Dublin ... We Are Here!

After months and months of planning and saving, we are finally here!

We had a late afternoon flight out of O'Hare which was mostly uneventful.  It was delayed a bit; we found out later (on the flight) that it was because of a medical emergency when the plane flew from Dublin to O'Hare.  The food was good, the leg room adequate, entertainment entertaining.  Cyndie, Emma, and I snoozed a bit, but only restlessly.  I don't think Tim slept a wink.
















We landed to drizzly skies at around 5:30 am local time.  We had pre-ordered a cab (highly recommended) who was there to whisk us to our flat in Dublin 8.  Our hosts met us there.  Bridg and her husband were lovely.  They showed us the flat, gave us a few suggestions on local sights, and were just generally lovely (especially considering the time of day they were greeting us)!  If you're going to Dublin, this is a great place (via AirBnB) to stay.



We promptly hit the sack for 3 or 4 hours of shut eye.  This seemed to do the trick to combat jet lag as after showers and breakfast (really lunch by then), we were all fresh and ready to go.



Our day's sights were mostly of the ecclesiastical nature.

First up, St. Patrick's Cathedral.  We did a little self guided tour, then a guided tour, and also explored the church grounds next door.  When we first entered, there was a girls chorus from Princeton there performing which was really neat.








Next was Christ Church Cathedral.  We had paid for a guided tour which was worth the extra 10 euros as it was both insightful and advantageous (we got to go up into the belfry and ring the church bells)!  One thing that was interesting (and sad) was how non-religious both cathedrals were.  When we went to Paris four years ago, Cyndie and I had both been impressed with the sacred manner in with which the cathedrals we visited were treated.  Here, however, there were gift shops set up in the Nave (St. Patrick's) and a irreverent docent (Christ's Church).  It was a little depressing.  Matthew 21:12 much?











On the way back home, we wandered a bit, stopping at a lovely green near the Dublin Castle and re-visiting the park next to St. Patrick's.  We really wanted to hear the organ there, so stopped in to learn that there was a free choral/orchestral concert in the evening.  So we went back home, grabbed some kabobs for dinner, and then walked back to listen to a combination Dublin Symphony Orchstra/Hawaii Masterworks Chorus concert.  It was quite good, though by that time we were all pretty tired.  Cyndie leaned over to me about 40 minutes in and said, "I think we should go or I'm going to fall asleep and make a scene when I fall out of my chair".



Some things we learned today:

• Long distance airline travel is MUCH easier with 11 and 14 year olds than with 7 and 10 year olds.  Cyndie and I were able to enjoy our own row without having to "manage" the kids!  Thanks Donna, for helping me with that insight.
• Sometimes, no matter the planning and help from professionals, it's the stumbled across things that are the most fun (I'm thinking mostly of the two choral events that we witnessed today at St. Patrick's).
• 11 year olds just have to run.  Especially if they've been cooped up for a 7 hour plane ride.

So day 1 is down, much more excitement is yet to come!

The final touches are being made, we're packing up, and we're soon to be out of here.  The flight is tomorrow afternoon out of O'Hare, and here's to hoping that we can all sleep on the plane so we're full of energy when we get to Dublin!

Firing this Baby Back Up!

Yes, we're heading to Europe in only a few days.  And so to document our trip, I am firing up the old blog.  A quick check shows that this baby hasn't been touched since the last time we hit Paris, so I guess this is appropriate.  Keep your eye's peeled and your ears tuned for more updates.  We leave in one week!

A REAL Castle

Today was fun.  Very kick back.  We got up, did breakfast, and headed out to the end of line 1 of the metro to Chateau de Vincennes.  It was really fun, and quite big.  It was Charles V's castle back in (if I'm remembering correctly) the mid 1300s.  His son, Charles VI, also lived there an improved it.  It was huge (it was has 1100 meters of wall around it) with a moat around it.  There is a nice, cool cathedral there, a neat keep with its own walls and moat, and lots of cool little rooms, etc.  Louis the XII (I think) and Louis the XIV (I'm pretty sure) lived there as well, but expanded the living quarters far beyond the existing keep to include more Versailles/Louvre looking and feeling buildings*.  Overall, it was fun because it was huge and impressive, but also far less busy than many, or I should say all, of the other places we visited.  The kids could run around and yell and not disturb anyone!

*I'm sure there's a much more formal name for that style of building, but it's far beyond my limited knowledge of history and architecture.

After visiting the chateau, we stopped for lunch at an Italian place just outside the gates.  It was really tasty food, but slightly confusing to order because the menu was in Italian, with French also in there.

