The last post of 2012

Just one more day left in an eventful 2012.  It's been a great year for us and we hope for you as well.
Except for a disappointing stay at Lough Erne Resort over Christmas last week (which you will all likely read about in April when the G8 visits there) we have had a wonderful year.  So good, in fact, that we've decided to extend our stay in Ireland.  We will definitely be here until at least November 2013 and I'm lobbying hard for another year after that.  We will make our decision on that in April when our lease is up on the property we're renting now.  If we stay I'd like to move from the tony Sandymount to a place where actual Irish people live.  It's a little like living on Embassy Row here, not quite as snooty but close.

We just returned from our Christmas trip to Ulster, the northern province in Ireland that includes my mother's home county of Donegal and Northern Ireland.  Donegal is in the Republic of Ireland but the rest of the province is in Northern Ireland.  We spent Christmas Eve and day at Lough Erne in County Fermanagh, the county adjoining Donegal.  The only thing to be said for those two days is that it was expensive.  We had a pretty good time with one another, but could have done that just as easily in Dublin.  On the day following Christmas (Boxing Day here) we moved to Donegal and visited my mother's family.  That was great and really made up for the bad time in the hotel.  We should have angled for an invitation to Christmas Dinner with family instead!

We decided to fly into Donegal this time.  It's about the distance from DC to New York so it's not  a long drive but I don't like the car very much and it just seemed easier.  All went to schedule, except the 80 mile-an-hour winds when we returned made for a harrowing landing back in Dublin at the end.  I don't think I've ever been afraid on an airplane, but I was then.  Fortunately the (woman) pilot was experienced and she seemed to think this was all in a day's work.  I was happy to be on the ground.

I hope you are all looking forward to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2013.  

We made our reservation for your Christmas program with high expectations.  We have experienced Ulster 5-star hospitality at Solis Lough Eske in Donegal several times.  Soon after booking we learned that you would host the G8 in the spring.  We were sure a stay booked as a "program" in such a venue would be more memorable than a nice bed and some meals.

Before going into our list of disappointments let me say your staff is lovely.  To a person everyone was kind and interested in our comfort.  It could only have been better if they were more well-informed. 

Before we arrived, we read, with dismay, about the fire in the pool area and received a call about same in advance.  We were told that there would be an adjustment to the bill for the spa treatments we booked.  We were a little surprised that the rate wasn’t reduced because without a pool a 5-star becomes a 4-star in our opinion, but we were also told during that call that there would be entertainment nightly during our stay.  At this point, we would have cancelled except for the promise of ‘nightly entertainment’ and the strength of the G8 booking, which we considered a ringing endorsement.

When we arrived we were surprised at the architectural sameness of the campus but encouraged when we saw the warm appearance of the lobby.  After check-in we encountered our first major setback.  Our room was a long hike to a side hall that reeked of paint.  The odor didn't encroach on the room so we didn't complain but we found as our stay progressed that we became more sensitive to the unpleasant passage. 

Once we were settled we decided to explore our surroundings.  We took the first stairway we encountered and discovered that the only egress at the end of the stairway was to the outside.  Since we weren't dressed for it, we thought a sign alerting us to that on floor two would have been nice.  Later, after a real chill we started just trying doors because there was no indication of which of the many doors might lead us back to the lobby.  The dearth of signage in such a large establishment was a problem for us several times:  looking for the room for Christmas lunch and the massage location most notably.

The most memorable thing about the Christmas Eve dinner was the popper.  The wine stopper was a nice gift.  As far as the meal, except for my overlooked pork belly, my husband and I were hard pressed to remember it the next morning.  Meals in general were disappointing.  Overcooked fish and meat and undercooked morning eggs were the norm.

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Still, it was Christmas and we were determined to be of good cheer.  When we asked at Christmas lunch if there would be turkey on the evening buffet in advance of making or meal selection we were assured there was.  Imagine our surprise when we discovered it was turkey cold cuts and the hot meal was curry!  Surely the waiter didn't think we'd have passed up the hot turkey at lunch for a turkey sandwich in the evening.

When we’d received the telephone call after booking we were told that we couldn’t have our massages at the same time.  We didn’t question it because we assumed that they would be booked in tandem and there were limited facilities.  Again a disappointment to discover they were 3 hours apart and when I arrived for my 1 p.m. massage, I was sharing the facility with a mother and daughter who had just booked.  Both my husband and I were very much looking forward to the Thai massage because they are hard to find in Ireland but having one at 10 and another at 1 meant there wasn’t much we could plan for that day.   As it happened, we were so disappointed with Lough Erne that we’d already decided to cut our visit short and only stayed two rather than the three nights.  So, this timing was really inconvenient because we had to check out of the room at noon which meant a rushed shower for Alan at 11:30 when he returned.  At this point, I called the desk and was assured that there were shower facilities in the spa.  When I got to the spa, it was clear that a shower would have been a major inconvenience for the staff and so I just passed it up and I had no shower that day.  On top of this, when we paid, we had to ask for the adjustment that was promised.  If I hadn’t asked, it would not have been honored.

We were also assured that there was “free internet.”  In most fine hotels “free” is truly free, you don’t have to provide your information to Bitbuzz in order to access it.  Contrary to what many people think, one’s private email address is valuable to services such as Bitbuzz or any other ISP so while there is no monetary charge, it is not free.  In addition, it didn’t work very well.   Because there were so many people staying there with electronic devices, any short hiatus in searching meant one had to sign in yet again through Bitbuzz.  The severe lack of internet bandwidth available there also affected the cable television reception.

Except for the terrible smell in the hallway and the not very well prepared food, we might have been able to overlook the other small annoyances if our biggest disappointment was absent.  We asked about entertainment and were assured it was planned for “every evening.”  But, 45 minutes of carols at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve and background music on piano for a few hours nightly is not what we expected at all.  There was no attempt in any way to engage us, no sing song, no guided walk, no singer or dancing, no talk or lecture and, above all, no attempt in any way to help the many couples, without large family in tow, to get to know one another.  Ireland is so noteworthy for friendliness, music, dance, beautiful environment, storytellers, and so much more, but there was nothing like that for us this Christmas.  We could have booked at the Shelburne Hotel in Dublin if all we wanted were meals and a nice bed.  We were very sad about that.

In short, all we can say for our Lough Erne experience was that it was very, very expensive. 

With best regards to your very nice staff, we are,

Monica Dignam and Alan Balkema

Today is the start of the equinox and we really know short days here now.  It's 9:41 a.m. and daybreak was just a half hour ago.  Tomorrow it will be at 9:30.  Sunset will be around 3:45 today and 3:30 tomorrow.  I'm hoping the days lengthening is as apparent. 

