On our May long weekend (May 8-10th), Diane and I decided that it had been too long since our last trip, and since it was a long weekend it was an opportune moment to hop in the car and check out an area of the Irish countryside we hadn’t yet gotten to. One of the main touristy areas we hadn’t gotten to yet was the Ring of Kerry, in South-West Ireland.

So on Saturday morning, we hopped in our car and started down in the direction of Killarney. It’s a pretty long drive! It probably took us well in excess of 4 hours to get there, and since we slept in and packed that morning we didn’t actually get on the road until almost noon. The roads in Ireland are pretty high variance: there are now quite a few fancy new motorways available, but once you get off of those the road quality can quickly degrade into roads that you really can’t drive very fast on. Most of the way out though, the roads were pretty good, so that was good.

We stopped to check in at our B&B – a little house a few minutes drive outside of Killarney. Our host kindly informed us that Killarney was particularly busy that weekend due to a motor rally happening nearby. Forewarned, we headed into town and took a quick pre-dinner walk into Killarney National park before heading off to find some food. Not sure where to eat, we consulted our handy Ireland lonely planet guide and it recommended a restaurant called Bricín which we were fortunate to get a table at since it was booked up later that evening. The food was absolutely delicious! A great way to start off our trip.

We returned to our B&B early since we wanted to get an early start on the next day. The day was a bit rainy and windy at the start, but after being on the road for a little bit the sun came out and the day was absolutely gorgeous. We started the day by stopping off at Muckross house which is part of Killarney national park. The house has some really nice gardens including an extensive arboretum which was quite pretty. Lots of mossy trees and flowering trees!

Our next stop along the ring of Kerry was the Torc waterfall, which conveniently enough is just a few minutes walk from the road. The waterfall is just part of a larger hike which we might need to go back and do at a later time. But we had a lot to see that day, so we didn’t really have time to spend a couple hours hiking. So on we went, next taking a quick stop at “the ladies view” which is a nice viewpoint from the road over the hills and lakes. The place gets its name because of the “pleasure expressed by Queen Victoria’s ladies in waiting on their visit in 1861 in that spot”. It is indeed a very pretty view.

Not too far from there, we stopped at Molls’ gap and the Avoca cafe stationed there for a small lunch. From there, it was a fairly short drive to Kenmare which the guidebook said had a stone circle to see, so we did! We also made stops at the Staigue Stone fort (an old ring fort overlooking some stunning scenery) and at the viewpoint at Coomakeesta pass which offers an absolutely incredible view from the road. The road is up high with green rolling hills dropping below us and spreading out dramatically right out to eh rugged coastline. For us, this was probably the highlight of the very scenic ring of kerry drive.

Our stop for the night was a town called Cahersiveen, which is a lovely little town. We got there pretty early so instead of going to dinner right away we wandered around the town a bit, finding not only the giant Daniel O’ Connell memorial church but also an old abbey that had long since fallen into disrepair. So much so that there was a whole bunch of vines growing in and through the bricks. Pretty neat … Dinner that night was at the seafood restaurant QC’s. Another really good meal!

On the Sunday we decided to call and see if there was any space left on a boat headed to the Skelligs: two craggy rocky islands shooting out from the ocean off the coast of Ireland. Apparently, getting on one of the boats in the summer is pretty tough, but they were just getting going for the season so we got a spot. Nice! So on Monday morning we found ourselves on a boat at 10am heading on a 50 minute boat ride to Skellig Michael. The water was calm and lovely, and we were soon climbing the hundreds of steps up to the top.

The skellig’s stairs were numerous and it took quite awhile to climb them. The view from the top was sure worth it though! Near the top there is some beehive style huts set up  – apparently there was a small group of people who used to live there a long time ago. I can’t imagine it though.

After a couple of hours climbing around, we got back on the boat. The boat operator took us by the other skellig which no one is allowed to land on — it is reserved as a bird sanctuary … and my oh my there were a lot of birds!!! We didn’t just see the birds though – there were also some spotted seals sunning themselves on the rocks! The waves were pretty choppy on the way back, so we were given yellow raincoats to prevent us from getting soaked.

Having made it back to port safely, we were now facing a multi-hour drive back to Dublin, so we started high tailing it back. We stopped in Limerick on the way for dinner at a pub recommended from our handy tour guide… and the food was pretty awesome for pub food.

