Hunter's Visit Day #7

It was hard saying goodbye to the Hunter’s.  But, today was the day they had to go home.  As Crystal reminded me over and over, the months will just fly by and we will be living with them soon enough.  I know she is right, but it was such fun having them here.

I hope they had a good time.  I hope we balanced visiting time with exploring time.  I hope we were able to show them interesting things about Ireland without it being boring or Cakebread centered.  I worried that we were deluging them with history and culture.  I hope they were able to see how grateful we are that they came over and visited us. 

March is both too close and too far away right now.

Oh, and after we dropped them off at the airport, we went to Ikea and then had a long nap at home.  Even I was exhausted.

Hunter's Visit Day #6

For their last full day (ack!!! The time went so fast!!) we took them to the south part of the Republic.  We hit the Rock of Cashel and then onto Kilkenny and Kytler’s. 

We were 10 minutes late for the last tour, which sucked because I really wanted Crys and Bry to have the Cashel experience.  But, we soldiered on.  In Kilkenny, we were too late to get into Kilkenny Castle.  But, we did see the astonishingly beautiful outside.  We were caught in traffic, so once again, I got out of the car to do some window-shopping in Kilkenny.

Once Ker found parking we headed to Kytler’s to have dinner.  Interestingly, Kytler’s at 6:30 pm is not the same place as the Kytler’s at 9 pm.  At 9 there is live traditional music, the bar is open and the food is fresh.  Also, the place is packed and the menu is larger. Unfortunately, we were there at 6:30.  There was no music, no bar open and the menu consisted of 4 items, which came out less than 10 minutes after we ordered it.  What a bummer!

Hunter's Visit Day #5

It’s Belfast time!  Bryan expressed interest in the Titanic and we happen to know a place where he can get all of his questions answered—the place where the Titanic was built.  This works out perfectly because Ker and I wanted to show them Northern Ireland.  It’s hard to explain to eople from home how different it is in the North.  It’s hard to imagine that with an island so small, that it can contain two distinct countries with such a turbulent history.  It’s better to experience it in person.  So, off to Belfast we went.

Now, I have been trying to get a picture of the Welcome to Northern Ireland sign for a while.  Even though I got my phone out miles before the sign, I still missed it!  Grr.  The border between the two countries is not well marked and the sign comes up so fast without any warning that I’ve missed getting the picture EVERY time I’ve gon up.  Well, I live to try another time.

Abby, Colleen and I have already had as much of the Titanic Experience as we can handle, so we decided to do a little Christmas Shopping in downtown Belfast while Ker took Bry and Crys through the museum.  We had Ker set the GPS to a shopping center downtown.  The problem is that Belfast is full of traffic and streets that don’t make any sense.  Eventually, after waiting in horrendous traffic for 30 minutes, I deemed us “close enough” to the shopping center.  Since we weren’t moving anyway, the girls and I hopped out of the car to find our shops on foot.  This allowed Ker to maneuver the car out of the heavy traffic and to head toward the docks.   It was a win-win situation.

Our first shop was a cute early education boutique.  It was chock full of stickers, learning games, toys and gadgets.  We really wanted to buy one of everything!  I know that my elementary teacher friends would be itching to try out all the goodies.  I love little shops like this one! It was a fun time.

We meandered through several shops.  We even found an exotic food shop that had many of our favorite American foods.  It’s fun to think that American food and products are considered “ethnic” here.

Belfast is a large city, but it is not as pretty or picturesque as most of Ireland.  The city is primarily been an industrial powerhouse throughout the centuries.  This might explain the downtrodden and sometimes dirty feel of the place.  Also, the people aren’t as nice as what we encounter down in the Republic, but they are nice enough.  There’s an impression that Belfast is a serious place where serious people do serious work.  I can tell that the city is trying to attract tourism though.  The shopping center is new and very well decorated and there are many tourist friendly places to stop and chat.  These are very new and modern—they even still smell of fresh paint.

The girls and I stumbled on a Christmas Market right in front of the magnificent City Hall building.  It was filled with all the treats you can imagine.  It reminded us of the Portland Saturday Market minus the weirdos and overly patoulli scent if you know what I mean. I forgot to bring my Northern Irish money so we couldn’t buy anything at the cute little shops even though we saw some CUTE stuff.  Even with that, it well worth the stop.

After a couple of hours shopping, it was heading on lunchtime so I decided we should hop into a cab and meet up at the Titanic Experience.  It was perfect timing because Ker, Crys and Bry were about to order lunch at one of the restaurants inside Titanic Experience.  We ate there—I had the vegetarian option complete with the you-must-be-crazy look.

After lunch we headed back to the house to rest a little and get in touch with the people at “home” to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving.  It’s a little surreal to know that today we are usually cleaning, cooking and getting everything ready for a celebration of food and family.

Once sufficiently rested, we hooked the girls up with pizza and unlimited internet privileges.  This made them exceedingly happy and they were practically pushing us out the door so we could have an adult only night on the town exploring the Temple Bar area of Dublin.  Confusingly, Temple Bar refers to both an area of town and a specific pub in downtown Dublin.  So, when people ask to go to Temple Bar, we kind of look at them and have to figure out if they mean the pub or something else.