I wish Happy Holidays to everyone reading this and hope you are all planning for some good memories in the week to come.  We are headed to Donegal and will visit my mother's grave and some of her family.  We are spending Christmas Day in Fermanagh, which is in the adjoining county to Donegal but in Northern Ireland.  The place we're going is the place the G8 is going to meet this spring, so we're expecting a lot.

This is going to be a short post but I leave you with a link to the Ballyvourney Jig, the Irish set dance I learned this year.  Watching it, you will see how much fun I've had since I started last September, by the time I'm back in the states, I'm going to be ready to start a group!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fa0h_ieKeU

With all my best wishes for a Happy Christmas and health and prosperity in 2013!

Although I don't usually do pictures in this blog, I'm going to post a really great picture of Dorothy and me at Glendalough during that grueling hike I posted about two times ago.  The picture is great and it gives a really good sense of the terrain.  That little boardwalk was quite wet and were it not for the many nails embedded, we would definitely have slipped off into the wet bog!  The up and down walking was a real challenge.  If you enlarge the picture you can see the path from about the halfway mark in the middle right.  From here, there was another quarter to go.  This picture is now my screen saver and I'm guessing I will start to have fonder memories of the walk as time goes by, but right now, I still remember it as very difficult. Yet, just this week we've booked a walking tour in Scotland for next September!  It will be between towns on the coast, so I'm hoping not this rough.  We're going with friends from Virginia.  They have done these walking tours before. I'm pretty sure they are both hale and hearty and just hope they are also not race walkers!  I have to say, the pictures of walking tours we've done are always great to see, I have to remember that while I'm doing it. 

 This week we have been doing things pretty close to home, although we have booked trips to Madrid for January and Paris for March, so we have stuff to look forward to after Christmas.  Last Saturday, we met one of the women we met in Majorca at a pub in Rathmines and had a great evening of Irish music in Grace's Pub.  She brought along her husband and a friend of his, so it was a nice group.  I really enjoyed the singing.  There were some familiar songs and some that I'd never heard before, including several that were identified as "Orange," Protestant songs from the north.  That was a real surprise and an indication of how the peace process has taken hold.  In the past, I think any Orange song sung in Dublin would be met with howls of protest.  It was good to hear.

On Friday this week we were included in the Hannigan's family Christmas dinner at a restaurant in Terenure, a nice little Dublin village.  We met the two siblings, Christine and Tom, that I haven't seen since they were toddlers.  Another very nice evening.

I'll end with a little update on my set dancing.  I'm actually getting better at it.  If you are interested, here's a youtube link to see one that we do at the end of each night:  It's called the balleyvorney:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh6Qz6C5j14 .  This is a pretty long and vigorous dance, but it's as fun as it looks.  I'm really happy with this class.  We're about to break for Christmas and it will not resume until January.  I'll miss it for the month, that's for sure. 

I'm not as disciplined on this blog as I was at the beginning.  It's now almost two weeks since my last post.  But, I'm determined to keep it up.  My last post ended with preparations for Thanksgiving dinner so I'll recap that day. 

In addition to our friend Dorothy, who was visiting from Atlanta, we invited four new friends we have made here in Ireland.  None of them had experienced an American Thanksgiving in the past so it was a treat to shepherd them through the best of all American holidays.  I tried a few new things, most notably stuffed walnuts and dried fruit and nut stuffing, but for the most part it was as traditional as I could get. The stuffed walnuts came about because we couldn't find the traditional Diamond Nut collection in the shell and I knew that I had to stuff myself with walnuts in advance of the meal if it was going to be my idea of Thanksgiving.  The stuffing happened because I learned that Alan thinks my mother's traditional beef and pork recipe is heavy (who knew). 

There were several firsts, the pumpkin pie (described in my last post) was made from scratch and a fresh turkey.  The pie was a little more fibrous than that which is made from canned pumpkin but good nonetheless.  The turkey was a little disconcerting at first, I'm used to slow thawing a rock-frozen bird with all the feathers off and the skin kinda whitish and smooth.  The fresh version, as least what's on offer here, still had a few feathers sticking to the kinda purple skin, broken in several places.  I was very concerned with keeping it cool during the overnight it was in our teeny refrigerator.  I have to say, though, the turkey was a triumph! We are still eating leftovers. 

The meal was just great.  We started with each person's thankful list and that segued into some great conversation.  All of the participants complemented one another very well.  It was a completely pleasant meal and evening.  One of our guests brought us a bottle of Midleton Irish Whiskey, a limited edition libation in the price range of the finest single malt Scotch (but better since it's Irish).  At the conclusion of our meal, we each had a little taste of that neat (except, Mary, the driver) and after several bottles of the Majorca wine we saved for the occasion from our trip there we were all pretty mellow.  It was a really fun day.

The following day, Dorothy and I took an overnight trip to Belfast.  We went to the Titanic Museum, newly opened this year, 100 years after the sinking. It was a really good museum, particularly the way they did the film of the launch of the ship.  The historic film was somehow superimposed on a window at the spot where the ship went in the water when it was launched in 1911.  You could still see some of the features of the port and the mountains behind in both the film and reality.  It was quite spectacular.  I'd wanted to take Dorothy to Cork, the ship's last call in Ireland before sinking, but there just wasn't time in her visit to do all we wanted.  That evening we went to a pub for traditional Irish music.  As I'd experienced in the past, and prepared her for, the musicians play for themselves, not an audience.  Unlike our early experience in Dublin where the pub was so crowded and loud we couldn't hear a thing, this one was pretty empty and quiet.  The musicians were really great and there was also a singer with a beautiful voice.  It was perfect.  

We had a quiet weekend after returning to Dublin on Saturday evening but on Monday she and I took a day tour to the Hill of Tara, the inauguration site of 140 Irish kings during the millennium before the English took over; and Newgrange, a megalithic passage tomb that has been preserved.  I'd been to Newgrange several times but this was my first trip to the Hill of Tara and it was well worth it.  They say you can see 22 of the 26 counties in the Republic from there.  We were fortunate to visit on a sunny and bright day and the view was spectacular. 

To our great sadness, Dorothy left on Tuesday morning.  Her visit was too short, we've prevailed on her to plan another visit and stay a month! Dorothy's was the last scheduled visitor for us and I expect we won't see any American friends again until the spring, at least.  We will have to content ourselves with travel in Europe till then.  Our next adventure will be the Christmas program at a resort in Northern Ireland.  We will fly into Donegal, visit my mother's grave and some of her family and then drive North to Fermanagh.  Since booking we have learned that the G8 will meet at that resort in the spring, so that's made me think the place is going to be pretty nice. 

