We got up early this morning and headed downstairs for breakfast, which is served in the owner’s tiny little living room, right next to a fish tank and a fireplace. Very cozy. Then it was off to tour Waterport and see how much ground we could cover in just one day.

Our first destination was the Treasures of Waterford, which is a museum tucked into the same building where the Tourist Information office is located. They hand you audio wands and as you wander through the exhibits, there are numbers displayed, which can be entered into the wand so you can hear interesting information about the things on display. The exhibit pretty much went through the entire history of Waterford up until about the 19th century, starting from the Vikings, moving on to the Normans, and the of course the whole messy history with the English. The layout was sometimes a bit confusing – the audio portion would indicate that we were to move in one direction when in fact the next part of the exhibit was off in the opposite direction – but that was only a minor issue. They have the original charter of Waterford on display, which was pretty interesting to see, and of course there was something about the Butler family because it seems as if the Butlers had their fingers in pretty much every part of Ireland we’ve seen so far. They were busy, those Butlers.

We ate lunch in the little cafeteria next to the museum and then went on to Reginald’s Tower, which stands down at the end of the Quay and is the last remaining tower from the walls that stood around Waterford hundreds of years ago. The tower was used at one point as a mint, so there was lots of history about the various people who’d been in charge of that, as well as a number of historical coins on display.

Next we headed off to the ChristChurch Cathedral, which is right next to our B&B, and went inside to wander around. This particular cathedral is famous for a few reasons – the first is that the architect who designed it also designed the Catholic church down the road (a big deal back in those days); the second because James Rice, a former mayor of the town, is buried there, and at his request, his body was exhumed a year after he was buried and an effigy of his corpse was put on top of his tomb, with a little inscription to look on him and know that he was once as we were, and anyone looking at him will eventually become just like him. The guidebooks all described this particular effigy as ‘gruesome’ but I just thought it was pretty interesting. I found it amusing that they included in the statue the little critters (mainly frogs, it appeared) who were dug up with the corpse.

Then we headed back to Reginalds Tower because just around the corner from our B&B were the ruins of the French Church, and the guidebooks said we could ask for someone at the Tower to let us in so we could wander. They did more than that – a very friendly man led us over, opened the gates, and then walked us around and talked about the history of the ancient church, including showing us a few of the oldest gravemarkers and explaining some of the family coats of arms and how to read the text around the edges. Then he asked us if we wanted to see something really different, and we said of course, and he led us off across the street to this unassuming door, opened it, and led us into an undercroft. There were, in fact, two of them – an upper and a lower one, and he said that they figure the people who built the upper one probably had no idea the other was there, and that the lower one likely dates from the 12th century. In fact, the way they discovered the lower one is that some historian was visiting someone who lived in a house above it sometime in the 18th or 19th century and noticed an old stairway spiraling down in a closet. He asked the owners where it went, since he immediately recognized that it was extremely old, and they didn’t know. Apparently they’d just been using it as a place to toss trash! And even more amazing, once they finally got inside, it was stuffed full of trash, layers upon layers of it that likely went back hundreds of years. Unfortunately at that time no one really thought it was worth it to keep the trash itself, so out it all went (archaeologists all over the world must be gnashing their teeth and weeping in horror every time they learn about this sort of thing), but they did at least recognize the significance of what they’d found, and set about trying to restore and protect it.

So we got to see this amazing little thing, hidden behind a little door in a little back alleyway; something that isn’t listed in any of the guidebooks we’ve read. It was very cool.

We wandered around the streets for a while longer, trying to find a restaurant that was recommended in the guidebook, but which no longer exists (in fact that entire street was being ripped up and redone). So instead we found a little Italian place close to our B&B and had dinner there, and then did a bit more wandering until our feet were tired and so were we.

Richard’s gone off to a pub to hear some local music, but I elected to stay back at the B&B. We’ve been doing a lot of walking this past week, and while we’ve joked about this being my crash training program for the Avon Walk (please sponsor me!), it’s starting to catch up with us.

Pictures from Waterford are here

This morning was our last in Kilkenny. We packed and ate breakfast and I made one final trek downtown to stop by an ATM because so far both places we’ve stayed prefer cash to credit cards for payment. That was a bit of excitement in itself since I thought Richard knew where I was headed, but he went to put the bags in the car and when he came back inside I’d disappeared and he didn’t have a clue where I was. So when I came back I was greeted with hugs and ‘oh, we were worried about you!’ from the innkeeper, which confused me quite a bit until I realized what had happened. Anyway, it was a bit sad to leave, since the couple who runs the B&B is very nice, and the town had lots of character.

