We just got back from a fascinating couple of hours (fascinating anyway for political junkies like me and Suzie) at the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont, courtesy of MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) Barry McElduff and our home exchange partner, Jude Collins, who arranged the meeting). Barry McElduff is a member of Sinn Fein and a former IRA prisoner. He is a gracious, energetic, entertaining man who seems to […]
We arrived back from our excellent trip to the west coast of Ireland at about 6 this evening, after a long three-and-a-half hour drive from Bundoran. As you can probably tell from my earlier post, we were very happy to have made this particular side trip. The places we went were interesting and different, and the people we met were uniformly nice. First stop on Sunday was the city of […]
We’ve had a great day today. We were up and out (relatively) early, made a quick-seeming traffic-free drive to Derry, where we walked around the city walls, ate lunch, got cheap and delicious hot chocolates, tea, and latte at, of all places, a McDonalds in a modern mall right outside the old city walls (it was the only place open at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday morning). From there, we had […]
In my haste to make sure I post every day, I realize that there are many interesting or notable things we did that haven’t yet made it into the blog. So, in no particular order, here are a few nuggets that I’ve missed so far (this will also make up for the fact that the next two days will be post-free): The Boys Buy Dinner in Ballycastle: For some reason, […]
I think we must all be feeing low on energy from our travels. Today no one really wanted to leave the house, so we all just lounged around doing various things, and didn’t get out until after 1. Suzie took the boys to the Zoo, which they say was very good, and I drove to a small commercial area and walked around. And of course it rained again off and […]
Andrew came running into the house, excitedly saying, “Porcupine, porcupine, you gotta come see, there’s a porcupine out here!” So we trotted outside and over into the neighbor’s yard, where we saw, not a porcupine (porcupines are apparently a new world animal, and are much larger) but a hedgehog. This also gave us an occasion to meet our neighbors to the east, a retired couple named Ian and (I think, […]
For those of your who recall the horrible incident involving Luxembourgeoise cows several years ago (detailed here), I am pleased to report that Irish cows, at least those in County Antrim, appear to be peaceable and docile, if somewhat stubborn. There is a very large monument sitting on a high bluff overlooking the neighborhood in which we are staying. From our house, it looks like this: Thursday was a bright, […]
It’s 7 p.m. in Belfast (Greenisland, actually, pronounced “Green-island” not “Green-is-land” as we were corrected shortly after arriving) and I actually feel partly OK for the first time in a couple of days. Last night was about the sickest I can remember being for a few years — a horrible cold followed by uncontrollable chills followed by a fever. As is often the case with a fever, my mind was […]