Co-Authors for the Dublin Day!

Written By:  Amy (in purple) and Val (in red)

After a quick breakfast we hijacked Kerry and popped in the car to make the drive to Dublin. It was snowing hard when we left, but it wasn’t sticking and the temperature was slowly rising above 0 degrees. But, we are not daunted by any weather that this island can produce—especially when we can make Kerry drive.  It was not as smooth a drive as the other night, as there was a LOT more traffic, and the red lights saw us coming. 

We arrived at Kilmainham Gaol shortly after 10 am.  It is a cold and dreary place in good weather, and cold and snow didn’t make it any more attractive.  We had 15 minutes to look at the bottom floor of the museum before the tour started.  This gaol, (pronounced  jail) was built in the 1700’s and was abandoned in 1926, but a group people, some former inmates, worked to get it established as a Heritage Site, and restored it. Our fast-talking tour guide, Peter, started the tour and led us to the Catholic Chapel inside the gaol where he skimmed the history of the gaol.  He left out how much of the history of Ireland was involved with the gaol, such as that over the 200 years it was opened, there were 5 failed uprisings, and the rebels were all imprisoned here. But, having been on the tour many times in the last couple months, I (Amy) was able to fill them all in on what our tour guide Peter left out.  After the last uprising in 1916, the prisoners were executed so quickly, without trials, or even lawyers, that the country became outraged and pushed harder than ever for freedom from British rule.  Which lead to the Irish using guerrilla tactics to force the British to grant them Free State status leading the way to being the Republic Ireland is today. 

We left the gaol and drove to St Stephen’s Park, where we left the car, and then walked to “The Georgian House”, which showed how people lived in the 1800’s,, but found it  closed for repairs.  Which was very upsetting as we had to walk up hill, in the snow, BOTH WAYS, which is all to say we got lost on the way to this stinking thing and it would have been nice to know it was closed. So we found a nice place for lunch and regrouped. 

We decided to forge on to Trinity College and view the Book of Kells, by taxi. This exhibit starts out  with pictures and demonstrations of how the books were made, the inks used and styles of writing, and large pictures of the designs for the art work, or “illumination” used.  After going through the self guided tour, you are ushered into the room where the Book of Kells is housed.  The room is very dark, as light is  harmful to the paper and inks, and the four books being shown today are in a glass covered case at a height easy to lean on to view the books closely, and with very low lighting shining on the books.  The docents flip the pages of the Book of Kells so every time I go, I see a new part of this mind-blowing text.  Then we went to the last part of the exhibit, which is a long long room, called the Long Room, (imagine that) full of very very old books, that had been donated to  the college.  For those that are wondering, this is my favorite place on Earth—if only they would let me get my hands on all those books! 

By this time we were all tired, and decided to call it a day, and go home, but we got a little lost in the car and drove around in circles first. I had to get brave and make a right turn down the narrowest alley I’ve ever seen and it took me a couple of attempts before I felt good enough to do it (that’s my story and I’m stickin to it!). 

Guest Bloggers: Val Cakebread and Diane Cakebread

Written By: Val and Diane, Goddesses of Travel

BY THE WAY, WE ARE STAYING AN EXTRA DAY, RETURNING ON FEB 3rd at 7:42pm.
Kerry arranged that with the airline, and there are NO FEES with the change. Kerry saw the list of things we still planned to do here, and decided that we would never get it done before the 2nd. He tried to get us 2 days extra, but the airline balked at that.

Second: We all send healing thoughts to Bob. He is doing better, and was up walking on his new hip this morning. Way to go Bob.

To Tom, Pam, Shelley, and Walt:
Hello from Mom.
We didn’t get up till around 10, after our late night out. By the way, I liked the beer. All of it. Then we headed to Belfast, which is about an hours drive, and saw the Titanic Museum and all its exhibits. About how they made it, here in Belfast. We were about 200 feet from where it was launched. We had lunch before we went in, and I had a meat pie with excellent crust on it. We were in there about 2 1/2 hours going through it, and then we drove home again. We stopped to pick up Kerry and Colleen in Drogheda. (draw ha da). We came home, had breakfast for dinner, and I am heading for bed. And it’s only 8:21. And I don’t care. Tomorrow we go to Dublin to see the sights. Love, Mom.

Val again. I woke up this morning at 9 am and read awhile. I was told there had been light flurries of snow, but nothing was on the ground. After breakfast, and showers, Amy, Diane and I left to go to Belfast. That’s about an hour north, and in Northern Ireland which is technically a different country. No passports needed. We just whizzed past the border sign on the M1. As we got in the car, it was snowing hard. But we merrily pushed onward, as if the sun was shining. Nobody seemed to notice the weather.