Our first stop today was in New Ross, to visit the Dunbrody Famine Ship. New Ross sits at the mouth (or is it the end?) of the River Noire, and is a major port, which means it was also a major departure site for the Irish who fled the country during the great potato famine. In New Ross they’ve recreated the Dunbrody, which was one of the ships used to transport passengers. There was apparently a short video about the making of the ship, which we weren’t too upset about missing, and then the guide took us onto the boat and walked us around. As you can see in the pictures, it wasn’t a very big ship at all, but it’s even tinier when you realize that it would carry 150 – 300 people for 50 days across the ocean.

She took us below, first showing us the captains quarters and the first class cabins, which certainly weren’t luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, except when compared to the rather mindboggling conditions of the steerage compartments, where the bulk of the passengers were stored. There were two character actors who came to talk to us – the first a woman traveling in steerage, sharing a cramped bunk with her husband and 5 children; the second, a woman traveling with her husband and two children in first class. They both remained true to their characters (which were based on actual passengers on the original Dunbrody) even throughout answering questions. It was really quite sobering to look at the quarters where too many people were crammed in like sardines, in horrible, filthy, inhumane conditions. 50 days doesn’t seem too unbearable until you think about spending it below deck surrounded by 200+ unwashed strangers, likely suffering from seasickness, dysentery, and worse. Oh, and of course, there was no indoor plumbing, only buckets tucked under the stairs.

After visiting the ship, we left New Ross and headed further east toward Wexford, to visit the Irish National Heritage Park. It’s 35 acres of partially reclaimed bogs and marshes, onto which they’ve built life-sized replicas of various dwellings and other structures throughout the entire history of humans on the island, and it was quite fascinating. We traveled from primitive temporary campsites to thatch-roofed farmhouses; toured an early ringfort and a primitive monastery; even got to visit a Viking boatyard and saw boat-making in action. Some of the sites had fires burning and tools and other implements strewn about as if the inhabitants were just about to return. A few of the sites showed the various burial structures through the ages, and we got a kick out of the fact that the dolman exhibit even had a few bones tossed in. It was quite a hike around the entire park, and we were both glad we’d thought to eat lunch first (huge bowls of Irish stew at the little cafe in the visitors center near the entrance).

Our final stop for the day was Hook Head Lighthouse, which entailed more driving down tiny little roads through tiny rural communities and farmlands dotted everywhere with ruins. It seems like everywhere you turn there’s ruins of yet another church or house or castle, and they’re just…there. No one seems to give it much thought at all.

Hook Head Lighthouse is the oldest working lighthouse in Europe (and possibly the world), and our tour guide gave us quite a detailed history of the place. It was built a the request of the current king by the monks of the area, since we could quickly see that the rocks surrounding this peninsula were pretty nasty and probably weren’t fun for any ships trying to enter the mouth of the bay (and then progress up to Waterford or New Ross). The monks also built an attached abbey at its base, and were responsible for its function. They kept signal fires burning on top of it, and when coal came into use they stored all the coal in the bottom and then had to cart that coal up extremely steep and narrow stone steps to the roof to keep the fire burning. We’ve noted that this sort of inconvenient and awkward manual labor seems peculiarly suited to the monks of the era, since it seems that they were big into that kind of thing.

We got to climb out to the top and had lovely views across the end of the peninsula. I’m sure it would have also been a lovely view out across the water, if it wasn’t for the fog.

We made our way around the remaining half of the Ring of Hook, back to New Ross, and then across to Waterford, and this time had no problems at all finding our next B&B, since while our city maps don’t seem to like to provide actual street names all the time, they do include landmarks and historical sites, and our B&B is right across a little courtyard from the Christchurch Cathedral.

Our room is at the top of the stairs on the third floor. The stairs themselves tend to list alarmingly away from the wall on a few of the flights, and the room is extremely tiny. The bed is also tiny, and smashed against the wall, and we both looked at the layout and realized that we were going to get no sleep unless we were willing to be creative. So I snagged a few extra blankets and the comforter off the bed and have created a little temporary mattress for myself on the floor, and Richard’s sticking with the bed. The bed is soft enough that I know it is the type to give me a backache, so I’d rather the floor anyway.

We’ve wandered the city a little this evening, just enough to find a place for dinner, get our bearings and track down location and hours for the places we intend to hit first tomorrow. This is definitely the largest town we’ve been in so far in Ireland, if the size of the open air shopping center, and the inclusion of recognizable chain stores is anything to go by.

Pictures of Irish Heritage Park and Hooks Head

I think we’re starting to get the hang of the weather around here. In the morning, before you’ve gotten through getting dressed and eating breakfast, it’s dry and sunny and you can see patches of blue sky. However, just about the time you’re ready to walk out of the door to face the day, back come the rain clouds, prepared to keep things in some range of damp to soggy until just about the time you give up and head back inside for dinner. If you’re up for wandering around late at night, it’s dry and clear again. Heh.

