End of the Travelogue!

We made it home, safe and sound, despite having to hustle quite a bit to get from the international terminal to our gate in roughly an hour. Thank goodness in Chicago the security people let us peons slip through the priority line with our business class passengers (in Dublin, they made Tim, Jake and I hike it back to the hour long loser line. We reported them, of course!)

So now back to our story. When we last reported, we were Drogheda, on our way to North Ireland and the Fitzpatrick family farm.

The house is up a narrow little lane, and has an absolutely beautiful view.

Here is the house itself, along with our Uglymobile. The house is now owned by the neighbor's daughter. The neighbor John showed us around the house and the little neighborhood. He's a sweet old man and a total packrat, who seems to know everything about the area. His daughter Louise has fixed the house up quite a bit since she bought it, and it's very nice on the inside, with new carpeting and wall fixtures and windows. It's still got a very sweet little cottage feel. It sort of blows my mind to think of all of the family members that lived in it at the same time. When Grandpa Fitzpatrick lived there, it was two rooms downstairs, two rooms upstairs, and a little kitchen hanging off the back.

Here is John showing us the old kitchen "appliances."

We can assume that Tim is taller than his great-grandpa.

John also took us up the hill to another little cottage, which he owns and rents out to visitors. I totally want to live there. The scenery up there is absolutely gorgeous, and pictures don't even come close to doing it justice.

You walk up this little lane (about a three minute walk. John knows its exact length because he had to pay to run pipes and cable up to the cabin so that it could have electricity and running water.)


Here's the cabin itself. John has modernized it, but not fixed it up too much. What was the barn is now the kitchen area, and then there's a little sitting room, a room with bunk beds and a room with a double bed. Very cute. It's sort of like the cabin in Door County back in the day.

And here are the views. Try not to die your guy with jealousy. If it makes you feel any better, it totally smells like manure up there. Oh, nature!

And here's blondie and I. You may notice that this is the day that I couldn't bear wearing either pair of my jeans again, and decided to freeze in a skirt (and yes, flipflops. And now I have a bad cold.)

We tried to have lunch in Dundrum, but most of the places were closed. One said they would seat us, but they couldn't get food to us for 45 minutes. I pointed out that we could be in Belfast by then, so we got in the car and told our rumbly tummies to shut it. So glad we did! We checked into our hotel in Belfast - the Hotel Europa. It's notorious for being the most bombed hotel in the world. Let me tell you, when the fire alarm goes off, you get ready to leave. We had lunch across the street at the Crown Bar pub, which is over 150 years old and now a national landmark. We got in ten minutes before the kitchen closed, and even managed to grab a fancy booth. It was a great bar, and the meal was delicious.

Here is the beautiful bar!

Eileen and her Irish coffee, and the boys and their beers. I learned in Ireland that my husband enjoys DISGUSTINGLY bitter beers. They hurt my mouth.

Another shot of the bar.

Here is my delicious chicken and mushroom pie. I LOVE YOU. It was not, however, quite as good as my chicken pot pies (looked better though, definitely.)

We spent the rest of the day taking a taxi tour of Belfast. First we stopped and saw where Titanic was built, which was fun.

Here's the drydock.

Tim's is KING OF THE WORLD.

The rest of the tour was very sobering. Belfast was basically a war zone until 2001, with Catholics and Protestants bombing each other's homes, burning down each other's neighborhoods and killing one another in the street. Joe, our tour guide, grew up in Belfast, and said that though he spent his Catholic childhood throwing rocks at police tanks, he also grew up with a Protestant man as his best friend. He says that the downtown center (where we were staying) was someplace that he would have not visited past 6pm years ago, and that there are still areas that are locked down around sunset, to prevent people from driving in with bombs.

This mural is dedicated to all of the places where the government oppresses its people (notice Frederick Douglass.)

This park is dedicated to all of the Catholics who were killed during the Troubles.

These are houses along the side of the peace wall, which separates some of the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. The houses have cages on the side of the them so that bombs thrown over the top of the wall won't land directly against their walls.

Another mural, to the IRA. There are a lot of these murals in both neighborhoods. Some are apparently being painted over and changed to less politically charged murals, but a lot still stand. The neighborhoods in question are mainly poor (and were back at the beginning of the Troubles) and drugs are a problem. Joe pointed out that a lot of the fight was not caused by differences in religion, but by struggles to get by in poor circumstances. It was really an amazing, and sad experience.

We spent our last day in Ireland driving up the east coast to visit the Giants Causeway, way up North. The drive was absolutely beautiful. We even got to see our friend Scotland off in the distance.

The Giants Causeway is the site of an old volcanic eruption. The rocks look like a staircase. The legend is that the Giant was building it so that he could get over to visit his lady friend in Scotland.

Here we are! It was a really nice walk - the smell of the sea was wonderful, and it wasn't that cold (especially walking up the huge hill back to the visitors center.)

Here's all of the rocks!

Here's where we climbed up like monkeys!

Here's the other side. If you can see, about midway along the ridge are the rocks that look like a pipe organ.

Here's the Giant's Boot. In Tim's BUTT!

Our last stop of the day was the ruins of a castle along the ocean. And when I say along the ocean, I mean right on the ocean's edge. At one point, the whole kitchen fell off into the water, while they were having a party. Not good. It was occupied by a Scottish clan until the 1700s.

Here's part of the ruins. This is the main house, where all of the entertaining went down.

You know, the usual bruddah cuddling.

It was pretty chilly out by the ocean. Jacob was nice enough to let me borrow his pocket, since my sweatshirt only has a pocket for my right hand.

And here's me being a bridge troll.

Despite the cold, and the propensity of rooms to fall into the sea, and the fact that the Scots who lived in the castle were constantly fighting the Irish, and the English, and each other, and then the English again, it was a really beautiful spot.

After touring the castle, it was time to head back for the Republic of Ireland, and SWORDS. We drove back through the middle of the country and saw a beautiful sunset on the way.

We had one last good meal in SWORDS and then headed to bed. Before we fell asleep, Tim and I watched Jig Gig on Irish TV, which is like the traditional Irish step dancing version of "So You Think You Can Dance." Only, most of the dancers seemed to have been pulled from local bars. They were not that great, and the comments from the judges were hilarious. Tim and I busted ourselves up laughing over it.

So now we are home. I am still way stuffed up, so I am working from home (or will be, once I finish this.) To what is probably my dad's horror, my office prefers us not to come in if we are sick, even if we're not running a fever, throwing up, or unable to move. I knew if I got up, got dressed and went in, the second my boss heard me blowing my nose, she'd send me back home to work. So work from home I will. Tim wasn't going to go in, but when he realized that I wasn't going to let him use my laptop all afternoon, he went into work for a bit (and will get his own laptop from his parents.) SUCKER.

We had such a great trip - I cannot believe it's over. It's definitely a place I'd like to visit again - I'd love to get a cabin in the countryside and just veg for a few days. It was great and wonderful and such a good family time.

Just a reminder - the blog is not over just because the trip is. While we were gone, our mortgage loan was approved, and we are ALL GO FOR HOMEOWNERSHIP. Don't leave now, or you will miss out.

Just remember, there are probably rats living in that ivy. Don't worry, mom and I have plans to rip that junk right out of the ground.