Next week we have been invited to the family get together of the Hannigans', the family that the Dignam family has known for over 100 years.  The great grandchildren of the family my Aunt Lilly worked for as a nanny/barmaid are our (younger but still boomer) contemporaries and, although I've known the first son, John and his family for many years, and have gotten to know the eldest sister Frances since coming here last spring, I haven't seen the other siblings since I was 19 and there were little kids scrabbling around the table during my several visits to Ireland in 1968 and the early 70's.  We are looking forward to it.

Dorothy came on Wednesday as scheduled and we have been having new Dublin-area adventures since she arrived.  On Thursday, we went to Dublin City University to see a pre-cast statue in development of Frederick Douglass.  It's really amazing.  It's full of movement and fire, we enjoyed seeing it.  Frederick Douglass used Ireland has his home base for his European activities.  It was a pretty pivotal time for him, and he credited Daniel O'Connell, Ireland's 'Emancipator' with helping him to formulate his non-violent philosophy.  The statue is just resin now but there's fundraising afoot to get it cast in bronze and then it can be exhibited outside. 

On Friday Dorothy and I did a walk on the coast from Greystones to Bray, a route I took first with my friend Mary.  It's a nice 6 kilometer walk.  We stopped for a meal in Bray and then back on the Dart (commuter train) to home, where we quickly dressed for a play that evening.  We saw Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray at the Abbey Theatre.  It was quite well done.  The staging was amazing and the way they handled the portrait and Gray's transformation at the end was the best theater I've seen.  We were dazzled. 

Yesterday we did a guided hill walk in Glendalough, a very beautiful park in the Wicklow Mountains.  It was much harder than the guide we hired let on at the beginning and much more taxing than we bargained for.  As in Mallorca (where we did the walking tour last month) people who guide hikes tend to minimize the effort.  "Anyone can do it..." etc.  This is such a load of BS it's really annoying.  Anyway, it was a beautiful site but after we finished it, I did some research and discovered an easier walk that would have taken us through more historic areas.  Hill walkers think all there is is "the view" and it seems the process of walking isn't their focus.  But we have some great pictures and had a good time despite all of the mindless effort we put in.  As in Mallorca, the guide asserted that we would revel in "the accomplishment" at the end, which I tend not to do.  So what, we made it.  It was grueling when it didn't have to be.  I think that's one of the problems for me going on tours that involve exercise (like biking or walking).  I very much like to do it, but I'm not interested in getting there fast or first or even second or third, and if it gets too much I don't really mind just stopping.  It doesn't make me feel bad at all to say I didn't do the whole thing.  Anyway, it was good to get to Glendalough. 

Today we were debating about doing another walking tour in the city in Temple Bar but all decided that was not very interesting.  Dorothy and I are going to walk to the village instead.  It's already 2:30 and Alan has started making Sunday dinner.  I think it's going to be a quiet evening.

This is Thanksgiving week and we've invited several friends for the meal.  Except for us (Alan, me and Dorothy) all the others are Irish and none have had an "American Thanksgiving" before so I'm looking forward to introducing them to turkey and all the trimmings.  In order to have a pumpkin pie, however, I had to do the pumpkin from scratch (no canned pumpkin here) and I'll have to make the crust (no frozen pie crust either).  The latter is a little daunting because, like hill walking, those who are familiar with it say "there's nothing to it" while those of us who are novices, end up with an overworked crust!  But, pumpkin pie is a must so there's nothing to be done but to do it.

Our trip to Holland was uneventful.  The apartment was OK, except the 'second floor' walk-up was really on the American third floor (which I knew) and the stairs up to that lofty height were very narrow and steep.  We've encountered both of those conditions on stairways throughout Holland so none of it was a surprise but I couldn't get my mind off fire while on those stairs.  Finding the place was easy enough, even though we arrived after dark, at about 9 p.m.  Once on the street, however, we realized that we didn't have a house number, only an apartment number "B" and there were about 20 houses on this little street.  Fortunately we were 'adopted' by a waiter in the nearby hotel and he called the emergency number for the Short Stay Group, the vendor we used to get the apartment. 

We did the Rijksmuseum on the following day, but discovered that most of it is still closed, so we also did the Van Gogh Mile, which is a narrated walk between the closed for renovations Van Gogh Museum and The Hermitage where the collection is temporarily housed.  It was a little disappointing, the Internet links didn't work very well, but the walk took us into some very new areas for us.  On the following day I wanted to go to Delft but Alan was not enthusiastic about a two hour train ride.  I could have gone on my own, but got lazy and was suitably distracted doing research with Alan on locations.  He's just finished a play about an American Expat living in Amsterdam so he needed to identify a few settings.  It was good we did that because he has one character hanging around a small neighborhood square, but there are none of those in Amsterdam.  There are big squares, like the famous Dam Square, but the Dutch don't 'waste' the land they build with green space.  The Dutch have a saying "God made the world but the Dutch made Holland," and this is so right, even in a city as old as Amsterdam you can see that they are still reclaiming the sea for housing.  It's a very interesting place. 

When we learned on Wednesday morning that Obama won, that was just icing on the cake.  All along I knew the election wasn't as 'close' as the media was presenting.  I was so, so happy it was with both the electoral college and the popular vote.  Maybe now they will start working together, since there's no possibility of 'helping' Obama's re-election if any collaboration is successful.  I hope so.

We returned home late Thursday evening and I did absolutely nothing yesterday.  That's a real challenge for me but I succeeded.  Today I'm planning to take a yoga class and maybe go to a movie.  I should be working on a project that I've committed to have done by the end of the year, but there's always tomorrow!

Our friend Dorothy comes on Wednesday.  I'm hoping that we can get short trips in to Belfast and Cork while she's here. 

Our friends, Judy and Mark, left Dublin this morning.  They were worried about the flight because they were routed through New York and the flights just started operating into JFK yesterday since the hurricane on Monday.  Looks like a real mess in New York, but I checked and they got off OK.  I have only heard from one of my relatives but I'm hoping all is well with the nieces and nephews who make that area home.  I'd say they have other fish to fry this week than checking email. 

We went to the Cork Jazz Festival last weekend.  We met Judy and Mark there on Friday.  They left Dublin on the Sunday before and visited Sligo and Galway on their own.  They really enjoyed that part of the trip too.  This is turning out to be the best arrangement for visits, for folks to arrive in Dublin and spend a few days here, then go off on their own, and to get back together for the last few days.  Previously we did that with friends from Wisconsin.  It helps us to see more parts of the country as well.