Not much else to say about our trip. We got back to Dublin pretty late and basically fell into bed after a good long weekend trip! We’re going to have to do another one of these trips in the near future — there’s so much to see down there.

Morgan

Spring has come to Dublin! We have arrived back from a glorious ski trip to find bulbs pushing their heads out of the soil and the ground ready for planting.

the classic broom method

my neighbour trying to scrape his car with a pot

But before we embrace the springtime, a look back at the winter. It was actually pretty formidable weather here. Maybe it didn’t have the gigantic snowfalls of Canada’s east side or the dry deep freezes of the west, but still. It did freeze and there was snow. Pipes froze and burst and thawed and leaked. People were without water and unable to get places because the roads were so icy. And they were icy, even from a Canuck’s point of view.

there's at least one plow in Dublin

Winter driving is easy with good tires and a small army working through the night to clear and sand the roads for your morning commute, but there’s not much point here in buying grit or salt or chains or all-season tires. And the prevalence of ice was really something here.
I’ve driven the Yellowhead from Sherwood to St. Albert in freezing rain, and I’d lay odds that while not exactly fun, it was far more… possible(!) than getting traction on the goat paths that serve as roads through the hills in Wicklow. I myself chose not to drive for the duration.

Edmonton in March? No, Dublin in January!

Still there were some wins. By the first good freeze, boys were out in parking lots learning to pull doughnuts. My neighbour figured out the classic mini-van dust-off with his broom. People left work early to beat traffic and falling temperatures on the road surfaces. (Definitely should’ve done that all those nights I wasted half a tank sitting in traffic on St. Albert Trail.) There were probably 10 snowmen per square kilometer on average in town during those weeks. And of course, there was great appreciation of snowball fights. We even cavorted on a skating rink!

a land of snow and palm trees


little new year's party persun of snow


The best part was being able to share what I love and hate about my homeland, and my Irish friends being practically there with me!

Diane

This is getting crazy. I’m having trouble getting us all caught up. Photos have been up on flickr for awhile, but somehow I keep forgetting about this poor little blog when I get a spare moment to breathe. So … here’s a quick hit list of some of the highlights of the past couple months. Hopefully I can remember all the highlights!

  • Sugarloaf

    Sugarloaf

    Company Summer Party: The company pulled out the stops for the summer party. We spent the day at the Ritz-Carlton hotel next to powerscourt gardens. Starting with an excellent BBQ, free booze, massages, climbing wall, trampolines and more. Later on, Republic of Loose played a private show for us (I’m led to believe a pretty popular Irish band). Then when it got dark, we went inside to see some belly dancers, followed by a chocolate fondue fountain, more booze, and dancing. All in all, a very fun day!

  • Lit Up Crowd

    U2 in Dublin

    U2 Plays in Dublin: At the last minute, we scored tickets to one of the three shows U2 played at Croke Park in Dublin. By the time we picked up our tickets and found our seats, we had just missed the opening bands (one of which was republic of loose!), but U2 played a pretty awesome show on a kick-ass claw stage. There’s nothing quite like going to see one of the biggest rock bands in the world play a sold out show to over 60,000 people! Definitely an awesome experience.

  • Colour

    Streets of Galway

  • Galway trip with Bryce: A little while later, our friend Bryce Paradis came to visit us for a couple weeks which was really fun. On the long weekend, we headed out to Galway which sadly was a little rainy. Highlights from the trip though was the few hours we spent peddling our (electric) bikes around the Aran islands. On one side of the island there’s the ruins of an ancient fort called Aonghasa where you can look over the tall cliffs into the oceans for a fabulous view. In addition to showing Bryce around Ireland, we spent a few nights playing Castle Crashers on the xbox which was pretty fun.
  • Over the Ridge

