Trying To Finish The Marvelous Recounting of the Marvelous Adventure to Ireland

Ok - I'm back from not writing. Friday was interesting. I sent Steve to work with the van so the kids and I were afoot. We walked Caleb to school then walked home, then changed Audrey's clothes into a pretty dress, then the girls and I walked back into Tilehurst (to a green area surrounded by shops called The Triangle) and caught a bus that dropped us off near the not-as-nice Asda, then we walked around the corner from there to her school. It was picture day. We waited for an hour and got her picture taken (alone and with Julie). After a quick lunch that we got from Asda, we caught a bus back to the Triangle. From there we browsed in a couple of shops then went to the post office to mail a birthday card to a certain aunt... After that we went to a playground near Caleb's school where Audrey played for about 15 minutes before it was time to go get Caleb. Then we walked home. Audrey and I were just about wiped out when we got home. Then the grocery delivery guy got here with all our food. He and I had a discussion about Dr. Pepper and America. His wife has family in Indianapolis and they visited there a few years ago.

So yesterday we were supposed to drive down to Portsmouth to see the tall ships, but I decided (with Steve's encouragement) to stay home and recuperate. My back still hurts. So yesterday we worked on laundry and I took Caleb to a shop to get more pants for school. It's getting chilly here and shorts don't cut it anymore.

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Now back to the adventure in Ireland. I hope to get through most of it this morning.

I got us as far as Newgrange last time. It's a passage tomb. Nobody is buried in there. It's basically a stone mound that has a chamber inside with 3 small nooks that are the size of the average kitchen table. Each nook has a large stone basin in it. The passage that you walk through to get in the chamber has a low ceiling and is narrow in one place. It's about 30 strides long. It's engineered so that the sun for 5 days at the winter solstice shines in and illuminates the chamber around 9 a.m.

Steve says:
There's a traditional Irish story called "The Architect of Newgrange." I read it in a book called "Ireland" by Frank Delaney that I picked up in the Albuquerque Airport back in March on my way to California. It was built before pyramids in Egypt.

The dirt on top of the mound slid over the course of a few thousand years. It was rebuilt in modern times to what they think it looked like originally. The guy that bought the land thought he was getting a quarry because all of the white facing rock was lying around. This was in the 1800s.

Back to me:
We didn't tarry long at Newgrange, but got back on the bus. The bus driver said he thought Caleb looked like Harry Potter and he let Caleb push the button to close the door. On the way back to the Visitors' Center, we got stuck in a traffic jam. Actually we got stuck behind a herd of slow-moving bovines. A man was moving about 20 dairy cows down the paved road from one field to another. But we kept pace right behind them and arrived back at the Visitors' Center just as it quit raining.

We started the walk back to the center and the kids would race across the bridges. One time I ran with them, then the next time, Steve waited until we were all almost across in front of him, then he started running, too. All of a sudden, I heard a great THUD and as I slowed down to turn and look, I wondered to myself, "How can a girl as little as Audrey make such a big THUD?" When I turned around, I was surprised to see Audrey standing and Steve not. He said he was trying to bounce the bridge, so he was goofing off to begin with.

I'll have to post pictures another day - Blogger isn't cooperating. AGAIN.

So we left Newgrange and headed to Dublin. We had to stop at a grocery store before we got on the toll motorway to Dublin because we had no Euro currency for the toll. Euros are worth more than dollars, but less than pounds. We hit the northern outskirts of Dublin around 7 p.m. We had no maps with good detail of Dublin at this point. I think if either of us really had our wits about us, we would have stopped and bought one.

We thought that going through a downtown area after 7 p.m. would be relatively easy. We were WRONG. Not only was it congested, but it was *hugely* confusing. The directions to our hotel were pretty lame, too, but they were the best I could find. We had no idea what intersection was coming up until we were almost in the middle of it. They don't do such a nice job of making it clear what street is what over here. Makes driving extremely frustrating. At one point while we were ON THE RIGHT ROAD, we drove in a figure-8 figure without crossing over our own tracks. Does that make sense? The road turned left 90 degrees, then right 90 degrees, then left by 90 again, then made 3 right turns, then a left turn, then a right turn, then straight on. All this because they had a median so we couldn't turn right originally.

We were getting testy, cranky, rude, snippy, and any other adjectives that can describe the state of mind that combines feeling lost, hungry, frustrated, and irritated with our preschool passengers. On top of all this, Caleb has been saying for about 15 minutes that he needs to potty. So we switched our focus from finding the hotel to finding a restroom. We are so focused on finding a gas station that we almost missed the hotel. I saw it as we zoomed past heading to the Texaco on the other side of it. We pulled into a side street on the far side of the Texaco, then the boys hopped out to go pee in the Texaco restroom. So I get the van turned around in the side street, get back on the main road to backtrack a whole block and find that I have to go past the hotel and do a U-turn because there's a median. By the time I pull into the parking lot, Steve and Caleb are waiting for us. Steve decided that since he couldn't get the guy in the Texaco to pay him any attention, he would just head to the hotel to use their facilities.

We get checked in to yet another hotel. This family room is the nicest on the whole trip, I think. It had a queen bed and 2 twin beds. It also had 2 steps down to a living room-type area with a table, 4 chairs, a sofa and a TV. There was also a TV in the bedroom. We could have had internet in the room if I had notified them in advance. But silly me, I didn't know they had an internet box they could put in the room.

