I've been entertaining a relative of an American friend this week.  Dyana arrived on Wednesday and we started fast because she's only here for 5 nights.  I am just amazed at her pluck in coming all the way here from Washington state for such a short amount of time.  I've tried to help her pack in as much as possible in this short time.

We started right away with a tour of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin scheduled for 2 p.m. on the day she arrived.  After a short nap, she seemed ready to go.  I was disappointed in the tour because the guide was just awful, he spoke in a very soft voice and didn't really want to go into any of the history of the cathedral.  It was one that was taken from the Catholic church during the Cromwell period and given to the Church of Ireland, basically the Episcopals and a protestant satellite of the Church of England.  It was like he thought that he couldn't acknowledge the well known history.  It was ridiculous, several times he said "we won't go there" like it was a big secret.  But, we did get up into the bell tower, which is not on the regular tour of the church so that was nice.  I also learned that Strongbow was buried there. But I learned from this post now that he's not really there, a factoid the guide apparently didn't know:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_de_Clare,_2nd_Earl_of_Pembroke.  Anyway, it's a beautiful place, it's right in the center of town, it's got a lot of history surrounding it, including the earliest Viking village in Dublin so there was still a lot to see. I mistakenly thought that Johnathan Swift was buried there but he's at St. Patrick's Cathedral, another of the churches that was given to the Church of Ireland during the reformation. 

The following day, Thursday, we went on a rail/coach tour of Galway and Connemara.  After a train trip across the country we spent a nice afternoon and evening in Galway and then a bus trip the following day in Galway and Connemara.  It was very warm and the bus had very poor AC, very poor repair in general because there were some loose belts and anytime we were outside while it was running we could hear that distinctive screech of loose belts.  Also, the video didn't work.  The guide was not the best either, it was clear he'd done this tour daily for a looong time, he repeated himself a lot.  Still it was a beautiful ride and we saw a lot.  I also got some good ideas for our week in Connemara in September, including a must revisit to Lenane and to Kylemore Abbey.  There are lots of monoliths and stones nearby.  Dyana brought beautiful weather with her and it's been in the 80's since she arrived. She's also an excellent photographer and I will post some of her pictures as soon as I receive them from her.

On our return on Saturday, we discovered that the unit next to us, now vacant, had the smoke detector activated for the previous 12 hours.  It's now Sunday evening and after the battery ran out, it's now a constant signal that the battery needs replacing, so that's hard wired and won't stop until the owner arrives to replace the now dead battery.  This is the second time during our sojourn in Ireland where we have learned that NO ONE pays attention to alarms and if they go off in vacant units, cars, stores, whatever.  Everyone in the vicinity suffers until the owner or the management company comes to address the problem, and the WILL NOT do that on the weekend.  There must have been more stringent regulation on this in the USA because if there weren't some pretty strict rules there, the place we lived in DC would have had the same problem.  I called the management company "emergency" number last night and was told there wasn't much to be done because they weren't sure they had the owner's contact information "at the weekend".  From the start of our tenure here "at the weekend" is the kiss of death.  If anything happens "at the weekend" you are on your own till Monday and that's that.  The alarm still sounds, I'm doing my best to remain calm. 

We will have one more day in Dublin and then Dyana leaves on Tuesday morning.  I resume my long walks with Mary on Tuesday in preparation for our walk in September on the Santiago de Campostela.