Today was a bit lower key than the last few. We headed off to see Jerpoint Abbey, which is an ancient monestery located just a bit south of Thomastown. Score another one for the Heritage Card – I think we’ve now broken even on the price of those cards and we’re barely one week in.

Anyway, the abbey. We were all set to wander around on our own, but then a tour guide came rushing out to us. She was just about to start a tour for another couple and wanted to know if we’d be interested in joining in. Lucky for us, because the tour was wonderful. So far either we’ve been really lucky, or all the tour guides around here really are just this enthusiastic about what they are doing. She told us all about the founding of the Cistercian sect of monks, which split from the Benedictines, and how they spread across Europe, and were the ones who built this particular abbey. She walked us through the chancel, which was always the first part of an abbey to be built, and pointed out details on some of the tombs neither Richard or I would likely have noticed on our own. And she described how to tell which saint is which when we’re noticing the saints carved into the sides of some of the raised tombs, plus she showed us a number of the figures carved into the pillers that lined the cloister and explained what they thought they might be. She also explained why it is that we see so many places where there’s people buried inside the church. During the reformation, the king (Henry the something) shut down all the churches and religious orders (at least in Ireland) and banned their use, so Catholics couldn’t practice openly. So the people would sneak in and bury their family members inside the churches because at least it was still hallowed ground. And they would snag a bit of carving or relic to place over the burial plots so they would know where their family was located, since they couldn’t put an actual headstone. Our guide noted that there are still families who have the right to continue to bury their dead inside some of the ruins. She said they’d been trying to do a census of bodies just within the grounds of the abbey itself and there were dozens and dozens that they knew about so far, and likely dozens more they’ll never really track down.

After the abbey, we headed back toward Kilkenny, stopping at a brighly colored little building along the way, called the Watergarden, for lunch. Richard had a bowl piled with beef and Guiness stew and I had a bowl of potato, leek, and pesto (I think) soup, with a side of that brown soda bread we see everywhere. And then it was back to Kilkenny to brave the rain again.

We decided to try to get up to the design center which is in the old stables, across the street from the castle. The guidebooks and fliers made it out to be something really interesting, where we’d be able to see local artisans at work, but the guidebooks and fliers, they lie. So instead we meandered back down the main streets of town, poking our heads into a few stores and stopping to try an assortment of little pastries in a coffee shop (note to self – pastries around here are deceivingly filling). We also decided to take advantage of the spare time to get a load of laundry done.

Richard’s been wanting to get into a pub to hear some local music, but so far we’re usually pretty exhausted by the time evening rolls around. Tonight, however, we headed off to the Kyteler Pub, which is named after a woman who was condemned as a witch. We ate dinner (first time in my life I have ever been served a side of fries with my lasagna – heh) and then lingered over dessert until it was time for the music to start.

The waitress had told us it was going to be acoustical music, and it was going to be traditional Irish music, and while the duo playing sang and played well, it was neither traditional, nor acoustic. Nevertheless we had fun sitting there for a bit, chatting with our table mates – a mother and son couple from England – and watching the crowd of locals near us singing along with some of the songs, and playing with their digital cameras. It wasn’t until we were just about ready to head back to the B&B that they finally sang a few Irish songs, so we lingered just long enough for those and then decided to call it a night.

The sky was clear as we headed back to our B&B and the city is so quiet, when compared to cities back home. Richard pointed out that we’ve not heard a single airplane go overhead anywhere we’ve been so far. Little things, but enough of them to remind us we’re very far from home.

Picture from Jerpoint Abbey are here

We were really lucky the past three days with the weather – in fact yesterday we actually saw a bit of sun. Today, however, the rain set in, and after traipsing around town this morning for only a short while, we decided to break down and buy umbrellas. With the wind they don’t keep you from getting wet, but they do help keep you from getting completely soaked!

This morning we went to the tourist information office first, and then hit a series of bookstores, still trying to find a new copy of that book. It appears, however, that of all the travel guides available, this series simply isn’t available in Ireland or the UK. So we picked up something else which seems to be quite informative on its own, and with that and the Rough Guide to Ireland, I think we’ll be okay. We also discovered that Amazon.uk’s idea of Priority Two-Day Shipping is actually to wait to ship it out until July, so we cancelled the order for the replacement book.