The Jazz Festival was just great.  We saw about six different bands and only one was bad. We had a great apartment right in the center of things and so were able to take our time in the morning and do our own breakfast.  In addition to the music, we did two self guided walking tours around Cork and a side trip one evening to Kinsale.  The latter turned out no so good because we left Cork late in the afternoon on the bus and planned to have dinner there, then take in a pub and take the last bus back to Cork at 10:20.  Well, that last bus never came and we had to take a cab.  For me, it was a really bad cab ride and the worst part of our stay because the driver wouldn't turn off the bomp, bomp music he had on the radio. His one concession was to turn it down but then all we heard was the base, even worse! At one point he said that we hired the driver, not the car!  I was really steamed by the end of that 40 Euro, 45-minute ride.  Alan, who was sitting in the front, said he thought he didn't know how to turn it off!  I've asked most cab drivers to turn off the radio and never had this problem before, but I've learned my lesson, I'm going to ask before I get in the cab.

I'm just about to finish a survey I've completed for the Community Foundation of Ireland, a replication of a Canada-wide study called "Vital Signs" in which people across the country answered questions about the quality of life here in Ireland.  I'm pretty excited to be involved in this study and think it should get some good press since it's the first one done in Ireland and a lot people answered.  I'm really delighted to have gotten to be part of this.  Naturally, I'm doing the analysis and the Exec of the Foundation is doing the talking.  I have to present it to her tomorrow.  Explaining the results in a way that she can be confident is the second most favorite thing for me.  By far, the most favorite is doing the analysis.  I really like this work!

On Monday, Alan and I are taking a trip to Holland. We will stay in an apartment in Amsterdam.  This time I am hoping to also do to Delft, the Rijksmuseum and The Hermitage which is housing the Van Gogh collection while that museum is closed.  The last two times we were in Amsterdam the Rijksmuseum has been closed so I'm looking forward to that in particular.  When we return we will have a few days before our dear friend Dorothy comes for several weeks, including Thanksgiving.  We're planning an American Thanksgiving with her and some of the Irish folks we have become friendly with here.  I'm looking forward to it. 

It's a beautiful sunny day today but I have to work!  Still, October has been just beautiful here, dry and crisp.  In fact, Judy and Mark didn't see any day of rain during their whole trip, only a few light sprinkles in Cork on Sunday, amazing for Ireland.  I would recommend that people think about Ireland in the fall rather than the summer, it's so beautiful, and summer is the rainy season, as we learned first hand this year. 

It seems the interval between my posts is getting longer.  I guess that's to be expected since everything I do in any given week is not a completely new experience but I'm starting to worry about losing the habit of posting. I'm going to try to be mindful of that in the coming months.

Since my last post on October 15, we had a few days of breather between having Alan's sister and her husband in and welcoming friends from Washington.  Judy and Mark arrived on the 18th and, as we have done with most guests so far, we gave them a one day primer on Dublin during an initial walk through the City Center and then encouraged them to explore on their own the following day using the Open Top/On-Off Bus.  That is a good value for any new city I think because  with the two-day pass you get to go around the whole city and see the main sights with narration. Then the following day you can re-board and see the things in which you are most interested. 

On their second day, they went to Kilmainham Gaol (the jail where the British kept Irish political prisoners from the 1700's to 1922), The Writer's Museum, the Joyce Museum and the National Museum.  I joined them for the tour of the National Museum because I wanted to see The Meeting on the Turret Stairs http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.postercartel.com/uploads/postercartel_product_option.imageDetail/1050-108.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.postercartel.com/en/1700-3682.aspx?o%3D1050-108&h=497&w=500&sz=35&tbnid=cZiakWxQshQ0TM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=93&zoom=1&usg=__d0uwFR1MvnuRMBkdwPLbfrJ5QzM=&docid=VvFD_lJT4daniM&sa=X&ei=EVGKUKqFBdKDhQeG34Ao&ved=0CEIQ9QEwCA&dur=819.  This was voted as the number one of Ireland's favorite paintings in a poll done last year.  This link does not do it justice.  The real thing is bluer than blue and gives one a real sense of longing and regret.  Judy and Mark also wanted to see the Jack B. Yeats (William Butler's brother) paintings and drawings for Punch because they headed for Sligo and "Yeats Country" on the following day.

I'm excited to hear about that adventure because they hired a private tour with a guide that is supposed to be a Yeats scholar.  The area around Sligo where the Yeats brothers were active is very dispersed and when we went there were disappointed that we couldn't find half the interesting things mentioned in the guide book.  If it works out well for them, we will take a trip to Sligo to do it too. After two days in Sligo they spend three in Galway and we are planning to meet them tonight in Cork for the Cork Jazz Festival.  This is our first festival in Ireland and the line-up looks good to Mark (the only one of us who seems to know much about Jazz).  I'm looking forward to the adventure, there's plenty to do in Cork.

They will return with us to Dublin on Monday for another few days and then the fly back to the States on the 31st.  Then another few days breather until we leave for Holland on Monday, November 5 for 3 days.

In between all the visiting and culture, I've been taking set dancing for a month now.  I go with my friend Mary once a week to a pub in Churchtown where we are trying our best to learn.  Set dancing is kinda like square dance except that the foot work is more complicated and fast.  I'm not progressing as quickly as I would like and Mary and I agreed last time that we would try to find other partners who are a little further along.  I think that's one problem, neither of us knows the steps and can't really guide the other.  I think this will be easier for Mary, because one of the dancers already has his eye on her, and seems very interested in taking my place.  She's further along than me because, as an Irishwoman she had lessons as a child and the rhythm and steps just come more naturally to her.  I'm a little slower in getting it, but hopefully someone will be willing to dance with me.  One issue is because there are so few men, I have learned the man's position so unless I want to change now, I have to find a woman partner.  If I change that means I have to re-learn all the steps on the opposite side.  I hope this isn't going to be a big problem, I really like doing the dances.

I'm also participating in Bridge with the American Women's Club on Friday mornings.  Another activity in which I'm quite a novice.  The people are nice but my play is very poor.  I'm going to start lessons in January when the beginners lessons start again.  I like to play.

Finally, I'm also going to a second dance class on Wednesday afternoons that's a little slower than set dancing, more exercise and modern dance, although one of the dances we are learning right now is a minuet.  That is a lot of fun.

Best of all, I've met three people that are becoming friends. Mary, who I've spoken of a lot in this blog, is the "best" .  I've know her longest and we have a lot in common.  Dierdre is at the Wednesday dance class and she's now coming to the set dancing as well.  We have coffee most of the afternoons after the Wednesday class (set dancing is in the evening and ends at 10 p.m. by which time I just want to go to bed). And Sarah, a woman I met while in Mallorca.  She and I met last Saturday and did a tour of the Irish President's house in Phoenix Park and lunch.  I like her a lot and plan to keep up that budding friendship as well.  All in all, things are really good right now.

