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Published: June 26th 2009
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I have been a busy little bee
Ohh my goodness. I know it has been a while since my last blog but I have been very busy so I will do my best to recap the last while so that everyone is all caught up. So let's go back to the last week in May...
On my day off, May 25th, I decided to take a walk up to the Glasnevin (Prospect) Cemetery and the Botanic Gardens. I decided to walk along the Grand Canal to get to the cemetery and gardens. The Grand Canal was very nice in certain areas only. It was very nice by the prison, surprisingly enough, and not so nice by the football stadium. I made my way to the cemetery first. It is the first, opened in 1832, Catholic cemetery in Dublin. It is a really neat cemetery to wander around in with all the old headstones. They are in the process of reconstructing many areas of the cemetery including resurrecting damaged headstones. The cemetery itself is walled in with watchtowers in each corner. They used to keep guards in the watchtowers to prevent thieves from stealing the bodies for use by
medical students. After the cemetery I moved on to the Botanic Gardens, which were beautiful. The Botanic Gardens have a number of green houses and large grounds full of flowers. My favourite greenhouse was the Orchid house with all sorts of hybrids. It was definitely a nice day off from work.
The last weekend in May was a long weekend here in Dublin along with being the maritimes festival. The liffey was full of tall ships and street vendors lined the streets. This also mean't that I had to work all weekend because it was super busy. Before work I decided to go check out the festival. The tall ships were amazing and I even was able to buy some delicious goats cheese. The weather was amazing this weekend and unfortunately I worked the entire time! While working away I was attacked by a leprechaun that bit my hand and caused me to go to the hospital to get stitches. The Irish hospitals are pretty decent. I was seen pretty quickly and the nurse stitched me and sent me on my way. I did, however, have to pay 100Euros for an emergency visit. But thankfully, the 100Euros covers a
few visits so if i get attacked by more leprechauns and require more stitches I will be able to get the works.
So the weeks that followed were pretty busy with work. I did watch a Brazilian movie in there some where that was really funny. It was called "If I was You" and it was about a couple who were having a hard time and suddenly the cosmos shift their minds into each other's bodies. It was really funny and the male actor was really really really good at acting as though he was a female.
Then on June 12 was the arrival of mom and aunt Kim. I went to meet them in Killaloe, where they were staying for their first week of the trip. I was only able to spend 1 full day with them as I had to work the rest of the time. We took a drive to Galway and then on to Connemara where we visited the Kylemore Abbey. In Galway, we walked along the shopping area and had a quick lunch. The most fascinating part of Galway was the star trek style bathroom. You had to put in 20Cents, the
door opens, you use the facilities, then push a button for toilet paper, it had hand sensing water and soap, then you pushed a button to be released from the bathroom, then the stainless steel and marble bathroom is flushed with sterile water to clean the ENTIRE ROOM. Imagine if you got trapped inside the bathroom while it was cleaning itself! EWWWW... We then made the drive to Connemara, which is a gorgeous mountain area. The Abbey, which we made it to in the nick of time, was amazing. It was originally built as a gift from a husband to his wife. Unfortunately, his wife died and so it was not used as much and eventually sold to another family. Then during WWI, a convent of nuns from Ypres moved into the Abbey as their original Abbey had been destroyed in the war. Since that time, the Abbey has continued to house the nuns. It has amazing views being completely surrounded by mountains. The Abbey also had a Neo-Gothic church that was really nice. It had 4 different types of marble in it, which was very interesting to see all the colours together. We then made the long drive back
to Killaloe. I got on an early train back to Dublin for work the next morning.
The following weekend mom and aunt kim made their way to Dublin. On the saturday I made dinner, sheppards pie, for mom, kim, my flatmates, and my brazilian friends. From what I am told, the Sheppard's Pie tasted really good and the evening went really well with everyone hanging out. After successfully getting mom to stop talking long enough I was able to run them back to the train station so that they would make the last train of the night to their B&B in Howth. The next day was a quiet one, we went to check out viking world and decided not to climb the many many stairs to the top of the tower... we were all really tired that day. We all decided to have an early night and I met them again the next morning in Howth before they made their way up to Northern Ireland.
And I think that pretty much brings everyone up to date. My hand is healing pretty well now but I still have a scar... damn leprechauns.
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Mom
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Visit with Mom & Kim
You got some great shots, That was a fun day.