Our first stop this morning was to Kilkenny Castle. Again, no pictures allowed inside, but our tour guide was enthusiastic and informative, even with such a huge crowd of people, and told us all about the history of the place. It was built and run by the same family (the Butlers) for over 600 years, even after being overrun here and there during the various wars. The Butler influence was rather obvious throughout Kilkenny, actually, since a number of them are also buried in raised tombs inside St. Canice’s Cathedral, which is located at the other end of the town and which has been actively used for over 800 years.

We’ve done a lot of wandering around the town today. It’s obviously much larger than Trim, and although we don’t recognize most of the shop names, the main streets of town are crammed with stores, a few of which I remember seeing in Trim, so I suspect a few might be chains. My umbrella broke while we were at the Cathedral, but the store very nicely let me exchange it (a good example of why it’s important to hang onto your receipts).

It’s been a slower day than the previous ones on our trip so far, but I think we needed it. We’ve had more time to walk around (despite the rain) and take in the town; to stop at little coffee shops and tea shops along the way, and to get thoroughly soaked several times (hence the stopping at coffee shops and tea shops to warm up and dry out!).

We ate fish chowder for lunch in an extremely crowded pub, and had a more leisurely dinner at a rather nice restaurant downtown – our first two non-breakfast meals in Ireland that did not have either fries (chips) or coleslaw. So far every single meal has had one or more of the following three things: some kind of potatoes (often more than one form dish), the aforementioned coleslaw, or brown bread, which seems to be a rather dense and hearty whole-grain recipe (it’s really good).

Not as many pictures from today, since we couldn’t take pictures at the castle, and the rain’s been a bit too much for any pictures of things outdoors, but those pictures we took are available here.

This morning we ate breakfast, packed up our bags, and waved goodbye to Trim. Our first stop was to be the castle in Maynooth, but we discovered once we got there (which involved stopped in downtown Maynooth at a little coffee shop to get coffee and ask for directions) that it doesn’t actually open until June. Oops. That is going to be one small downside to taking our trip in May – a number of the historical sites listed for the Heritage card aren’t even open until next month. No problem – we were just happy we’d managed to navigate our way out of Trim and down to Maynooth without getting lost once. In fact we think we might actually be getting the hang of the street sign system around here, and after today’s rather harrowing journey through a number of roads that are only about one lane wide, but which allow two directions of traffic, that’s saying a lot.

So instead of going to the castle in Maynooth, our next stop was in Celbridge, to tour Castletown House. We got there just before a large school group arrived, so one of the tour guides decided to take us and another couple (also Americans) around by ourselves. The guide was a woman who seemed to very much love her job, and have a great deal of pride and enthusiasm about the house, and the tour was wonderful. The house is huge – I don’t remember how many rooms she said it had, but what amazed both of us was that for its sheer size, she noted that it had never been built with space for children in mind. The entire west wing of the house was dedicated to the kitchens, while the east wing was for guests, and as she told the history, it appeared that this house had been decorated and run by a series of strong-minded women who had deep love for their home.

During the tour she pointed out a structure in the distance – a memorial obelisk built by one of the women who’d lived there as a memorial to her husband. So after we left Castletown House we made our way over there (only getting slightly lost once). There’s a fence around it so we couldn’t get very close, but we could at least get some pictures and stare at it.

Next stop, lunch at the Abbey House in Celbridge, and then on to Powerscourt, which was about an hour or so drive through some extremely ‘fun to drive’ (ha ha) roads. We passed through a lot of farmland, most of which is segmented up with crumbling stone walls nearly covered in some kind of bright yellow-orange flowering shrub, and many of them filled with sheep. In fact I tried to get pictures of some of the sheep (just for the amusement factor) but the sheep weren’t entirely cooperative.

Powerscourt has another large mansion, but it was obvious driving onto the grounds that this was much more of a tourist-oriented thing than Castletown, and we both remembered from the missing guidebook that the gardens were a better bet anyway.

The gardens at Powerscourt are huge, and it’s obvious that great care is being taken to try to renovate them. There was a lot of new planting and we both wondered if they’re trying to recreate what used to be there. They offered a map, which we discovered was barely any use at all, and we set off on a path into woods, passing by statues and stone urns. We found an old well, and then a ‘little’ tower that was apparently commissioned by Lord Powerscourt. It is called the Pepper Pot Tower because he wanted a tower to look just like his pepper shaker. Must be nice to have that kind of money (heh). The tower was open, although it wasn’t big enough to have much more than a steep spiral staircase inside, so we could climb to the top and look out over the gardens. From up there we spied a tiny little cemetery, but back on the ground we discovered there was no way to actually get to it (and we assume it was likely the family’s private cemetery, since it was walled off).

