Gunternation

Bill’s at the other end of the DART at a church men’s retreat in Greystones this weekend. It was sunny when I woke up (11:30), so I eventually decided to walk to the Saturday food market for a nutella and banana crepe.

Some scenes along the way:

Based on the shadows in the picture below, guess what time it is.

Did you guess 1:45PM? That’s right!

It was windy today with temps in the mid-40s. By the time I got home it was raining lightly.

A vacation can be ruined from pressure to maximize every moment. Thankfully, Mom and Dad are not burdened by that mindset. Not on this trip anyway. Dad may have such inclinations, but he’s taking a while to adjust to GMT, so we’ve been taking it easy.

Saturday we planned to visit the Red Stables Market in our park and then Malahide Castle. When I woke up I found a weary Dad on the couch saying that he had not slept a wink. Since we had the ghost tour that night I really thought Dad needed sleep, so we decided to visit the market and then hang out at the apartment. (I’ll let Bill fill you in on his whereabouts.) We enjoyed crepes at the market and bought some baked goods, lamb and goat cheese. Mom and I had no trouble napping that afternoon, but Dad did not get any real sleep. We headed out around 6:00 for downtown. We looked around for a place to eat, and wound up at La Paloma, a Spanish restaurant Bill and I ate at on our first visit to Dublin.

The Ghost Tour was fun. It’s a super nice bus, first of all. Our guide was quite the story teller. We heard about the scary tales Bram Stoker’s mom used to tell, some famous ghosts including the Lady from the Water and the Lady in White, grave robbers and leper colonies. My favorite part was visiting some sites at night–St. Kevin’s graveyard and the ancient Gates of Dublin.

After 36 hours awake, Dad slept Saturday night! Sunday we went to church and then had a carvery lunch. We talked ourselves out of any sightseeing, except for a drive to Howth and back. Bill made us Irish Stew for dinner, and then we decided we had the strength to make it to a movie (Death at a Funeral–Farce!).

Today the parents and I headed out after lunch to see The Book of Kells at Trinity University. Quite interesting and amazing. I told Bill I want one.

We walked from Trinity back up to O’Connell and wandered Henry and Talbot streets. We caught the bus around 6:20 and were so glad to have dinner waiting for us when we arrived home! Bill made tasty Irish pork sausages with lentils and spinach. We had a couple newkies in the fridge that finished the meal out just right.

Tomorrow we’re riding the tour bus around Dublin.

Cool tree in St. Anne’s Park

Carvery Lunch on Sunday. Dad had roast beef and we three had chicken and mushroom pie. That’s my plate with no carrots!

Dad is ready to give up his seat to any elderly person in the coffee shop at Trinity U (make sure to enlarge to read sign).

Some of you have heard Bill’s plan to keep us from falling into too much of a routine and forgetting we’re on a Grand Adventure. He’s proposed that each month we spend one weekend doing something Dubliny, one weekend traveling somewhere in Ireland, one weekend hopping to another country, and one weekend just hanging out.

The monthly inter-country trips may be a bit ambitious–we’ll see. We do want to go everywhere. However, I think yesterday (Saturday) might qualify as a Dublin weekend.

Yesterday morning we walked to a Food Market in the park next to our apartment. St. Anne’s park is large, approximately 270 acres, so it was about a 20 minute walk. The park was formally part of a 500 acre estate belonging to the Guinness family. (Dublin has one of the largest urban parks in Europe, and I’m guessing the US too. Phoenix Park is 1752 acres.) The park is so big that I haven’t wanted to explore too far by myself as my weak sense of direction truly fails me when trees are involved. It’s an amazing park with sports turf, playgrounds, green fields, mossy rocks and dense trees. The rose garden is past its prime, but is still gorgeous. It will be stunning when all the bushes are in full bloom.

The Food Market is smaller than the one in Howth, but we still managed to spend all our cash. We had to get crepes of course. I had hard goat cheese, salad greens and sun-dried tomato pesto in mine. Bill had smoked salmon, crème fraîche, lemon juice and scallions. We bought four jars of jam: Plum, Damson Plum, Rhubarb and Ginger, and, by law, black currant. (Black currant is to Ireland’s palate what Purple Grape is to the taste buds of the US.) We also bought some chive goat cheese and an apple walnut AMAZING log.

I talked to a jewelry maker named Vincent Meehan who used to sell jewelry to Neiman Marcus in Texas. He also said he was commissioned to design jewelry to represent Ireland that didn’t have harps or shamrocks. He went to the ruins of Newgrange and based his designs on the ancient markings. He had some nice stuff, so next time we need to take a little more cash!

The market is held at a facility that also provides studio space to artists, and has a cafe there as well.

Last night we went to City Centre in search of food. Bill made a list of moderately priced restaurants in Temple Bar, and we chose an Italian placed called Trastavere. Pretty good, and we had a great table for people watching. Lots of the people were sparkly. I had a very nice ricotta and truffle oil ravioli with pancetta and Bill had penne with ragu of pork sausage and mushrooms.

On the bus on the way home we sat next to the same guy we had sat next to on the way into town. Weird. He was on his way to hear his friends play in a band and invited us to come. He said he could possibly get us in free. When he found out we were from Texas he made some comments related to the death penalty, I think, and said he understood why we wanted to leave. “They’ll never find us here,” I said, and he agreed. So, we could have met the next U2, but we’re old remember, and had bought books and really wanted to go home and start reading.

Oh, our books. We’re a little worried about them. Bill had a message on his NI voice mail in Austin saying one of the boxes was in the Lost and Found at FedEx. Apparently, the USPS uses FedEx for their m-bags. The particular box had his work books with his work number. Maybe the other boxes are sitting in customs in Ireland, which was the fate of a squirrel costume in an account we heard recently. I was upset about my books, and then Bill reminded me that his cookbooks were also in the missing boxes, at which point I became inconsolable, and hungry.

Bill can cook freestyle, thank goodness. Our dinner tonight of leek and goat cheese omelettes was delicious.

Today we went to church and lunch and then the grocery store. Bill is going to make chili. Yea!