saralynnglenn

On Monday we went to the London Science Museum to see a special exhibit featuring our dear friends, Wallace and Grommit. The focus was on inventions and other "great ideas" and the importance of copyright and patents, etc. It was really fun and educational and well-designed. We learned there is a Wallace and Grommit movie we haven't seen yet! It's called "A Matter of Loaf and Death" and we can't wait to find it at home. Later on we walked around Covent Garden and the Neal's Yard area. The boys bought some clothes at some cool vintage shops. Heading for the Tube at Tottenham Court Yard, we passed Simon Callow on the street! He had been in "Waiting for Godot" which Clark and I saw last week. Tuesday was Legoland! What to say? The target age ... read more

Every day is so full here, I've decided to just write for now about one great day we had, last Thursday. We decided to visit two great art museums, the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern, and we took advantage of the "Tate-to-Tate" boat service to travel along the Thames in between. First up was the Tate Britain, which focuses on British artists. I particularly like the Victorian-era painters, the Pre-Raphaelites, etc. (By the way, there is currently a TV series on in England about these painters, called “Desperate Romantics.”) They also had some good modern work, on the theme of Classification that were very interesting. One featuring an alleged collection of primitive artifacts, called the Chapman Family Collection. The more you looked at these, the more you realized that they were not authentic, but instead ... read more

This will probably be my last post from Ireland, a somewhat random collection of comments and photos. I'm posting this just as, back in the States, Bob and the boys are leaving for Logan aiport, on their way to London! Our students all left on Saturday, most home to the States, a few to travel a bit further in Ireland or the U.K. I have had a few days since then to just relax and explore Dublin. Mike and I saw a fabulous production of Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals at the Abbey Theater. The Abbey is Ireland’s National Theater, founded by W.B. Yeats and others in 1904. The Rivals was written in 1775, and is a comedy about marriage prospects, somewhere in between Much Ado About Nothing and The Importance of Being Earnest. The acting, costume, ... read more

We left Galway last Sunday, and I have to say I was sorry to go. Galway is a great city, welcoming and easy to get to know. The population is now around 70,000, if you count the growing suburbs, but the feel is of a much smaller place. From our accommodations, it was less than a 30-minute walk to the city center, along very pleasant, friendly streets. Eyre Square is a large open square right in the center of town. The park there was rechristened John F. Kennedy Memorial park in honor of JFK’s visit to Ireland and Galway in the spring of 1963. (More on that soon.) Galway is known as the City of the Tribes, because its charter was granted to 14 Anglo-Norman merchant families - or “tribes” -- in the late 1300’s. Galway ... read more

Tuesday’s field trip took us to two sites important to Medieval Christianity. The first was Clonfert Cathedral. This church was founded in the 6th century by St. Brendan, often called “St. Brendan the Navigator.” According to legend he is buried here, although no one knows for sure, and the Irish don’t tend to be big on doing the sort of archaeological dig that would be needed to determine the accuracy of this legend. St. Brendan was a monk who traveled extensively. A book he wrote about his travels has been found translated into many languages. He writes about visiting places that seem likely to be Greenland and Iceland and, many believe, Labrador in North America. This was before the Vikings even had explored the coast of North American. Now some have said that it would have ... read more