The estate includes a Japanese garden with little pagodas and curious stone mushroom type sculptured scattered around, and little bridges over tiny little brooks, and best of all, a little stone grotto with paths leading into and out of and over wherever you looked. We decided to go the long route to see the rhododendrons and azaleas, of which there didn’t actually seem to be very many for either type of flower, but it was a nice walk until the extremely steep climb back up a hill to rejoin the main path. We found the pet cemetery, where all the horses, dogs, and a few notable cows are buried, and then made our way past the Dolphin Pond, where we didn’t find anything at all resembling dolphins (supposedly the fish on the fountain were dolphins, but they were the most un-dolphin-like fish we’d ever seen). Next up, the walled gardens, which our little map said had the world’s longest herbaceous border, and then back into the more manicured areas of the estates.

From Powerscourt, we meandered through yet more slightly terrifying one lane / two-way roads until we found Glendalough, which is an old monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin hundreds of years ago, nestled into a little valley. Most of the settlement is a cemetery that is still in use, so there were headstones from the late 1900’s set in right next to stones from the 1700’s, or even stones so old that all the writing had worn away. The settlement is notable for the fact that it has one of the most well-preserved Round Towers in the country, which they think might have been used as bell towers (although they weren’t entirely sure).

After this, another hour or two of driving, although thankfully the last half of this final leg of the day’s tour was done on fully paved, multiple lane roads. We made it to Kilkenny but then realized we didn’t actually have any directions to our B&B, so had to ask a few random people where to find the street. Finally found it, though, and are settled into our room, which is where we’ll be staying for the next few days. We did a bit of wandering this evening, mainly to find someplace to get food (we finally settled on a tiny little sandwich shop, since it was one of the few places still open) and to try to track down location and hours for the tourist information office. For all the driving we did today, we also did a huge amount of walking and we’re both completely exhausted, but looking forward to exploring Kilkenny and the area tomorrow, *after* we get some sleep.

Pictures from today: Celbridge, Powerscourt, Glendalough

The guesthouse we are staying in is undergoing renovations, so it’s been kind of interesting to come and go and have to maneuver around ladders and people painting or wielding power tools. Apparently they just opened up rooms again on Friday, so we have the luxury of staying in freshly renovated rooms. It’s a nice room, although we’ve already discovered one thing these hotels lack which is so common in hotels in the US – there isn’t a clock to be found in the room at all. Luckily Richard’s aunt sent me my birthday present early, which arrived just before we left, and turned out to be a wonderful little travel clock, complete with alarm, and ability to program for multiple time zones.

Since the guesthouse is undergoing renovations, breakfast was served at a local cafe just around the corner. Three meals in and I’ve already discovered just how big meals here can be (and yet everyone seems to be in great shape – I suspect it’s all the walking!). They brought us a plate piled with toast, then coffee and juice and there was cereal if we wanted it, and we also had the option of getting (along with all of that) a typical fry – eggs, sausages, potatoes, and ham.

Our first stop today was to the tourist office; or rather, that was intended to be the first stop, but we got there before it opened. And while we were standing there deciding what to do, another woman approached and we got to talking with her. Turns out she’s from New Hampshire and was touring Ireland on her own and having a wonderful time. When we mentioned the possibility of tracking down an internet cafe she was immediately interested, so the three of us made our way over to the only one in town. Luckily it is located right across the street from a coffee shop, so we could get some much-needed caffeine while we waited for the guy to arrive to open the computer store where internet access was to be found. And luckily they had plenty of computers for use, all with high speed access, so all three of us could perch on a stool and plow through accumulated email, as well as drop a few quick notes to family just to let them know we made it to Ireland in one piece.

The main touristy thing we’ve done today was to visit Castle Trim. We’ve purchased Heritage cards, which give us access to a whole slew of places around the country, including the castle, which is the one where they filmed the movie Braveheart. Was rather fun as the guide pointed out the various spots from the movie, including where Mel Gibson was killed. Apparently a lot of locals from Trim were used as extras in the cast, and the man who played the executioner was a local schoolteacher.

The castle has been preserved as a ruin, so in many places you could see where floors or roofs used to be. From the top the view across Trim was lovely, and I’m sure it would be even more breathtaking if it was a bit clearer. We’ve found it kind of amusing that all the locals keep apologizing for the weather – we’re just glad to get out of the unseasonable heat in California, and it’s been just barely sprinkling all day, which hasn’t bothered us at all.

We ate lunch in the cafe at the tourist office, where we met three more Americans, who chatted with us about their trip, noted that the Heritage cards are definitely worth the money, and made us feel slightly better about getting so lost yesterday on the way to Trim, since they noted they’d spent a good part of the day trying without success to reach the Hill of Tara.