    Over the Hill

    Surfing in Bundoran: The second weekend Byrce was here, Christine organized a surfing trip to the west coast of Ireland. So the three of us drove out to Bundoran to join Aaron and Christine there. I had never been surfing before, but it was a mighty fun time. It’s really quite hard though! We went out both weekend days for a two hour session each day. The first day, I only got up on the board once, which felt awesome after getting smacked in the face for an hour and a half with meter tall salty waves! The second day was much better conditions than the first, and as a result I think everyone did better than the previous day! After our surfing, we headed on a short hike to see Slieve League — apparently some of the tallest ocean cliffs in Europe. Thanks to Christine for organizing such a great trip!
  • Another Visitor: Diane headed back to Canada for a visit a couple weeks before I left, leaving me at home, but I was able to keep myself pretty busy. For one thing, my travel buddy Mike Smith (I’ve been in more countries with Mike than anybody else, although Diane’s going to pass him someday I imagine!), started work at Pocketkings at the end of August. Right as he started, his friend Frano from Winnipeg came to visit — a guy I had known back at University. So it was pretty fun to hang out a little in Dublin with yet another visitor!
  • Back to Canada: Our good friends JR and Shelly were getting married at the beginning of September, so we made the trip back to Canada to catchup with friends and family. Diane was there for a little longer than I, so she might fill you in on what she got up to before I got there. I got in and tried to see as many people as I could — but unfortunately missed a few people I really wanted to see. Sorry to those people! The theme of our trip back? All the engagements that had happened! I can count no fewer than five newly engaged couples. Eesh. Congrats to all of you!
  • Elk

    Elk

    Jasper in September: JR and Shelly’s wedding was lovely! We spent two nights in Jasper in the lovely Canadian Rockies. We ran around taking a lot of photos — at the ceremony, and then taking scavenger hunt photos around Jasper. They had some pretty fun ideas for contests. The scavenger hunt had us taking creative photos, and we ended up with some great ones (including this lovely Elk!). The reception was also really fun — it has been a long time since Diane and I got out on the dance floor. So congrats to you guys, and here’s to many years of happy marriage!
  • Back in Dublin: Life didn’t slow down at all after returning to Dublin. Work has been absolutely nuts, and now we’ve got Diane’s mom and her sister in town to entertain (look at all the visitors we’ve had!). They’re in town for about ten days or so, and we’ve got some plans to head up to the Giant’s Causeway on the weekend. In the meantime, we made a short, wild trip to …
  • Oktoberfest! That’s right. Mike, Carolyn, Diane and I got on a plane headed to Munich for a very short, but pretty fun trip to check out Oktoberfest. We took off from Dublin around noon on Saturday and arrived back just 24 hours later the next morning! I’ll have to type more about the trip later, but it was really quite fun, even with the insane schedule.

I’m trying to get this post done, so I cut things a little short. I’ll try and flesh it out a little with a couple more posts, but no promises! It’s going to be a busy few weeks here still!

Morgan

Green StoneWoohoo! Finally catching up! This was the final weekend in Ireland for my mom. The following weekend we would be spending in England before she headed home. My dad had already headed home to return to work earlier in the week.

Castle ModelsIt had been a pretty busy month of touristy stuff, so instead of going crazy and hitting the road for a third straight full weekend of tourist stuff, we decided to just go out for the Saturday and take it easy on the Sunday. So we headed out fairly close by to Dublin to see Trim castle, following that up with the nearby Hill of Tara.

Trim GroundsTrim Castle is a tall imposing structure. It had been overgrown for quite some time before being reclaimed and restored. Seeing the keep itself was by guided tour only, and fortunately for us the next tour was starting just as we arrived. So we got shown around the castle. Due to its lengthy time being overgrown, the walls of the castle are stained green from the moss and other plants growing on the walls. It makes for quite an interesting green glow inside the castle.

On the main floor of the castle, the people who restored the castle also put up three small models of the castle at three different points in its history. They were actually really cool to see how the castle changed over history. After our tour, we walked around the grounds of the castle, enjoying the beautiful sunny weather.

The Stone of DestinyOur next destination was the Hill of Tara — not too far away from Trim Castle. Unlike a lot of the tourist attractions we’ve been to, the Hill of Tara is pretty unassuming. At least in comparison to all the fancy castles and amazing natural wonders we’d seen over the past few weeks. Still, the hill had a certain quiet grandeur that I couldn’t quite place. There’s a lot of history there — the hill had been used thousands of years ago as a place to crown kings, and as a burial site as well.

Hill of TaraThe fields are quiet and calm, with sheep grazing on the grass. You kinda have to watch your step as you walk around the fields and on the hill itself — the sheep have definitely been all over that field! There are actually quite a few hilled rings all over the place there, although the biggest ones are in the middle of the field where the “stone of destiny” is.

It was a nice peaceful walk around the area. Unfortunately, photos on the hills themselves were really hard to get. Any sort of sloped terrain is something that is notoriously hard to photograph without looking just like slightly rolly hills. Oh well – it was still quite pretty.