Arrived in Belfast, and went into this beautiful building with what looked liked the prow of a ship coming through the building. Actually four ships, one facing each direction. The exhibits were very well done, using all kinds of technology.

Getting Ready For the Exhibit

On top of a very tall gantry, with the floor moving as if there was a high wind blowing, animated photos, screens showing individual processes of building, some animated videos, a building painted on the wall with windows that lit up and showed people inside working and talking, a very large room with wraparound screens and videos that scrolled around the room. I had to grab hold of a small barrier to keep from falling. And other stuff I have forgotten. Oh, I forgot about the ride in a roller coaster like car that took us around a track to look at scenes depicting the building of the ship. The exhibits told the story from planning to build the ship, to all the processes of design and then building, through launch, and voyage, the iceberg, the ship sinking, the rescue, the aftermath, and finally a movie of the search for, and filming of the wreckage on the ocean floor. Part of the movie was shown under our feet, as if we were looking down on the wreckage. Wow. I was worn out and slept all the way home.
It snowed and hailed at different times today, and the wind is really howling outside. We might have more snow tonight, but everything from today is already melted.
I’m also seriously thinking of joining Diane, by going to bed early.

Guest Bloggers: Valerie VanDyke Cakebread and Diane Meeuwsen Mortimer Cakebread

Written By: My Amazing Aunts

Ireland

We hear Bob came thru surgery just fine, and is resting comfortably, after Tina got him some coffee. We called them as we drove to Trim and woke them up. They planned to get up about 3:45 am, and it was about that time. Imagine getting your wake up call from Ireland.

From Diane:

To Tom, Pam, Shelley, and Walt.
Hello from Mom. I’m having a GREAT time. We went and saw so many different places. first we went to New Grange.

At Newgrange Monument

This is a mound of rocks that are stacked up on each other, some are big and some are small, slanted to the outside so the water could run off. And grass planted on top. We went inside through a tunnel, about 15 ft long, in places very narrow, and with a low roof. I took pictures inside, that I can share when I get home. We saw a lot of castles that were just walls, because the roof was wood and it rotted away.

Trim Castle

Most castles had cemeteries. Then we went to a cemetery with a tomb with cement images of a couple that were lying on top, “not touching each other” and with a sculpture of the family ceremonial sword between them.

Tomb of Sir Lucas Dillion and his wife Lady Jane Bathe

The people believed that if they took a pin and poked their warts, and left the pin between the statues, that when the pin was rusted their warts would go away.

Pins left to rust

We went out to lunch, and I had a really good hamburger and fries. Then we came home and took a nap. Tonight we are going into Dublin to the Temple Bar area, and we are going to pub crawl. I plan to have some “Guinness” beer, and maybe some others. Love Mom.

From Val:

Well, Diane stole my thunder. We drove to Trim Castle, which is in Trim, which is the place where Braveheart was filmed. By the way, this is the place where Edmund Mortimer, the 5th Earl of March, and the 7th Earl of Ulster, lived and he died of the plague at Trim Castle in 1425. He was the heir to Richard the II, but never made it to king. He was the last Earl of March. Edmund Mortimer was born at New Forest here in Ireland, in this very county where I am. (County Meath) New Forest is now a golf club.

We visited the ruins of St Peter and Pauls cathedral and cemetery. This is a huge area, with several ruined buildings.

Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral

A chapel, that holds the tomb Diane talked about, a cathedral, and a small distance further, a hospital. We wondered around looking at the architecture, and a lot of headstones. Some burials were from the 1700’s and some were from very recently. Many gravestones were so old, that all the writing had been worn off. We left here to join a tour of Trim castle. It is not fully open at this time, only weekends, but we toured the armory, and had a demonstration of all the weapons they would have used. Starting with a Claymore. The guide talked about how they were used, and showed us, then passed each of the weapons around for us to feel and handle.

Val wielding a big sword.

Another Braveheart Recruit

There was a battle hammer, several small swords, a pike, a knife, chain mail and helmets. The guide had the reddist hair, and a strong brogue so I had to listen carefully. We then had a tour of the grounds and got a lot of stories about Braveheart. The Boyne River flows right beside this castle.

We drove to Slane to have lunch, and came home. I actually took a nap, too, and had to be waked up for dinner at 6:30. We had a wonderful baked Salmon dinner.

More later, we’re leaving for Dublin. Slainte!