We headed home to relax a bit, swam some, had a bit earlier dinner, and got the kids to bed at a somewhat decent time!

Winding Down

Yes, our week in Paris is winding down.  Tomorrow we need to start thinking about packing and getting ready to head up to Amsterdam.

Today started a bit more kick back.  It seems like we're sleeping later and later every day we're here!  We had a leisurely breakfast, cleaned up some and then everyone kind of just felt ready to go, so we did (we had previously considered spending the whole morning "in").

The first stop of the day was Sacre Coeur.  That was interesting.  Cyndie and I had both remembered it having more of a plaza/park around it, but it's largely in the middle of the city.  It's at the top of Montmarte, a big hill in the northern part of Paris.  We also remembered there being a lot more street performers there.  Crazy.  The actual church is very impressive.  There was a service going on inside as we walked through.  Emma commented to me that she really liked the music (it was the normal, I don't even know what the correct term is, "Catholic" singing).

After that we wandered our way to the artist's square.  That too we remembered differently.  I thought it was much bigger.  There sure were a lot of people crammed in there!  We had lunch in the square, and then Cyndie had a drawing of Emma and Timmy done!  The next stop was a small Salvador Dali museum.  It didn't have any of his more famous works, but it was interesting to discuss Surrealism with the kids.

After Montmarte, we headed over to the Arc de Triumphe and jumped on the open top bus for a bit of a tour.  We took that down the Champs Elysees and then over by the Eiffel Tower.  There we jumped on a Seine river cruise which took us down and around the island on which Notre Dame rests.  It was neat to get another, different look at the many famous landmarks and buildings we'd already seen along the Seine.  It was also a very different perspective on Paris since, with both the open top bus and the boat, it was 100% tourists and we had previously spent a lot of time with more typical Parisians (on the metro especially).  We both decided we were glad that we didn't spend any "money" (because the bus and the boat were part of our Paris Pass) on the two tours.  They really were just not hands on enough and, frankly, a little boring.  The kids ended up spending most of the boat tour reading!

So that was our day in Paris.  Tomorrow we're probably going to hit the pool again and go just outside of Paris to a castle called Vincennes.  We may go to Notre Dame for an organ recital too.

Pictures from the Louvre

Our first entrance to the Louvre, through the pyramid.

The fabled Mona Lisa ("it's smaller than I thought" is a typical quote).

Snack in the Louvre ... espresso, yum!

Sailing model boats just outside the Louvre.

 

Ice cream in the Jardin du Tuileries

While the Eiffel Tower Sparkles

Yes, I'm sitting here on the patio of our flat watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle.  It does that every hour on the hour after dark for five minutes.  It's quite neat.

So, it's pretty late, and therefore, I'm going to make this one a short one.

We went to Versailles today.  This involved getting train passes to go out to the suburbs (Versailles used to be the hunting lodge for French royalty, and eventually turned into the main palace of Louis the XIVth.  Now it's just in the suburbs).  Anyway, we had two memorable moments.  First was went we got off the Metro at the train station and tried to buy tickets at the automated machine.  It had a nice big Visa logo on the machine, but didn't take any credit cards.  Nice.  Nor did it take "regular" cash.  Double nice.  Only coins (and we needed almost 20 Euros in tickets).  So we walked around and guess what?  Banks, or at least all banks, here don't carry coins.  They just have ATM machines which dispense cash, not coins.  So we ended up buying a bunch of little things at a market and getting the coins we needed.  Lame, but memorable!

Versailles was good.*  It was very crowded inside.  The Hall of Mirrors was outstanding.  The gardens were even better.  They are just huge, and unending.  We walked around some, and then rented a golf cart to explore more.  Emma decided that there was going to be a drawing held this year and that the winner would get to live in Versailles (complete with servants) for a year and would get $83 million (which later expanded to $83 million gazillion and then still later "all the money in the world").  She was pretty excited about that.

* The most memorable part of Versailles you ask?  Well, let me tell you.  That would be when we, not once, but twice, were forced to evacuate the cafeteria because of fire alarms.  Crazy.

On the way home we found out another interesting fact regarding France.  Restaurants don't open for dinner until 7p.  We had walked by an Indian (Indien) restaurant on the way from the train to Versailles, so we returned to have dinner.  It didn't open until 7p.  It was 5:30p.  So we hopped on the train and headed back home (and toward another Indian place we had looked up).  We got there at 6:35 p.  "Please come back at 7".  So we headed across the street to a bakery and had dessert first.  Back to the Indian place at 7p.  Ate.  Headed home with bellies full.

Our other discovery today was these great black out shutters which are helping the kids fall right to sleep tonight!