This afternoon we’ve been mainly just wandering around Trim. We slipped into the St. Patrick’s Cathedral and snapped a few quick shots of the interior – including the huge pipe organ in the back balcony, and the amazing artwork on the walls of the altar. In the course of our wanderings we also found another church (I think it’s also called St. Patrick’s) which has a bell tower, and every hour, if you listen carefully, the bells chime the time. This particular church was surrounded by a tiny little cemetery, with some gravestones so old the words had all but worn away. I also got a kick out of finding a little wool shop that is possibly the tiniest little shop ever. There were cubbies on two of the walls full of skeins of wool, but most of them were hidden behind clothing, or piles of boxes stacked haphazardly on the floor. They sold knit and crocheted items there and I was tempted to find out how much a knit sweater would cost, but couldn’t actually get to any of them to check for prices. We also saw a rather bored looking calico cat camped out in front of the wool shop, and later on, found two very friendly little cats lurking around a house. They did their best to show how aloof they were until I called to them and held out a hand, and suddenly we had two very best friends who were all about weaving around our legs and getting some pets.

The sun rises quite early and also sets quite late in Ireland this time of year, so it’s a bit odd (to us) to still have nearly complete daylight even at 9 at night. We finally tracked down that restaurant we’d been looking for last night, and went there tonight for dinner. We had some fresh cream of broccoli and cauliflower soup, served, of course, with bread, and skipped the main entrees so we would have room for dessert. Meals here so far have all been huge. Richard had something with chocolate and orange ganache and I had apple tart, which they served with a scoop of ice cream into which someone bizarrely added raisins. So I was trying to very discreetly pick the raisins out of my ice cream the entire time.

After dinner we decided to take advantage of the fact that it was still so light out and go for a walk. There were paved paths along the Boyne River, which runs right through town and right past the castle, and on the castle side of the river there were signs posted here and there talking about the restoration of the moat (they’ve allowed it to become a little wetland area). We got a kick out of finding a whole population of tiny black Irish slugs making their way across the path from the river to the marshy moat area.

On the other side of the river we noticed that there were some trails cut through the fields up the hill, and as we’d been eating dinner we’d noticed people coming and going on them, so we decided to do a little bit of exploring. Turns out it was a good idea, since we circled around and found the Yellow Steeple, which is a tower that is all that remains of what was once (I think) a monastery. It’s surrounded by a fence, but the gate was open and apparently it’s a spot for the local teens to go hang out and smoke, since there was a group there, still in their school uniforms, as we wandered around and did the tourist thing with the gaping and the oohing and aahing and the taking of pictures.

We’ve mapped out where to go for the next few days – we’re planning three nights in Kilkenny so we can take in the surrounding two counties. We’re also still hoping to track down a new copy of that lost guidebook (sigh). We found a wonderful little book shop up the road from the guesthouse, which did not carry it, but the man behind the counter was extremely nice and rung up a few places to see if they might carry it too (no luck). So now the hope is to order a new one from Amazon.uk, and have it delivered to the place we’ll be staying in Kilkenny – keep your fingers crossed that this all works out.

Pictures from our stay here in Trim are all here.

It doesn’t seem so very long since my dad picked us up and drove us to the airport, til the time when we arrived in Dublin. It’s just a few parts of the trip that seemed to stretch on forever, but getting here made it all worthwhile.

The plane from San Francisco to Heathrow was packed, but I’d managed to at least get us aisle seats even if we were stuck back in coach, so it wasn’t as bad at all as I’d expected it to be. We ended up chatting with a couple from Folsom in the waiting area in San Franciso – she has just started knitting and was commenting on the pair of socks I was working on, and he collects books, mainly science fiction and fantasy, so all four of us had lots to chat about. They ended up sitting a few rows ahead of us so we each had friendly faces to wave to through the course of the trip.

Heathrow airport is kind of a nightmare. We landed in one terminal and then joined a line that stretched through hallways, up and down stairs, and around corners nearly indefinitely while waiting to board a shuttle bus to take us to the next terminal. While in line we chatted with two other Americans (funny how we always find each other, isn’t it) and determined that the line was much like Disneyland – you think you see the end, but then you turn the corner and you’ve another half hour or more of shuffling slowly forward and feeling as if you are going nowhere.

The shuttle bus wasn’t the end of it by a long shot. Next we waited in a huge line to get through security at the second terminal, and then another line (much shorter this time) to get through the passport check, and then more miles and miles (or at least it seemed that way) of windowless metal hallways until we finally reached the tiny little offshoot terminal for flights to the UK and Ireland. We had about three hours of layover in Heathrow and it turned out to be just barely enough time, since they called for boarding for our flight to Dublin about 30 seconds after we finally tracked down the gate. I feel sorry for anyone who had less time to make it than we did – chances were high they were going to miss their flight.