‘Tis 1 am, and we have just returned from Dublin. The Temple Bar area is an area right beside the Liffey River, where there are many many bars. It’s about 2 blocks wide and goes for about 20 blocks along the river. We went first to the Oliver St. John Gogarty bar.

Beginning of the Pub Crawl

It was so crowded that we could hardly squeeze in. I like this bar because it’s named after one of the authors I read about when I was here before, and have on a list of books I mean to read. However Oliver has been out of print about 100 years and I haven’t found any copies yet. Must start looking again.

We moved on to the Temple Bar, and were able to find a table.

The Temple Bar in the Temple Bar area.

I asked for a1/4 pint of Guinness, but they said they couldn’t serve that small amount, so I had a half pint. I have never been a fan of beer, but this was at least interesting. I left about half a glass when we moved on to the Porterhouse bar.  Here we got a “taster”, which is a small tray with three different kinds of beer. I kinda liked the red beer, Diane liked the spiced Guinness, and we both liked the light Guiness. We took turns sipping on the taster.

After this we headed home. I’m a really cheap date. I could feel the beer working behind my eyes. It’s about a 1/2 hour drive. The others are all asleep. And that’s where I’m going now.

Val in the Porterhouse Bar waiting for beer.  Can you find her?

Guest Blog--Valerie Mortimer VanDyke Cakebread

Amy and Kerry Cakebread’s house, Bettystown, Ireland

Written By:  Valerie VanDyke

I slept really well, and woke up about 7:30 am. We all took turns getting showered and dressed, and then ate breakfast.

We took off about 9:00 am and drove about 1/2 hour to New Grange. This is an ancient site of mounds of earth made by people about 5,000 years ago, approximately 1000 years before Stonehenge. Very little is known about the people, mostly just what can be determined from what they left behind. We were taken in a bus to the mound and met a guide who told us about the site. Then we went inside the mound through a tunnel lined with large rocks, into a central chamber with three alcoves, one to the right that is slightly larger than the other two, and one straight ahead, and one to the left. Nobody knows exactly went on in here. Some skeletons were found, but only a few, and small pieces of bones in other areas. Lots of carvings In the stones, mostly circular designs, or chevrons, with an occasional fern (or wheat) like design. During the winter solstice the sun shines directly into the center of the chamber. There are other mounds in the area, very similar in size and shape, but some are situated to get the sunshine In the chamber during the summer, spring and fall solstices.

We were there about 1 1/2 hours, and then left to find a place for lunch. We ate at Katie’s Kitchen. I had a tuna, corn, and lemon mayo melt, on gluten free bread. Very good. I noticed Amy’s bowl of vegetable soup was puréed. I’ve noticed that most other soups are puréed here too. Maybe I’ll ask why sometime.

Kerry returned to work, and we went to the Lace Gallery in Carrickmacross. It was wonderful. I went to this place on the trip that I made to Ireland in 2008, and it was closed. We spent about 1/2 hour there. It was only one small room, but the docent spent a lot of time talking about the lace and demonstrating how lace is made. I bought a small piece.

After that we drove to two sites of very old ruined abbey’s from the Middle Ages, Monasterboice, and Old Mellifont Abbey.  At Monasterboice they had an ancient Round Tower and several High Crosses.

 These are about 10 feet high and carved with scenes from the Bible. Very special crosses.

Old Mellifont Abbey has been excavated and then landscaped beautifully and has printed signs with the histories as one walks around the site.

I fell asleep in the car a few times, and can hardly stay awake long enuf to eat dinner tonight. So early to bed again tonight.

Guest Blogger: AGV

Written By:  Valerie Mortimer VanDyke also known as Aunt Gramma Val or AGV

I’ve lost eight hours, somewhere, and I didn’t realize how big an effect that would have on me. I missed my evening dose of meds, because I never had an evening, and never went to bed. And then I didn’t take my morning pills till I got “home” here in Ireland. I went from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning without a pause.

Our adventure was lots and lots of fun. There were 50 rooms taken up with displaced airplane passengers, and we recognized each other and visited, ate meals together, laughed and joked.

I went out for a walk this morning in Chicago. I probably walked about 1 1/2 miles, out among the traffic, the wind and the piles of snow all over. The sun was shining brightly. Diane walked with me for a bit, and then went back to wait for me. I saw a bit of Chicago and enjoyed the sunshine.

We returned by shuttle to the airport, among 18 others. We got there a few hours before the desk opened, and gradually had quite a queue. We just kept on visiting and laughing and having fun.