It's well after 8 p.m. now and we're all starving. We got directions from the front desk to the town center area of Stillorgan - the Dublin suburb we were in - and assurances there were several places to get take-out. We took a minor wrong turn and ended up at McDonald's. I didn't hear any complaints from anyone. The kids were thrilled, and Steve was too tired and frustrated to care. He was so irritated with the whole "Driving in Dublin" experience that he requested the not-on-the-menu 20 piece chicken McNuggets box.

We got our food and got back to the hotel. I was tired and frustrated but I felt compelled to figure out our plan for seeing Dublin. I was so not motivated, but I finally decided that we'd drive into Dublin and take a bus tour of the city. Steve was in agreement - both on the lack of motivation, but the drive to at least try to see Dublin. I mean, we are in another country!

Silly me, when the day dawned on Thursday the 31st, I thought the kids would let us sleep a little more. We had nice thick curtains that blocked all light and our room was on a quiet hall. But NOOOOO. Caleb got up and TURNED ON A LAMP. Turned on a lamp! I could have killed him. I don't even know what time it was - probably 6:30 or 7. Respectable time to get up when you're NOT on holiday, but much too early for this road-weary mom.

So we got up, got dressed, got packed up, and checked out. Then we went back to the McDonald's for breakfast. Actually we went to the Marks & Spencer grocery store next door to it. We got some fabulous breads and milk. It was a nice breakfast. Then we were off to Dublin.

We got back downtown to the vicinity of the ticket booth for the bus tour, but got a little lost after we parked the van. I was disoriented and since we didn't have any map to speak of, we were doing pretty well. We got pointed in the right direction and made our way to a shopping center to find a restroom before we got on the bus.

There are restroom Nazis in Dublin.

I had Julie in the front pack, and the other 2 kids by the hands and we were heading into what I thought was the family bathroom. Then bathroom Nazi came running up and started scolding us, "Disabled! Disabled!" She was an oriental lady and any form of English/Gaelic had not been her first language. That's an odd experience - trying to speak to someone from another country in a country neither of you are from. Does that make sense? Anyway, the restroom Nazi shooed us out and I think she told us which bathroom was the toddler bathroom and which was the baby changing room. I'm not sure what she was saying. I was just irritated to have been shooed out of a bathroom with 3 kids and a cranky husband in tow.

Went to the toddler bathroom - short potties, short sinks - and Steve ducked out to go to the Men's room. When we came out, I headed over to the women's, but was met AGAIN by the bathroom Nazi. She was now demanding 20 cents (Euro) to let me in the restroom. I was steamed but paid her because I didn't want to wet my pants.

Ok - next order of business after calming down post-restroom Nazi was to find a bookstore and buy a map.

All during this time, the kids had been bickering, whining, and talking back. Steve and I came to the conclusion together that we were not going to ride the bus after all. The kids were so wiped out and their behavior showed it. Once back in the van, we found the quickest way OUT of Dublin and took it. We put "Paddington Bear" in the CD player and made our way south to Wexford. The last stop of our holiday.

When we got to Wexford it started raining. It was about 3:30, I think. We checked in, got unloaded and went and had tea there in the hotel's bar area. It didn't feel like a bar or even a pub - more like a big living room with snacks and the occasional beer. We had scones with cream and jam. I had coffee, the other 3 had tea. Caleb & Audrey like having "tea parties." After tea, we all put on swimsuits and headed down to the pool. I was hoping to go into Wexford, but the rain made me reconsider.

The pool experience was different. We all had to have bathing hats in order to get into the pool. They were 3 Euros each. So 12 Euros to go swimming - we didn't bother with one for Julie. All 5 of us got in the pool. I had Julie most of the time. She liked to splash and to watch everyone. We stayed at the pool until 5 p.m., then got out and headed back to the room. Got the 2 big kids cleaned up, then headed back down to the bar for a Family Platter. We had a coupon for this, as well as the tea we had earlier. The platter had chips (french fries), fried mushrooms, crispy potato skins, chicken wings, and another fried thing I can't remember, plus a big salad. Caleb devoured the chicken wings. Julie fell asleep and we laid her on the couch Steve and I were sitting on. The big kids were standing up to eat, since we had chosen a 2-couch-plus-a-coffee-table setting arrangement. It worked well.

Dinner over...back to the room for the kids to watch a DVD on the laptop. All the while it's raining and getting colder and colder. Since it had been pretty cold all day, the kids' milks from our late breakfast had stayed cool. Steve put them out on our balcony in the rain to keep cool overnight, along with his Coke and a jar of babyfood I had opened. It worked - all 4 things were very cool the next morning!

This family room was nice, as well. We had a queen bed, a twin bed, and a sofa bed. The bathroom had a separate shower and bath. The most interesting thing about this room, as well as the one in Dublin, was that in order to get any electricity in the room, we had to put a room card in a little slot on the wall. When you take the card out, the lights go off. Interesting. This bathroom also had Dove soap in big bottles that were attached to the wall. They were mounted so that when you pushed on the bottle, it would dispense out the bottom. The bathroom sink had handwash, and the tub and shower had a body wash/shampoo combo.

We got up, got dressed, gathered up, checked out, and drove the 20 minutes to the ferry in Rosslare. We were expecting to sit in the van and wait like last time, but almost as soon as we had checked in, they let us get on the ferry. It was weird. There were only a couple of cars in front of us and only one behind us at this point. It was nice to not feel like we were in a big race to get the best seats.

This ferry was different from the first one. It took us 3 1/2 hours to cross this time, and the kids area was on one side of the ferry, not smack in the middle like before. Plus there was no Burger King. But there was an eatery and so I got breakfast for everyone and brought it back to our seats in the kid area.

I'll finish later - I need to tend to Julie.