I expect my next post to be next Friday, just before we leave for Holland.  I hope I can keep that commitment!

It's been a while since my last post.  We have been busy and I'm happy to have a breather for a few days to catch up.  Since posting on September 29th, we've hosted Alan's sister and husband, been on a walking tour in Mallorca and seen 9 plays in the Dublin Theatre Festival.  This is going to be a long post because I want to cover the trip and to record my feelings about all of the plays.

The visit with Alan's sister and her husband was a real treat.  In addition to seeing one of the plays with them, The Dubliners, we also had a chance to catch up with the family and show some sights of Dublin that we think are particularly noteworthy.  It was too bad they didn't have an opportunity to see more of Ireland since this was their first trip outside the USA in over 30 years.  It was a quick, three-day visit, but we packed a lot into it.  They went on to London for another whirlwind three-days of touring. 

First Mallorca

The Mallorca walking trip had its ups and downs.  We booked with a travel provider associated with the Irish Times newspaper, The Travel Department (TD), recommended by several Irish people that we know.  We were particularly interested in using this travel provider because they do Christmas trips in Italy, Portugal and Malta and we are considering one of them for our Christmas this year. 

As promised by the people we know that have booked with TD in the past, the other people in the group were really nice and we met several with whom we will likely keep in touch.  This was the first walking tour TD has offered in Mallorca though and there were several things to be desired about the experience.  I also learned, or maybe re-learned, a lesson about myself that I hope will be remembered next time I book an 'adventure' holiday. 

First on the positive side, in addition to the nice group of people, Mallorca is a beautiful place.  George Sand spent a winter in Mallorca with Frederick Chopin (to whom she was not married, causing quite a stir on the island) and characterized it as a place where "everything seems to pose with a kind of vanity to please your eye."  To my mind, this was a perfect description.  I really found it very beautiful. 

Surprisingly, the food was not so good, the Mallorcans we encountered weren't particularly friendly and the hotel was abysmal.  The latter was a surprise to us because our friends and those in the group that have done TD tours in the past agreed this was not the norm, usually the hotel is one of the high points of booking with this operator. 

But, for me, the insight that, like bike touring, I don't care for walks that don't go anywhere but up and then down.  I have to remember that I don't like doing it.  Touring like that attracts people that seem to be in it for the accomplishment of getting to the top and down again the fastest. I am not one of them.  I don't really care about getting to the top, I would much rather walk between towns or villages, with a stop for lunch in a nice cafe or pub and interesting shops at the end.  In 2004 I did my last biking 'touring holiday' on a trip in Ireland and this trip shared some of the characteristics of that one.  Each day there were miles to be covered, a stop for a quick lunch, and then more miles culminating in 'a view.'  At the end of that process an exhausted flop into bed is the most likely outcome for me.

On this trip there were two tour guides, the leader of the two was definitely of the quick-to-the-top mindset.  He stayed in front at all times, where he expounded on family, military service, taxes and government as if there were no views in all the world but his own.  The other guide was much different in his love of homeland and the environment and knowledge of Mallorca flora and fauna; he also understood his role in keeping the group together and paying attention to the sometimes dangerous, steep and gravelly mountain paths we traversed.  It was hot and the path to the top of the three mountains we walked was pretty boring.  So, when my attention wasn't completely focused on not slipping on gravel or pitching off a cliff, I was just hot.  If it weren't for some of the other travelers with whom I had some very nice conversations along the way, I would have hated the whole experience.  Fortunately we only hiked three of the seven days and Mallorca is just a beautiful, beautiful place. So, Mallorca 10, this sort of hiking 0.

One of the things that Alan and I discussed while there, however, helped us to clarify our onward plan once we leave Ireland.  First, I think we are going to extend our stay in Dublin until at least November 2013 and then spend the winter and spring spending a month or so in a variety of European cities, returning to Bloomington in the fall of 2014.  During our visit to Mallorca's capital city, Palma, we thought we might pick that location for one of those months.  It's a big city and there seems a lot to do.  Also, not many people speak English and we both thought that we could really brush up on our Spanish quickly if we were thrown into that situation.


 Dublin Theatre Festival

The Mallorca trip was sandwiched between seeing nine plays in the Dublin Theatre Festival.  Both Alan and I really like live theater so wanted to get to see as many of the plays as we could. Given that our trip was during the second week of the three-week festival we wound up seeing more than one play a day on two occasions.  We got to visit three new venues as well as re-visit the Gaiety Theatre, a beautiful theater with, as we discovered to our dismay, some very obstructed-view seats.

The fist play we saw, Beyond the Brooklyn Sky, was on Wednesday, September 26, at the Civic Theatre in Tallaght, a small community at the last stop on the Luas, Dublin's light rail service. (Luas means rapid in Irish.)    The theater was a nice one, built, as most of the surrounding neighborhood of high-rise apartments and vacant retail stores, during the height of the Celtic Tiger but now fallen on hard times.  The play was well done, about a group of friends, several of whom spent their youth in Brooklyn, NY with most returning to Ireland during the boom years.  It was sort of a Return of the Secaucus Seven Irish-style.  We both enjoyed it.

Two days later, we saw the first theatrical performance of James Joyce' The Dubliners at the Gaiety Theatre with Alan's sister and her husband.  Alan and I recently re-read the book and earlier went to a lecture about the making of the play.  This book of short stories is the most accessible of Joyce' work, I think, and the play really captured the arc of the stories.  I was really surprised how well it held together.  During the lecture the playwright said that the Joyce family resisted allowing performances of this work and now that the 100-year mark has passed and it's in the public domain he thinks there will be a lot more interpretation of The Dubliners stories on the stage.  We were happy to be able to see the first of them in this city.  Our guests enjoyed it as well. 

Then on Sunday, September 30 we saw two plays.  The first by a New York company, imported for the festival with an interpretation of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.  This was at the O'Reilly Theatre in Belvedere College (James Joyce and Kevin Barry were alums).   I'm a real Hemingway fan and I also enjoyed this book but boy oh boy, three-and-a-half hours of every scene of excessive drinking in bars, bullfights, unrequited love, existentialism and the dissolute life of the rich American expat in Paris and Spain in the 1920's was too much.  I don't know how any producer didn't have the alarm bells ringing when he or she heard that the play was going to be over three hours.  It was really boring.

Fortunately, the next play we saw that evening was short and very good.  Everyone is King Lear in His Own Home at the Smock Alley Theatre on the Quays in Dublin City Center was the best depiction of madness on the stage I've ever seen.  There were only two characters, I think they were supposed to be father and daughter, and both were nuts, yet we got them. I couldn't tell you what it was about, other than insanity.