So it was a pretty nice relaxing day and we headed back fairly early to go continue relaxing at home. Up next! We head to England to visit some of my mom’s friends from quite a few years back, and walk around the beautiful Sissinghurst gardens.

Morgan

Carrickfergus CastleThe weekend following the west coast trip, our plan was to head up North to check out the Giant’s Causeway in particular, as well as some of the sights and attractions in that area. We got out of the apartment fairly late on Saturday morning, and started up the highway in the direction of Belfast. For whatever reason, we decided to pass on going into Belfast on this trip. It’s been a little while now, so I can’t remember exactly why.

At any rate, we ended up at Carrickfergus Castle, which is not far out of Belfast. On this particular day, there was a fencing contest going on inside the castle — what a cool place for a fencing competition! This particular castle has been kept in fairly good shape by restoration. We wandered in and around the castle for awhile before heading across the parking lot for lunch.

Beautiful CoastWe hopped back into the car after lunch and took the coastal drive up towards the causeway. The coastal drive is a fair amount longer, but we had heard from trusted sources that it was worth it. That advice turned out to be true. The drive was beautiful, causing us to stop several times to take pictures and enjoy the scenery. It turned out to be a really good thing we did go up then rather than the next day since the weather was far superior on Saturday compared to the next day! But I get ahead of myself.

On the Carrick-a-Rede BridgeWe passed the sign pointing the way to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, and since it wasn’t too late yet and the weather was still very nice out, we decided to head there first before heading to the B&B. The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge connects Ireland to a small grassy and rocky island. In times past, the safety of crossing the bridge was a bit questionable, but what’s in place today is a much safer incarnation. The walk up to the bridge is maybe a half hour hike with some truly spectacular views. The lovely weather, and the wonderful views made the walk well worth it, even without the bridge at the end!

The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge itself was solidly built, and led the way over to a beautiful little island to walk around on. There was some cliffs to be a little careful of, but it was lovely and peaceful on the island. We took a bunch of pictures, and wandered around for awhile before returning to the bridge and the walk back to the car.

Smuggler's InnOur next stop was the B&B which was just outside of Bushmills. It was a lovely little place, and the lady there kindly directed us to the Smuggler’s Inn for dinner when we asked for recommendations on a place to eat for dinner. So we headed there, and it was totally delicious! We got lucky and scored a table in the corner in what was basically a totally packed place. There was a pile of food, and potatoes done in a gazillion different ways, and some great atomsphere in there. Late in our meal, a couple of guys came in and started playing some traditional Irish music, and they were really quite good. So all in all it was a wonderful little evening.

Causeway!The next day we got up relatively early for breakfast and then headed up to the Giant’s Causeway — a natural formation that I’ve wanted to see since I saw some of my sister’s pictures from when she was there. Unforunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with us, and it was misty with a bit of a rain. Still, the causeway is definitely a beautiful area. The area consists of a couple of kilometers of walks along the coast and cliffs. Down on the coast there’s a series of pentagon and hexagonal stones at many different heights. It is a pretty crazy looking thing — definitely worth seeing!

Dunluce Castle RuinsWe spent a couple hours walking around the causeway and taking pictures before hopping back in the car and heading further along the northern coast to Dunluce castle. Unlike Carrickfergus which is in pretty good shape, Dunluce castle is a ruined castle. Apparently, part of the castle fell off the cliff into the ocean while people were living in it! They’ve since stabilized the cliffs, and the castle is pretty cool to explore in its ruined state.

From there, we continued down the road to Portrush beach, where despite the mist was quite a nice place. There was a big sandy beach and we even saw some people heading out into the water to go surfing!

After all this sight seeing is was definitely time to head back to Dublin. It was a very good weekend trip!

Portrush Beach More Vibrant Water Individual Hexes

Morgan

Wow, I almost missed it. Thank you blog sidebar-counter!

It’s really hard to believe that we’ve been in Dublin for a year already. The time is just flying by us, and it’s hard to keep up. The company has been a great place to work thus far, with all kinds of perks. We’ve been to some pretty incredible company-thrown parties, as well as some pretty awesome private parties. We’ve hung out with Howard Lederer, and Chris Ferguson. And we’ve made a lot of friends who’ve kept the fun agenda busy! We’ve seen some concert acts including a huge show by U2 just recently.

Regretably, we haven’t actually done that much in the way of travelling. Something that will have to be rectified soon. That said, we’ve been to Salzburg, Linz, and Vienna in Austria, Budapest in Hungary, Brighton in England, as well as numerous Irish towns, castles, and coasts.