We landed in Dublin airport which was much easier to navigate than Heathrow (pretty much anywhere would be easier to navigate than Heathrow) and tracked down our baggage and then the rental car counter. They pointed us to the lot, we found our car (with a little help) and then the fun began. First there was the excitement of trying to figure out how to put the thing into reverse, and then Richard had the fun of driving on the left side of the road while both of us tried desperately to figure out the street signs. I am not entirely sure how many times we ended up circling through roundabouts and going the wrong way on the same freeway, but we did manage to miss the road we wanted too many times to count, and also go through a tollbooth before we’d had a chance to track down an ATM. Luckily the lady at the booth was extremely nice and understanding of the poor stupid lost tourists, so she pointed us in the right direction and let us through without paying. Off we went to get lost some more, finally ending up in a little town called Kilcock, where we decided we’d had enough. We stopped, got lunch, and tracked down an ATM in case we hit any more of those unexpected toolbooths, took deep breaths, and finally found the road to Trim.

Trim is a lovely little town, what we’ve seen of it so far. It’s quiet and small and perfect for our first few days here. We checked into Brogan’s Guesthouse (check-in happens in the bar) and crashed for a few hours, then wandered off down the roads to try to find someplace for dinner. We never did track down the restaurant we were looking for – recommended by our handy guidebook – but we found a cute little diner where we had a large and delicious dinner. Unfortunately, on the way to the restaurant we lost our handy little guidebook (Rick Steve’s Ireland 2006), which is extremely inconvenient, since that’s the one we were using primarily as our guide. Urk. So we’re hoping we can track down another at some point, or else rely on the kindness of strangers and the prevalence of Tourist Information offices around the country to make do.

But despite this little setback, and the fact that we’re still suffering a bit from jetlag and the lack of sleep on the trip over, I’m so glad we’re here and I am looking forward to the next three weeks. I have even tracked down a wool shop, and obviously we found an internet cafe, so life is, as they say here, grand.

There has been such a change since we first brought Checkers home. Instead of hiding all the time, she pretty much now pops her head out of wherever she’s been lurking the instant I walk into the room. She has a lot of opinions and is more than happy to share them with us, but luckily she’s got a much quieter voice than Sebastian so it’s actually pretty cute.

She is, amusingly, still living in the library and the linen closet, but at this point we have very little to do with it. Despite the fact that we’ve had the door open pretty much all the time now for weeks, she has decided that the library is her territory and she should not actually be required to leave it. In fact, she will come right to the edge of the room and stand in the doorway and holler for one of us to come in and play with her, and no amount of coaxing will get her to place even one dainty little toe over the threshold unless it is on her very exacting terms. I suspect it does not help that we usually give in and go to her rather than the other way around. We keep discussing whether or not to remove her litter box and make her use the main ones (we’ve caught her in the regular boxes once or twice so she does know where they are), but unfortunately there are still some unresolved issues. Or rather, there is exactly one unresolved issue, who goes by the name of Rosemary. Rosie has taken to going in and sitting right by wherever Checkers is lurking, lying in wait for her to poke her head out so that then they can have a yelling match. We’re trying to do the usual things – removing Rosie and distracting her with toys elsewhere, trying to give Rosie extra attention, and occaisonally even shutting the library door so Checkers can have some peace, but so far, we seem to have reached a stalemate in the integration process where Rosie is concerned and I am not quite sure what to do about it.

But aside from the problem of Rosie being a little snot, things are going well. Checkers is very sweet and playful and opinionated enough that I am not missing Allegra as much anymore, which was one of the primary reasons we wanted a tortie in the first place. She has her own little quirks and I suspect that we will continue to learn more of them over time. And like any good self-respecting cat, she has us well trained, as you can see in this little video Richard took of us playing the feline version of Fetch. Notice, if you will, which participant is ‘tossing’ the toy and which one is ‘bringing’ it back.

April has so far shaped up to be an expensive month. First there were the taxes, which we actually got done the last weekend in March, but which did not get paid until the last possible minute. In a way it was kind of amusing because this is the first year in a very long time that both Richard and I have worked only one job each, and we did not have anything complicated, like buying or refinancing a house, or purchasing a car that required recording a credit based on instruction so complicated (and yet so vague at the same time) that it took five of us to figure out where the hell to record the damn thing on the taxes, or any other sort of complicated thing that would keep us from doing our taxes ourselves. We’ve been so used to going to H&R Block to get them done that it didn’t even occur to me until we were nearly done with the whole thing that we could have just bought the silly software and done it ourselves this year and saved ourselves a bit of money. Not, mind you, that this would have saved us the whopping $2000 we owed the Feds (you may all commence with the cringing right along with me), but it might have been quicker. I will note that since we got our taxes done we have both upped our contributions to our respective 401k’s at work and both of us made sure that we’ve got the maximum amount of tax being withdrawn from our paychecks, and we are both crossing our fingers that next year the tax bill won’t be quite so painful.