October 2, several days before we left for Mallorca, we spent a very nice evening with our old family friend at dinner and then to see The Last Summer  at The Gate theater on O'Connell Street.  This was a play with a theme similar to the first one about youthful emigration and returning home in middle age.  This is a recurring theme in Ireland because so many people leave and come "home" only for visits.  The idea of never really making "home" the place where they have gone is interesting.  Anyway, these people were more prosperous than the ones in Under the Brooklyn Bridge, but the story of making choices and youthful love simmering over many years was done very well.  In this play they did a really good job of alternating between two summers 30 years apart. 

Two days after we returned from our trip we saw three plays on the same day.  All performed by the Druid-Murphy company by the playwright Tom Murphy, at the Gaiety Theatre.  We have since learned from friends that the three plays are booked for The Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center this fall.  Conversations on a Homecoming, set in Galway in the 1970's was also about emigration and the ones who stayed behind.  A lot of dialogue but interesting.  A Whistle in the Dark was a family drama with which I could really relate. One son trying to move away from a life of mindless family in-fighting while the others try to pull him back with the bromide:  "Who do you think you are?"  That's a whistle in the dark alright.  The final play, Famine, was set in 1846.  I've learned so much about the famine in Ireland since I've been here, but there was a new wrinkle here that I hadn't thought about before, the English landowners actually wanted the Irish to emigrate and so that was one of the reasons they didn't do much to help feed the population and continued to press them to pay to rent their land. There was so much more than just crop failure going on then.  Unfortunately, Alan was tired of sitting, and we were both tired of craning our necks in our very poor obstructed seats, that we left at intermission during Famine. 

Finally on Sunday, yesterday, we saw Halcyon Days at the Smock Alley Theatre, the same venue as King Lear.  Except for The Dubliners this was by far the best play we saw.  Given that Dubliners was a rich and well financed production and Halcyon was a two-person, one set, production this was the greater achievement, I think.  Two people finding love and affection at the end of their lives in a nursing home.  It was just great. 

After these weeks of great activity, I am happy to spend a day or two at home.  I just tried to get back into my routine of going to the gym and a leisurely read of the newspaper this morning.  Tomorrow I have some work to do and then back to my set dancing class in the evening.  On Thursday friends from Washington are coming for a few weeks, during which we will go to the Cork Jazz Festival with them.  Another busy period coming up.

I feel like I'm really getting busy now but I still want to be recognized as a professional.  I need to find a way to leave that behind. 

I do a dance class on Tuesday evenings (set dancing), another on Wednesday afternoon (dance as exercise), Bridge group on Friday mornings, film group every 'last' Wednesday, aerobic exercise at the gym we've joined every morning and a book club starting in October.  I've had friends tell me that retirement is busier than work life and I'm definitely finding  that to be true. Yet, I find myself longing for a day of doing nothing, although that's a condition I also fear for some reason.  I've always been a productive person and want to continue that in my retirement from work, but I also want to NOT WORK.   That's a job in itself.

I've recently re-read a book that I co-authored with a person that I have known for many years and it's caused me to think that I'm not done working.  I think I'd really like to develop some of these really good ideas into a new service, to work on speaking on the topic and establishing a business around that.  I know I could do it.  I don't want to do it.  I'm having so much fun not working at a career.  I really want to pursue that, but I'm also afraid that I won't be able to do it.  I guess it's been the path of least resistance for me for so long that I don't know how to get out of this well worn rut.  I still want to compete and succeed in the narrow field where I feel so productive! 

But, I also want to succeed at living the life of Riley that I've earned. I hope there's a way to balance the two.

As I re-read this I can imagine young people looking at these words and saying "I wish," which also fills me with sadness.  I wish for you too, but I also would like you to know that you wish for the same things when you are 64 that you did when you were 26.  You will be the same person throughout your life.   

Started set dancing on Monday.  Boy is that work!

There were about 30 other dancers, all Irish of course, and all were familiar with the basic steps so even when the instructor asked if they had ever danced before they all were familiar with the general idea -- except me.  When he heard my accent, he asked "do you know 1-2-3?"  Well, no.  He then separated me from my friend Mary (Irish, knowing 1-2-3) and I was next to him the rest of the evening.  I got 1-2-3 pretty quick but the rest of it, whew.  It was dizzying, twirly and fast.  Except for getting dizzy and quite sweaty; more than the others and partly due to my thyroid medication I think, it was really, really fun!  I was glad I'm fit because otherwise I would not have been able to keep up.     

Fortunately for me as a newbie, I was always in the female position.  Since there are mostly women in the class (no surprise there) some women have to take the male position and then everything is opposite.  This is an issue because one aspect of set dancing is alternating partners.  About a quarter of the class is men so half of the people in the male position are women, and when in that role the women led the way women lead, they explained stuff.  Dancing with the men was easier because they approach the task by forcing you to do what's needed.  They squeeze, pull and push.  The women didn't do that at all, they held lightly and said "do this; do that".  It was hard to process the explanations when things were happening so quickly, much easier to get squeezed, pushed and pulled in the right direction.  Venus and Mars all over again! 

Most of the people were really nice, although some seemed not to want to dance with me and my two left feet.  No one was mean or anything, but when it came to the men changing circles (there were three of them) I was always the last to get partnered up.  Fortunately the instructor kept a good watch on me and sometimes pulled a better dancer to me so that he didn't have two klutzes twirling awkwardly together, a survival tactic for his work I guess because that could definitely cause a pile-up.

The dance is like square dancing in that it's four couples in a square with a pair facing each other most of the time.  It's also similar in that there are various formations and what, in square dancing, is called promenade is used at the start.  The big, big difference is that one-two-three.  Instead of in square dancing where people walk normally, all of the steps in set dancing are done with a one-two-three shuffle, similar to polka.  That's what makes it so strenuous. 

The only problem with the current class is its location.  I have to admit that the neighborhood is quite dodgey (a word used here a lot to describe bad).  It is OK in the going but the class is out at 10 p.m. so it's pretty dark and lonely coming back.  My friend drives and the parking is also not good, although on Monday she found a spot about a block away.  She wouldn't hear of me standing at the bus stop and drove me to a better one.  We go in different directions and I just don't want to take advantage of her, so this is no good.  We have found another place that is in a country pub with parking, so next week we are going to try me taking the bus to her place, driving there and then me getting the bus back from her place. 

I've been without a car for a long time now, 8 years since we moved to Washington, and I'm used to public transit, but I have noticed people who have cars just can't fathom waiting for a bus.  But I know I have to be careful about that because it can also lead to a lot of inconvenience for drivers if I were to take advantage of that mindset.  I really don't mind the bus, I'm used to it. 

