release hats and scarves into the wild as we go, like a leprechaun dropping little gold coins in the socks of good innkeepers and children. By the way, we leave on THURSDAY!!! I can't wait! It's a ladies-only trip: my mom, SNG's mom, e-baby and me. SNG and Jambuca will bond in manly style eating a lot of burritos and watching a lot of ESPN while we kiss the Blarney stone and get the gift of gab (heh- don't say it, I know).

Updates on our chillies:
e-baby is, well, e-baby. I don't even know how to update about her anymore, since she's really just a normal preschooler who likes to play with her dollhouses, strings, trucks, stuffed animals...

Jambuca has several signs now: water, milk, more, all-done, and dog. He can stand alone, cruise with one hand held gently, climb to the top of all our furniture and go up and down a flight of stairs safely, but he's still too cautious to walk independently. I suppose he'll realize he can do it as soon as he moves into the 1-year-old class. There's a backlog of kids moving up so it'll still be a few weeks before he goes. Fine with me-- we're all crazy about his infant teachers.

OK, so it'll probably be awhile before I write more, but I should be able to blog from Ireland. Wish us a bon voyage!

It's Snowing!

In NC, snow means raids on the groery stores for bread and bottled water. I stocked up on snow peas. PIC stocked up on Diet Coke. You have to be prepared, y'know.

If you look in my backyard right now, you'll see lots of cereal bowls on my patio table because someone thought that we *needed* to have snow for breakfast tomorrow. I'll let you guess whose idea it was. So if you're in the neighborhood, come on over for a heaping, satisfying bowl of... snow. SNG has offered to fry it up in butter and crack an egg over the top.

Mom, dad, and Fairy Grandmother are coming to town on Monday-- I sure hope the ice has cleared up by then!!

Help Me Find This and Win a Luxury Trip for Two!

I want one of these. I really, really want one. I first saw it in Sydney, parked outside the Circular Quay ferry dock. It has a roof. It has 3 wheels. It has seats immediately behind the driver for passengers of any size. It has electric motor assist for tough hills. I do not want a surrey with fringe on top. I do not want a rickshaw trailer. I want this, or something very similar. WHERE CAN I GET ONE?????? Help please!

If you can come up with a source and I get one, I will reward you and a friend with a free ride around my neighborhood in it. Now, off with ye and find me a Pedapod of my very own!

postcards from the carseat

E-baby: At school today, Chloe and Sean were pretending to be animals and I took care of them. I was their vegetarian.
Me: Well, I'm sure they're very grateful you didn't eat them.
E-baby: What?
Me: Never mind.

A mommy's pleasures are simple.

A Long-Overdue Update

This week we've all been sick, and then sick again, and then sick again. Colds, stomach virus, whatever you pass around, we are getting it. So I am pleased to report that there are some happy things going on around here as well.

Jambuca has become much more communicative in the last few days, and it coincides with his improvements in mobility. He's still cruising, but could walk at any time-- he can stand unsupported-- and he climbs onto - or into - everything he encounters. He's often in the dress-up box with one foot behind his ear, grinning like a goof. That's a lot funnier than when he climbs up to the kitchen counter on a swivel chair and starts going after the coffeemaker.

He's been pointing and gesturing at things a lot more, and although he isn't speaking as such, he has been signing milk, water, and cheerio. It is a shame that we haven't really been able to focus much attention on teaching him to speak or sign, since e-baby pretty much steals the spotlight at all times. It's hard even to read him a book without interruption. I wonder if he'd be as precocious as she was, given the chance. But still, he is a lot better at entertaining himself than she was, and he can tile the roof if we need him to.

Last night in his bath, I had a rare opportunity to work on some signs with him. We practiced Ball, Duck, and Cup. He mimicked me signing Ball, which was great, and when I asked him where the (Cup, Ball, or Duck) was, he'd pick up the right toy. I was so excited I frightened him with my "YES! GOOD JOB BABY! YAAAAAY!" I might have to learn to bring it down a notch someday. :-) He got tired of the game WAY before I did.

E-baby has started taking a strange turn in her imaginative play. Now, instead of it always being happy-princess-land with the occasional naughty child being sent to time-out, she has bad guys, good guys, in-cliques, out-groups, fighting, and even killing of rude characters. Sometimes it's creepy, and I don't know if I like it, but I suppose you learn that stuff when you're in a class with 3, 4, and 5 year olds. Not sure how to handle that. So far I'm just sitting back and observing, and when she does ask me to participate, I casually mention that killing is wrong, and that if Farmer Emily is angry at Cinderella, then Farmer Emily should just stop being friends with Cinderella. I'm afraid that making a big deal out of it will just make a bigger deal of it. Any ideas??

She is otherwise still a very sweet, kind and energetic kid. I think the imaginative play is partly a way to try out different scenarios and roles that she can't try out in real life.

Jambuca is getting big enough to play with a little, but he's also big enough to really get into his sister's stuff, so we have an alternating attract-avoid thing going on most of the time.

In other news, we are planning a huge garden, and come summertime, I hope to be living off the fat of the land with fresh melons, peas, beans, chard, carrots, strawberries, asparagus, tomatoes, and artichoke. Then we're also doing a bunch of flowers. Lots of work to do, but it'll be a fun family project. We'll also learn a lot about what'll grow and what won't in our yard.

e-baby's 10 Favorite Things, in Order

The library
Dollhouses
Mommy
Daddy
Purple ballerina dress
Cats
Dogs
"Bird and Squirrel TV" (our breakfast room window)
Jack's Big Music Show
Making up stories

Jambuca's 10 Favorite Things, in Order:

Food
Mommy
Remote controls
Water
Electrical plugs
Big Sister
Daddy
DOTi the dog
People's teeth
Shoes