This week we did things pretty close to home.

I joined a weekly walking group last Thursday for a 4 mile walk to the port town of Dun Laoghaire (which is amazingly pronounced Dun Leary) and met two very interesting women with whom I hope to follow up.  It was a beautiful walk along the Irish Sea.  At the end we stopped for coffee and while the rest of the group planned to take public transportation back we three returned on foot, for a total of 7.5 miles that day.  There are walks like this in various parts of the city every day of the week and once the weather gets a little better I plan to do as many as I can. These are mainly walking groups designed for meeting people, no narrative provided as to what you are passing as you go.  In this case, that was fine because it was all the Irish Sea.  I'll be curious about the more inland walks since I'm pretty curious about everything just now.

Another walk Alan and I did together was much more informative; a City Center walking tour led by a student of Irish history studying at Trinity College.  The focus was on Irish independence so we passed the post office that was occupied in 1916 at a turning point in the struggle for independence.  It was very interesting because one thing I learned that I hadn't known in the past, was that the Irish population was generally not in support of the "Republicans" because of their orientation toward armed resistance.  There was more support for the "parliamentary" process, mainly in hopes of getting representation in Britain with a sitting parliament in Dublin.  The tide turned, however, when the British routed the rebels from the post office and executed all the leaders, including James Connolly, who was wounded and tied to a chair for his execution.  In addition to his leadership of the rebellion, his execution virtually guaranteed his place as an Irish hero.  To me it's another example of how a government's over-reaction can have really dire results, where is the deterrent in that?  Anyway, it was a quite interesting walk.

On Sunday, after meeting a distant relative for coffee -- my mother's cousin's great-grandson -- we went to the Irish Film Institute and saw the documentary film, Marley.  Anyone who is a Bob Marley fan will want to see this movie.  The music was great and the story quite interesting.  Once when we were in Jamaica we went to his home/studio in Kingston so it was interesting to see how important that place was to the development of Reggae.

On Tuesday we went to one of the best cafe's I've ever visited, Bewleys.  Not only do they have great coffee and a great location, right on Grafton Street in the center of the shopping district, but there's a small theater on the third floor where you can have a light lunch and see a play.  The one we saw was called "A Galway Girl" a one-act play about marriage.  That's going to become a regular for us.  It was really good, and only 14 Euros.

Yesterday we applied for our PPI cards (their version of SSA) and registered to vote.  We learned another interesting thing about Ireland, non-citizens can vote, so Alan registered too.  There is no absentee ballot so even if you are a citizen living outside the country, you can't vote.  The only exception is for embassy and military personnel. Interesting.  We're excited to cast our ballots on the Euro zone treaty on May 31st.  The government sent a copy of the whole treaty we will be voting on in the mail this week so now I feel pretty confident in understanding it.  I think I've come down on the side of the 'yes' vote because I do think that what's needed now is stability; but there's still a good argument for 'no'.

We've also started making travel plans for seeing other parts of Europe.  We have a trip scheduled for the end of the month to Bruges in Belgium and The Hague in Holland; in July we will go to Donegal for our 35th anniversary, to Liverpool for an association meeting, and I will meet a friend in France to see the lavender in Avignon.  Then in October we have planned a walking trip organized by the Irish Times newspaper to Majorca.  We are also on the lookout for a Mediterranean cruise that includes Turkey.

All in all, a good week.  Till next Friday.