Next week we start going to plays in the Dublin Theater Festival series and Alan's sister and brother in law come for a visit, so things will get busy.  We are looking forward to having guests again!

Solpadeine is My Boyfriend, a play we saw yesterday during the Dublin Fringe Festival, was about the most moving performance I've seen since The Last of Mrs. Lincoln when I was in my 20's.  I'll remember it for a long, long time. (Solpadeine is a drug for headaches.  It has codeine in it so it's addictive.  It's really amazing to me that you can't buy a big bottle of aspirin tablets here but you can get an addictive drug over-the-counter.  I think the issue must be quantity and how it's taken because it seems you can only buy 12 at a time of any headache remedy and almost all of them--including this one--is effervescent and dissolved in water.)

The show, a one person performance, written and performed by an incredibly talented young woman was about the struggles young people face in Ireland -- all over the world really -- when they can't find jobs.  The poignant aspect about this condition here in Ireland is that joblessness among the young is almost always 'solved' by emigration.  Now they are mostly going to Australia but the effect is still the same on Ireland as when they were going to America.  Pain and loss among family and friends left behind.  I'd never really looked at it from the perspective of the young people who stayed behind.  The courage, it seemed, was in the going.  This young woman, Stefanie Preissner, has captured and articulated the courage it takes to stay.  I was really, really impressed.  If you are interested, you can read more about this performance and her here:  http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/emigration-stefanie-preissner-585621-Sep2012/

I'm reminded over and over again how what we thought in America was a bad economy, is really so, so much better than what it could be like if the recession was as real there as it is here.  For all the talk of how bad it is there, and I'm not minimizing the lack of work that I know continues to bedevil the U.S. economy and people we know and love there; the double dip recession that is here, is frightening.  Not only are there no jobs but investments are not performing either so even people with savings continue to be hurt.  We had a brief conversation with a woman about our age while we were waiting for the doors to open on the performance.  She has three sons and even the suggestion of them emigrating brought tears to her eyes, she knows it's a real possibility that one or more of them will do it.  It was really sad.

On a happier note, both Alan and I received copies of the books we worked on the in last year in the mail this week.  It was a real pleasure to see them in print.  Mine, 10 Lessons for Cultivating Member Commitment is a "best seller".  Which in association terms, means has sold over 200 copies since it was published in August.  I don't have the numbers for Alan's, Environmental Scanning for Associations.  I don't think Alan is really touting this achievement in any event since his area is really fiction.  He's been busy working on a play and has joined a writer's group, so that's his main focus.

I've taken two drop-in dance classes already, and will start the more formal set dancing class on Monday.  I'm very excited to begin.  The drop-in classes are on Wednesday afternoons and so far I've learned a few steps in the jitterbug and the start of a minuet.  It's quite a bit more strenuous than it seemed at first but good fun.

Next week we will start going to the plays we've booked in the Dublin Theater Festival, including the first staging of James Joyce The Dubliners with our visitors, Alan's sister and brother in law.   We are so looking forward to seeing them. 

Well, Notre Dame won the game last Saturday.  As expected, I stayed at the tailgate party, put on by Democrats Abroad, just long enough to see the start and eat the burger.  We met several new people and I officially joined the American Women's Club of Dublin (AWCD) a cosponsor of the tailgate party.  I've heard the game was very good for business in Dublin, there were tons of Americans on the streets. I think both Navy and Notre Dame fans are rabid and rich so coming to Dublin for one game was appropriate for them I guess.  Anyway, the Dublin retailers were happy. 

I attended a drop-in dance class on Wednesday afternoon and, although it wasn't set dancing (which starts on September 17) it was fun to meet some new people and to learn a new dance, a minuet.  I will likely do that on Wednesday afternoons going forward as well as the Monday evening set dancing. 

Tonight we are going to hear the President's acceptance speech with a group from the Democrats club.  They have arranged for a big screen TV to be set up in a pub in the City Center.  Up to now I've been watching the speeches by YouTube the following morning.  Prime time in the States is the wee hours of the morning here.  I really enjoyed seeing Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton in particular but was also impressed with San Antonio's mayor. He's an up and comer I'd say.  As soon as Hispanics become the majority in Texas, I expect that state will move pretty shortly thereafter from red to blue. 

This morning, I did a walking tour or Merrion Square, which is a park in the City Center formerly owned by the Catholic Church.  Until 1972, the park was locked up and you needed special permission to enter, but in that year the Bishop of Dublin gave the property to the City.  It's just amazing the hold the church had on Ireland.  I was surprised to learn that it wasn't until the famine (1848) that the church emerged with such political and social power here.  Although it didn't do much to help the population and mostly sided with the land owners during the famine, it moved pretty aggressively to take control in the vacuum caused by the decimation of the population as the one entity with an organization.  Living here is so interesting.  A lot of my myths about Ireland are being burst.

The Dublin Theater Festival begins here on September 25th and we have booked to see 9 plays between September 25 and October 14.  Considering that we're going to be on a walking tour in Majorca between October 4th and October 12th, that's a lot of them. On two days we're going to see more than one.  For one play, The Dubliners, we will be accompanied by Alan's sister and brother-in-law.  It seems a fitting play to share with American visitors. The venue is also one I'm happy with, The Gaiety Theatre, site of the recent performance of Riverdance that we saw.  The stage was too small for Riverdance, but the theater is just beautiful and it's the perfect spot for a play. 

The upcoming week should be a quiet one.  The only thing on my calendar is the first monthly meeting of AWCD, but I expect that I'll keep myself busy nonetheless.

Just as in the States, September is the month that starts afresh.  Here, summer isn't bracketed by Memorial Day in May and Labor Day in September but simply by months.  Summer starts in June and ends when the kids go back to school the first weekday in September.  It's not that there aren't holidays here, they just don't commemorate anything in particular, most are just called "bank holidays" and those are days when most everything but retail is closed.  It rains buckets on most bank holidays. I didn't post as I usually do yesterday (Friday) because I wanted to start afresh too, so here I am on September 1 at 4:38 a.m.

I'm excited to start this month because there are lots of new things on the calendar.  The thing I'm most excited about is starting set dancing classes.  I've identified two places that offer classes and it looks like so much fun -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj13osgy2M0 .  One starts on Monday the 12th and the other on the 16th.  I remember my mother and father's fond memories of their early days when he played accordion and she danced.  In later years she kept up in the States in a square dance group and you can see from the video that, except for the caller in square dance, set dancing is very similar.  I was inspired to do this by seeing set dancers in a pub during our trip to Dingle last week and set about finding a place for classes.  Although he has agreed to start square dancing when we get back to the States, Alan is going to pass on set dancing but, like with most dance, women are more prevalent anyway and it's acceptable for women to partner in it.  I'm delighted that my friend Mary says she'd like to come along, so I'll have a partner to begin. 