We arrived at 8:30 pm when people are just beginning to want to leave their house for a good time.  So, the pubs weren’t so crowded with drunkards quite yet.  I find that pleasant because loads of drunken people are not my kind of thing.  I find them kinda pathetic.  Since I was the designated driver, I only had one pint at the first place we stopped in.  I am much more entertained by the live music offered at these locations.  We were in the audience for some great local talent.  I really liked the banjo/guitar duo.  But, what was even more fun was to see Bryan try and sing with the street band outside the pubs.  That was hilarious.

We rounded the evening off with a stop at The Porterhouse Brewing Company.  This is a must see for any beer lover visiting Ireland.  Lots of taps with an awesome guitar player who is skilled at getting the crowd involved and singing.  The building has many cozy corners and funky seating so you don’t feel hemmed in.  Ker and I will definitely be back.  This might be the only incentive that will convince Ker to come Christmas shopping with me this year.

Hunter's Visit Day #4

Written By:  Amy 

We slept in today.  It was a well-earned rest.  I think we all needed some down time to process all we had done and seen in the last couple of days.  When we finally headed out, it was well into lunch time and we stopped at a pub to have some eats.

Once we got going, we headed to show Crys and Bry our all time favorite place—Newgrange.  I’ve already blogged about how magnificent this passage tomb is, so I won’t go into it again here.  We were just in time for the last tour of the day.  We were treated to partly sunny skies.  The views from Newgrange are just breathtaking.  Unfortunately, we were not able to see Knowth at this time because it is closed for the winter.  Instead, we spent time in the interpretive center. 

On the tour with us, we met a couple and their twin girls.  The husband was a photographer from Ireland, but his wife is from Atlanta, GA.  They live in Atlanta now, but he wanted to show his girls his home.  It was really great to talk to them.  But, by then we were closing down the place and were being politely shoo-ed out the door. 

Next we headed to show off the beauty of the Irish countryside.  We took them on the Slane/Navan/Kells tour.  But, we were a little late in the day to be cruising around.  The sun was setting and it gets difficult to see the rolling green hills in the dark.  We ate dinner in the Round Restaurant, which is literally on a turn circle and then came home.

Hunter Visit Day #3

Written By:  Amy after a quick trip to the grocery store to get pepper.

Bry and Cry decided that one of things they’d like to see while they were this close was London.  Since we love that place, Ker and I were like “Why not? Let’s do this!”.

So, we were up at 3:30 am (which was only an hour or two of sleep for Crystal and Bry, eek!) and headed to the airport to hop on a plane to play in London. 

Our first stop once we got off the train in London was to grab a Full English Breakfast on our way to the Tower of London.  We found this total hole-in-the-wall place and ate in an empty restaurant.  It was a cool little place, though. 

Once fortified with a TON of coffee, we headed to the Tower. 

Bryan and Crys at Traitor's Gate

This time, there were no lines and we were able to see the crown jewels easily.  It’s really amazing to think of all the monarch’s jewels in one place.  Kinda weird though.  All those stones, all that wealth just to act as symbols of power and prestige.  It is so different from the way we think in America, it just doesn’t compute for us, I think.  But, we had another excellent Yeoman (Beefeater) tour.  Our guide was funny and knowledgeable.  I’ve now been to the through the tour 3 times and am just amazed at the skill of the guides at the Tower.

We had some lunch at the Tower Café and then it was off to Abbey Road to get a picture with the Beatles.  Er, I mean get a picture like the Beatles for Bryan.  He wanted to explore London’s Rock and Roll music history.  But, we found that we would need to be there at 9 pm when the pubs and other venues opened.  Which was a bummer because Bry is really into that kind of stuff. But, we did get the Abbey Road picture.  

Well, kind of.  Apparently, our first attempt was not correct because they were facing the wrong direction.  So, we had to take another.

It wasn't easy taking pictures in the middle of a street in London.  I had to fight for my position as a photographer because some other tourist wanted to get the picture too.  But, I won.

Next we headed to Picadilly Circus to do some sourvenir shopping.  But, while there, I think our party just hit a wall.  The wall was called exhaustion.  It was too late in the day to see more of the sites and too early in the evening to go to dinner.  So, after a beer at a steakhouse we hailed a cab and drove around the sites of London while our cabbie gave us some interesting facts about what we were seeing. 

Riding in a Taxi in London Traffic

London from a native was really cool.  I was surprised at how open Number 10 Downing Street (the Prime Minister’s house) was to the general public.  It’s not like the White House where we were only allowed to come as close as ¾ of a mile away from it.   10 Downing Street is just a ½ block from the major street.  You can just walk up to the black gate and take a look at it.  I was told it was surrounded by snipers and other security.  But, it looked surprisingly accessible.

The cabbie dropped us off at Ole Wautling Ale and Pie House.  He told us that this pub was for the workers who rebuilt London after the great fire of the 1660’s.  So, it was really historic and neat.  However, it had a fancy dress code so we headed back to the back section to have our dinner because we were in our jeans and sweater tourist clothing.

I felt so bad because by this time, Crystal was so tired.  She was just beat.  So was Bryan.  They had only slept maybe10 hours in 3 days.  Don’t get me wrong, they were troopers, but it’s just not fun watching someone pry their eyes open, ya know?  So, after a fine dinner, we head back to the airport a little early to wait for our flight.  Crystal got to rest for 45 minutes in the train which gave her enough energy to wander around Stanstead airport with me.

After the uneventful flight home, we all just crashed in our beds completely exhausted.