When the desk opened they had 4 agents working, and we were processed very quickly, and we went off to find some lunch and use the vouchers given to us by Aer Lingus Friday night, but at the food court, after three of us had used the voucher, one of the servers noticed the date on the vouchers was for Friday. So the next several people were being refused service, and quite rudely at that. I was among one of the ones served, and I quickly got into the spirit of the thing,and joined the group raising a fuss. We made so much noise, that word got back to Aer Lingus and pretty soon an official from the airline just walked into one end of the food court and shouted ” the vouchers are good, the vouchers are good”, then just continued walking out the other end and disappeared. Everyone was served and we finished our lunch and went on to our gate.

We were on a jumbo jet for this leg of the journey, and we were packed. We had two episodes of serious turbulence, one while they were serving breakfast. They practically threw a small wrapped breakfast sandwich at us and then had to sit down again. No coffee, no tea. By the time the turbulence eased, we were landing. Diane handled the turbulence with ease. She has really gotten into this traveling thing.

We went thru immigration and customs with absolutely no problems, they never even looked at our bags at all.

Coming out of the gate at Dublin Airport.

We met Kerry and Amy, and drove about 1/2 hour to Bettystown where we are staying.

Kerry took us for a ride around the area, and Diane rode in the front seat for awhile, and cringed every time a car came toward us, ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD. We were very tired and this just wasn’t computing in her brain. We went to the house, and picked up the girls, and visited the Battle of the Boyne battlefield and Museum,

Battle of the Boyne Museum

and then had a great lunch at the Esquire restaurant. I had ” the full Irish Breakfast”. Then we toured St Peter’s church, and drove around some more. Finally back to the house and Diane took a nap. She still looked droopy when she got up. I worked with Kerry on fixing problems with my phone and I Pad.

We had a great dinner, which included mashed potatoes, one of the best foods in the world, and everyone is in bed except me, and it’s only 8:30, 2:30 pm your time. But I will be there shortly. Tomorrow, after a good sleep and a day following a night, I hope to be ready to go out on an ambitious schedule of sightseeing. We are going to be busy!!!!

Mission: X-mas

Mission: X-mas

Written by:  Colleen

Hi to everyone again! I know we haven’t updated in a while but that’s because nothing really happened for a while. We had seen all the sites, gone to new towns tracing our ancestry, and we only had like, two things to do on mom’s list of 8 billion things that we have to go see. This is why we tell you not to go see 10 castles in a day, mom!

But that all changed 4 weeks ago. Was it really that long? It doesn’t seem like it at all. But lets forget about that bit and move on to the topic of the blog entry. Christmas!

Christmas is the most magical time of the year. To the neighbors here and back at home, the holidays last from November to February. Not true at all for my mom. For her, Christmas lasts for 2 days, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. If you want to put up decorations you do it on the Eve. Some sort of thing about loving your decorations enough not to let them gather dust outside. The second Christmas is over, she is taking down the lights and throwing the tree in the yard to decompose. Christmas candy is either eaten or hidden, or it will be thrown away. And she still denies that she hates the holidays. Hmmmm.

This year, though, I was very successful in hiding my candy, and retaining Christmas with the gifts I got. I wanted to thank Gram B, because now I am the most sherlock-y Sherlock fan ever. Next goes to Mamo and Poppop for bringing all the foods from home. On the slight chance that Devan ever reads this, you left your shell and your drawing here. I also want to thank Cameron, Leah, Peter, Angela and Grandpop for the gift box of Irish foods and candies. That was so sweet! I also loved the cards we got. It is so great that Cameron is learning how to spell and do math! I hope he likes it a lot and is prepared for the stuff that I’m learning about, especially in Math! Also, to the Kindel house, for the jeans! I wanted you to know that they fit perfectly.

Christmas meals were the most untraditional to us yet. They don’t have Jimmy Dean over here, so the Sausage balls didn’t taste right. We had cinnamon buns instead of rolls, and we had ham instead of the traditional turkey for supper. It was a crazy mash-up of Irish and American Christmases.

I got an Irish tin whistle for Christmas, and a Minecraft account. My username in Minecraft is Mirrorsrim, because Mirrorrim was taken already. Devan was there and taught me how to play Minecraft, and I made a LAN world for all three of us to play on. I am now in Drama lessons, and I can put the whistle to good use in the play I’m in. It doesn’t really have a name yet, but anyone who is in it gets to pick any mythological character they want to and be it! I decided to be Puck, from my favorite Shakespeare story, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Well that kind of sums up Christmas, and I can’t wait for my birthday, on January 23. 14 more days!

Signing off, Colleen