It’s been immensely rewarding thus far, and there’s still a lot of room to do tons more. So here’s to one year in Dublin, and hopefully the next year will be as fun as the last!

Morgan

KilmacduaghLife isn’t standing still here, and it’s becoming hard to get the motivation to finish these posts. But I can do it!

A week after my parents arrived in Dublin, we undertook the first road trip in Ireland where our car was the vehicle (past trips were thanks to Darse and Xan’s car). On this particular trip, we took our car West with the aim of seeing the Cliffs of Moher. So we packed up some provisions and some overnight gear and got going relatively early on Saturday morning.

The start of the journey out of Dublin was on some nice dual carriageways (that’s what they call divided highways here), but once you get a certain distance out from Dublin, the roads start to get narrow. Driving becomes interesting on these roads, and it’s a little hard to get used to.

Pitch and PuttAt any rate, we neared the area known as the Burren, which is a very distinctive rocky area near the west coast of Ireland. In the vicinity of the town of Gort, we took a bit of a wrong turn and ended up on some *really* narrow roads. Just about the time we were thinking of turning around and retracing our steps though, we came across some ruins. Having been driving for awhile, it seemed like a good place to stop and stretch our legs. Apparently we had run across Kilmacduagh – the ruins of an Irish monastery. It’s still a bit hard to get used to being in a country where you can just drive by ruins of significance at random …

At any rate, we decided to brave the tiny roads and continue along our path. We hadn’t actually planned the weekend out very well, which turned out to be a good thing — because if we had, we might not have made it in time for any bookings. Still, we kind of were in a mood to “see stuff”. In the Burren there were a ton of signs pointing out various things to see. One thing that caught my mom’s eye was the Burren Perfumery, which apparently is something of note. So we followed those signs into a quiet little area where there was a house and tea cottage. There was a very nice video with some stunning photos of the Burren area, which was pretty enjoyable.

Golfing SilhouetteBack in the car, we headed towards the town of Lisdoonvarna where we had booked a bed and breakfast for the night. When we entered the town, great big signs proclaimed Lisdoonvarna as the matchmaking capital of Europe. Huh, who knew? Anyway, we found our B&B and dropped off our bags before persuing some local food. After some quick pub grub we headed down to the coastal town of Doolin which was a short drive away. Our aim was to scout out the terrain to see if we could find where we could catch a boat to take us to see the Cliffs of Moher from the sea.

It was a beautiful evening, so it was also well worth the walk to see what we could find. On the way, we found a little pitch-and-putt golf course right next to the ocean. I really can’t think of a more picturesque place for such a thing, and it was enough to pull us in to play a round. Well, let me tell you, we’re not very good at golf! The 18(!) holes of golf took us entirely too long to play. The poor guy who rented out our clubs was waiting for us to finally finish up so he could go home. Still, it was well worth it!

Doolin DiscoveryThe shops at the dock had all closed already, but I was able to take a few names back to the B&B to look up and see what the rates were. It had been a fairly long day on the road, so we returned back to the B&B to rest up!

The next morning, after a full Irish breakfast at the B&B, we headed back down to the coast where we signed up for the first boat at noon that day. It turned out we were a bit early, so for the next couple hours we spent some time walking around on the coast. My mom and Diane headed into Doolin to check out some shops, while my dad and I walked around and enjoyed the sunshine and the scenery. I was quite happy with the photos I took while walking around!

Elephant?Reconvening at the docks, we boarded a boat which took us over to the cliffs. About 5 minutes into the journey though, I got a red-alert phone call from work. Whoops, talk about bad timing! I wasn’t able to help out when I could barely hear the guy on the other end of the phone, so I apologized and promised to call in when I got back to land. So with that rather unfortunate downer, the boat took us off to see some rather magnificent looking cliffs. It’s too bad the sun didn’t stick around for our little tour — annoyingly it clouded over just for that bit. Still, some of the pictures turned out!

The boat takes you fairly close to the cliffs, although not very close — since there’s some danger of falling rocks. It did take us quite close An Bhreannán Mór — a pillar separated away from the cliffs. Both this pillar of rock and the cliffs make excellent bird nesting sites, and boy were there a lot of them! We got close enough to catch a whiff. Yeah, birds are pretty stinky! Seriously!

