A Marvelous Promise Fulfilled

Ok - now to conclude our journey.

The Marvelous Trip to Ireland - Wednesday, 8/30/06

The day dawned - our children woke us. Yet again. Oh well. Goes with the territory, I suppose. I knew that breakfast was from 8-10, so I was trying to leisurely yet purposefully get the fam ready to go down. Our price for the room included breakfast.

Let me say a little more about the hotel before I describe breakfast. When I went in the night before, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to find a whole gaggle of people milling around waiting to get into the restaurant for dinner. I guess it was a restaurant. It has no name as far as I know - it's the place where you eat. I think this place must have once been a house. A HUGE house. I told Steve during breakfast that it reminded me of places where people in Agatha Christie novels would holiday. It was 2 stories and sprawled. Our room was upstairs past a very large sitting room. Our room, as I think I said before, was big. So the dining facilities were large dining rooms.

I had been told the night before that when we went down to breakfast, we didn't need to wait to be seated. Our name would be on our table. And, wouldn'tcha know it - it was! It was a little namecard (that I kept) that said "Mrs Nolen." No punctuation after the "Mrs." That's still weird to see. Anyway, our little table was set and waiting for us - 4 chairs and one highchair. We ordered "mini breakfasts" - basically normal breakfast fare minus the baked beans. The kids had about 12 pieces of toast each, loads of cocoa puffs, apple juice, and milk. Then more toast. They really like toast. Good thing Steve bought a toaster in Falkirk!

After breakfast, we packed up, checked out and walked across the parking lot to the visitor's center for the Giant's Causeway. It was a cool, windy day. We needed our windbreakers and the kids had on sweatshirts under theirs. We walked down a very steep hill and around a curve.

Steep hill. Notice Deputy Dawg's face? He's aged before his time, I guess.

This is the bottom of the steep hill.

Anyway - the water you see is the ocean. Very picturesque and photo-friendly. So here are more photos.

Dang it - Blogger isn't working again, so no pictures. I'll try again later.

Anyway. Around the corner were the really cool rock formations. Thousands of hexagonal pillars that were about 18 inches across and packed tightly in together. We could walk out on them and be surrounded by the sea. It rained all night the night before, so there were little puddles on about half of the pillars. Caleb went toodling off and, of course, Audrey followed him. Before we knew it, she slipped in one of the puddles and got both pant legs wet up to her thighs. Because the day was cold and windy, we decided to cut our hike short and catch the shuttle bus back up the 1km hill that we had walked down earlier. We also decided just to head straight to Dublin after we got Audrey changed back at the van. It was an uneventful, rainy trip until Steve reminded me that we were going to take a side trip to a spot called Newgrange.

Newgrange is an ancient burial mound. We drove around literally 30 minutes trying to find the visitor's center to gain access to this place. We were literally right beside it but couldn't either see it or get to it because of a big hill and a big fence. Turns out we needed the road on the *other* side of the hill and fence. Duh. Didn't even know there *was* another road.

Found the road, found the visitor's center, got inside just in time for a mousy little man to bully us into going on the 5.15 bus tour to Newgrange. Come to find out, the only way to see the burial mound is to ride their bus out to it. So we did. It's raining while Steve is running across bridges, down paths, up and down stairs to finally arrive at the bus to hold it for us. Caleb was right up there with him for a while, then Steve put on a burst of speed, not realizing Caleb wasn't keeping up and that the girls and I were so far behind and poor Caleb got left behind. As the girls and I were hurrying to catch up, we rounded a corner and Caleb popped up from where he had been crouching behind a rock. I thought he was hiding to scare us, but he thought he was lost. Poor little baby. Makes me sad now even thinking about it.

We got on the bus and rode 5 minutes out to the mound. It's still cold and rainy and now the wind is blowing, too. Nice. Our tour guide comes out and is a fella in his early 20s. As he's giving us the spiel about the place, I'm starting to get the feeling that he thinks that nobody speaks English. After the whole thing is over, he tells me, "Nobody had a word of English but you and your family."

I'm actually going to leave off now. It's 9 p.m. and I'm wiped out. I hurt my back today. I'm frustrated because I feel like I'm getting old. I know that it happens, but I think we all deny that it happens to us until it does, then we're really surprised when we get these aches and pains. All of a sudden my back went from being fine to having a horrible dull ache that made it hard to breathe. I checked into mobile massage therapists - hopefully I'll get some info back ASAP. There's one lady who will do an hour of back, neck, and shoulders for 35. Plus she'll do evening appointments, so if we can get an appointment soon, Steve and I can both get worked on here at home. Doesn't that sound absolutely luscious? A massage here in my own home by a professional.

Anyway, I'm going to bed. I'm tired and I hurt. Now I'm getting a headache to go along with the backache.

More on Newgrange tomorrow. Night!