There are also two new networking groups I will be attending with monthly meetings beginning in September after a summer hiatus, Democrats Abroad and American Women in Ireland.  Since the election is coming up so quickly, there will be lots to do in the former, starting with the President's acceptance speech at the convention on September 7th.  The latter seems like a group I was involved in during my time in Milwaukee but I'm hoping not so cliquish since it should be more fluid, with people coming in and out as they arrive in the country.  The group in Milwaukee was not that dynamic since people tended to be from and stay in that city for their whole lifetime. 

After parting with our friends in Dingle last Saturday, Alan and I returned home to catch up on maintenance; lots of laundry, shopping and cleaning.  We did take a break on Tuesday and saw the movie Shadow Dancer which was quite good.  Then on Wednesday morning I met friends at the Irish Film Institute (IFI) for the monthly "Strawberry Club" outing for seniors.  We saw the 2009 movie Welcome to the Riley's with James Gandolfini. IFI is very similar to the American Film Institute (AFI) with special deals for members and this Strawberry Club is one they put on each month for the over 55 set.  It's just great because for 3.50 Euro (about $5) you get a movie that you wouldn't otherwise see and a coffee.  The last several times I've done it, I've met friends and had lunch afterward.  A lot of fun.

Our U.S. friends returned from their continued travels in the west of Ireland on Wednesday evening and we had a nice dinner in and heard the story of their travels.  The story of Sheila, the compulsive B&B operator at the Cliffs of Moher was hysterical. They left early on Thursday morning for the trip back to Madison, WI. 

It was such fun hosting them and we are looking forward to a lot more visits in the next two months.  In addition to great company, this couple brought a big bottle of aspirin tablets.  For some reason you can't get that here, aspirin only comes in effervescent tablets in a box of 12.  Our next guests, Alan's sister and her husband (or as Alan's much beloved mother called "Margenes", just and Alan and I were "Alans"), are bringing ice cube trays, the kind that makes big cubes, another thing that is not available in Ireland.  We've got a list of such items so those of you getting ready for your trip here be warned!

Today we are going to a tailgate party for the Notre Dame/Navy football game that is to be played here in Dublin at the Emerald Island Classic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Isle_Classic  .  I'm not much of a football fan so I don't expect to last for the whole thing, but Alan will likely stay till the bitter end.  Since they are Hoosiers AND "The Fighting Irish", we're both rooting for Notre Dame. 

A little late posting this week...

A little late posting this week, it's Sunday but there's a good reason.  Last week was our first hosting experience in Dublin and it was just great.  We had a lot of fun with our friends and, unless they are just saying it to make us feel good, they had fun too.  Win, win all around.  Enough, I hope, to encourage all of you who are on the fence about visiting us!

Our friends came on Saturday and we spent the first three days of their visit in Dublin.  The first day we stuck close to home because it's usually the hardest for the jet lag adjustment.  That worked out well. We took a short bus ride to the city center and gave them a general orientation.  The following day they went on their own for a walking tour of the city.  There are walking tours every day and each one is different, depending on the guide.  The guides are usually affiliated with Trinity College, Dublin so they are quite knowledgeable and opinionated.  They know stuff and don't mind inserting their own interests and biases in the tour so there's nothing rote about it.

On the third day we went with them to the Killmainham Gaol (Irish again, it's just pronounced "jail").  This was the place where the British kept Irish 'criminals' in the 19th century and political prisoners in the days of the fight for independence 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilmainham_Gaol.  

They had a lot of records and some of the criminal offenses were quite poignant, "stealing potatoes" for example.  Of course there were also larcenies of all sorts as well as prostitution and buggery.  I'm sure it's quite interesting when Americans bring their children for an Irish history lesson and the kids ask 'What's buggery dad?"  Anyway, the goal was fascinating.  It was a horrible place but apparently during the famine, people were committing crimes to get in, so one can just imagine how horrible it was on the outside during those times.  The film In the Name of the Father was filmed there so if you have seen that, you get the idea.  On a happier note, we also did the Guinness Brewery tour, ending the day in the great pub they have at the top of the building with a wonderful panorama of the city.  That was just great.

On Wednesday we left for Killarney by train.  Killarney is a nice city.  Initially I thought that as guests come we would accompany them on trips to places where we'd not already been, but I could see going back there -- and to Dingle -- again and again.  We had fun in Killarney.  From there we did a horse and trap/boat ride through the Gap of Dunloe 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_of_Dunloe

Half the trip was in a very small cart pulled by an overworked horse and the return was an open-topped boat through the lakes of Killarney.  On the following day we did a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry.  Both were very nice, although the Ring of Kerry bus tour was 2 hours too long.  

Following Killarney our friends got a car and we drove to Dingle.  It was pouring rain, the first time we really got a lot of rain during their stay.  I didn't like the car trip much, but took a valium at the start and was asleep most of the way.  The car thing continues and it's pretty much a nuisance but valium works good.  Still, I can't think that any kind of cross country tour in a car would be anything but torture for me, particularly since this trip was only two hours!  

Still, once we got to Dingle and checked into the hotel, Benners (good but expensive), we had a great dinner and then went to a pub in which we had the best music and dance experience we have had in Ireland.  The musicians (just a guitar and squeeze box accordian)  were just great.  We had so much fun, and THEN they started a set dance.  It was just great.  

  

The following day in Dingle was great too although our boat tour to the Blasket Islands was rained out.  We and our friends walked around town (in the rain) in the early morning, then it cleared up.  We stopped in the public library and had a good visit with the librarian who was a font of information, then when the rain stopped we continued our walk to a nearby church where a funeral was in progress.  We waited in the back while the exit procession was going on.  They sang "Lord of the Dance" and right there, I determined that I'm going to learn set dancing here.  It was very moving.

Following that, Rosemary noticed a sign encouraging us to visit an adjoining convent with noteworthy stained glass.  What a great find, the chapel was just beautiful.  I could not have asked for more by way of artistry and spiritual beauty, it more than made up for not seeing dolphins!  So, so beautiful. 

http://www.diseart.ie/visitor/harry2.html

All in all, a great, great week.  We both enjoyed hosting and the new experiences.   Our friends come back to us on Wednesday for one night and then we will rest for a few weeks in preparation of Alan's sister and my favorite outlaw, Tom's visit.  (The outlaws are those who have married Balkemas  -- you know who you are an why this in noteworthy).  Those who really know Alan also know -- the Balkemas are NEVER wrong -- still, we outlaws stick with them and with one another in solidarity.  I'm looking forward to a great visit.