Next, one of my tires bit the dust as I was toodling along on the freeway heading to work. Luckily Richard was working from home during the original tire blow-out, so he could drive out, and we could swap out cars. By the time he arrived I’d managed to get the tire off and was just starting to fight with trying to put the new tire on. We discovered that my car comes with a nifty little wheel lock – one of the wheel bolts is specially shaped and requires a special little wrench extension to get it off. I am so glad this happened during daylight, or there would have been a *lot* more swearing during the process than there was. Anyway, when Richard took my car in to have them repair the dead tire, we found out that actually all four tires had barely any tread left and were in urgent need of being replaced. I guess all those road trips to and from Ashland and Seattle must have taken their toll. Cost for the new tires – several hundred dollars. Ding! And finally, when Richard took his car in for its regular 3000 mile check-up, we discovered that he needed work done on the brakes. Add in a few hundred more bucks to the mix. Ding!

I am hoping that after all of this, our financial karma will decide to let us take a little break. May’s going to be expensive enough, what with that three week trip to Ireland.

I woke up yesterday morning feeling kind of icky, because yes, the sinuses were doing their thing again. I woudl have much rather taken meds and gone back to bed, but I had to be at church at 8:30 for the recorder group because we’re doing all the music for the Good Friday service and there were a lot of songs to go through. I did mostly okay through that, and thought that maybe, if I could just hold out until the meds kicked in, that I would be fine. But then we went to choir rehearsal and the director had us warm up by singing a song only on “ooh” and that was pretty much my downfall. Singing ‘ooh’ when your sinuses are seriously imploding from the pressure is not good. Basically the sound vibrates through the sinuses and all that lovely little nausea that accompanies a big nasty sinus pressure attack like this just comes boiling to the surface.

So I went home and crawled back into bed and sent my apologies to the choir director via Richard and was once again very glad that at least the other tenor is a strong enough singer to cover for me. And I pretty much stayed in bed (except for a brief foray into the bathroom because I HATE YOU TOO, SINUSES) for the rest of the morning and on into the afternoon.

I finally staggered out of bed for good at about 4, because the sinuses do not just like to try to kill me slowly, they also like to make me waste whole days of potential productivity focusing instead on how very much I hate them. Richard picked up some sushi for dinner from the little restaurant downtown and we watched Dr. Strangelove. I was under the apparently very mistaken impression that this was a comedy. I was also woefully unaware that it was a Stanley Kubrick film, since having seriously disliked every Kubrick film I have ever seen in the past I might not have been so gungho to watch this. Let’s just say that it did not change my opinion of Kubrick films.

Anyway. The rest of the weekend wasn’t nearly as bad. Friday night was craft night, and it was a very small group, but that was actually kind of nice because sometimes when it’s a crowd it’s almost impossible to hear the person next to you. The hostess is dogsitting for some friends who are out of town, and the dog has a large fleece bed that is his security blanket; he would carry it around in his mouth everywhere he went and then flump down on it, with the largest, saddest eyes he could muster, staring at the front door. Poor spoiled doggy misses his family.

Saturday I did a bunch of knitting and tackled some laundry and poked at the cats, while Richard went off to his writing group, and then we headed off to run some errands, mainly tracking down and purchasing a recumbant bicycle for me. I know I need to exercise but I also know that if I hate it I will find any excuse not to do it, and the recumbant bike seems like the best option because it leaves my hands free, which means I can distract myself while exercising by reading or doing logic puzzles, or even better, by knitting. You knew I would find a way to work that in there, didn’t you. We brought it home and put it together with surprisingly minimal feline assistance, and it will live in the bedroom.

The integration of the cats continues slowly, by the way. I’m no longer being woken up by screaming fits every night, and while Checkers will fuss at any other cat that comes near her and a few of the other cats will growl in retaliation, that seems to be about it. We are finding it very amusing that Rosie has apparently launched a campaign of her own, because yesterday while we were putting the bike together she trotted into the bedroom and rather proudly deposited the catnip toy we’d given to Checkers onto the floor. And this morning she woke me up with rather thunderous skittering after what turned out to be Checkers’ favorite red sparkly ball. So I suspect she has decided that if she cannot convince us to make the usurper go away, she will just steal all of her toys away. I am thwarting her in her efforts by returning all the captured booty back to the library, but I am hoping that maybe if she has to keep going in there to steal things, she and Checkers will eventually get to the point where they can just get over their snippy bad selves and learn to get along.