Lovely CoastlineBack ashore, I called into work, but they had sorted out the issue so it was back to being a tourist for me! We hopped back in the car and headed north in the general direction of Galway. It was my intention to take a quick look in Galway and find some food before heading home. But we kind of got sidetracked with some of the sights along the coast. It’s quite a beautiful drive there, and we stopped several times to take photos and walk around the rocky terrain of the Burren. So it was well into the afternoon and we hadn’t even made it near Galway yet, so stopped in a cafe in a little town for lunch before heading home.

I’d say it was a decently successful weekend, even if it was a bit disorganized!

Dad on the Irish West Coast Bird Burren Landscape Pink

Morgan

My parents flew in from Austria on June 6, late in the evening. After getting them home from the airport, we caught up a bit before turning in to sleep (it was late, after all!).

The next morning, the weather didn’t appear to be too bad so we formulated a plan to go see something. Malahide castle is not too far away from the Dublin area, so it seemed like a likely candidate. We decided to drive down to Bray (a town just south of Dublin) and hop on the Dart train and take it all the way up the coast and through the city centre all the way up to the castle. It turns out that this was quite a bit longer a trip than we thought … and with less coastal views than we rememebered. The Dart train isn’t really something we take on a regular basis. Oh well.

DoorStill, we made it to Malahide and wandered around the grounds for awhile trying to find the castle itself. There’s a fairly sizeable park there, with a lot of trails, playgrounds, sports pitches and general grassy fields. It was a nice day though so we enjoyed a bit of a walk until we came across the castle itself. For some reason though, we came across it from the back entrance which was slightly confusing.

There was a guided tour starting right away, so we got in on that. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside (seems like too many places these days have a no photography policy). The tour was actually quite interesting — It’s pretty cool to hear about a building that has so much history. I’m not too sure how much I can remember from the tour, except for just a couple of details. The first being that in one of the rooms, there was an amazing marble table in one corner. The table’s surface had several colours of stone inlaid like a mosaic, and it was incredibly beautiful. According to our audio tour, no one’s been able to figure out how the person accomplished it … The second thing I remember from the tour was a portrait in the stairwell of the castle. The portrait depicts a child wearing red shoes being held by her mother Mrs Talbot. The child would grow up to be the woman who sold the castle to the Irish State.

Malahide CastleAfter the tour, we stopped in the cafe there for a quick lunch and then wandered back out onto the grounds for a bit. Eventually we returned back to the dart station and headed home.

That evening, we headed into the city centre on the LUAS and headed in for some dinner at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. It had been on our list of places to go try, since several people had recommended it. Turns out it was actually quite good!

So that’s how we spent the first full day my parents were here. Throughout the week, I went to work, so the next stuff I saw with them would be on the next weekend: our trip to the Irish West Coast.

Morgan

We’ve got a lot of catchup to do! It’s already the latter half of July, but there hasn’t been any blog posts to tell you all about the adventures we had while my parents were in town for most of June and the beginning of July. So, in an attempt to catch up, I’ll be spending some time writing posts about some of the things we did!

Here’s a summary so you know what to expect:

  1. The Arrival: Malahide Castle
  2. West Coast Road Trip: The Burren, and the Cliffs of Moher
  3. Northern Ireland Trip: Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Giants Causeway
  4. Little Road Trip: Trim Castle and the Hill of Tara
  5. Off to England: A weekend in Brighton

That’s what I’ll be writing about, and hopefully catching up with uploading pictures (as of this moment, I’m finally almost through the west coast trip photos, so I’ve got a lot to catch up on still!). If Diane gets a chance, she can fill you in on the other stuff she took my parents to see while I was at work. There’s a fairly long list there too!

So … on to the posts!

Morgan

Life has been pretty insane of late, which partially explains the lack of updates here. Apologies for that! We sure have been up to a lot lately, but there really hasn’t been a lot of time between sleeps to post.

I plan, however, on finally working through the hundreds (perhaps a couple thousand) of photos over the next little while here, as well as posting about our adventures while my parents were here. In brief, Diane graciously showed my folks around Dublin and its neighbouring attractions during the weekdays while I was at work. On the weekends, we did several trips — one out to the west coast, one to the north coast, and a shorter trip to see a few castles and other landmarks. Then, this past weekend, we traveled with my mom (my dad had returned to Canada two weeks prior) to Brighton, England to meet some friends of hers and see some more things!

So in the coming weeks, I will work on recounting our recent adventures to you before I forget all the fun stories.

Morgan

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