Wexford Lodge

... effects of reaching a ripe old age setting in, Jimmy played with gusto, correcting my mistakes and setting down his own fiddle every few minutes for a little break while I played the tune in question back to him. For over an hour we played jigs, reels, polkas, hornpipes... And at the end, as always, I was disappointed to leave, but renewed with enthusiasm filled by the magic of sharing music with a master of his instrument.

... man in the room has to come give you a birthday kiss on the cheek! It was so embarassing, but I have the interesting tale of being kissed my about 15-20 men old enough to be my grandfather. ha Anyways on my birthday I went to classes and David gave me a pretty gold chain because I had broken one my necklaces when I was over here. Then after class the girls helped me get ready and David took me out for a nice supper. It was good to eat ...

... the Waterford Crystal Factory, however, we didn't realize that it had been sold off to an American company and the tours were no longer being held.
Once we had gotten into Waterford, it had started to drizzle. We were pretty tired so we checked into the hotel. I was almost more like a bed and breakfast, but it was cute. The room was warm because there was no A/C, but we were too tired to care.

... was lovely and we had a fabulous breakfast. On our way here we stopped in the Wicklow mountains at an historic site called Glendalough where we saw the ruins of a 9th century monastery. It was amazing and the scenery in the mountains is beautiful. Today we visited the Irish National Historic Museum which is sort of like Heritage Park with reconstructions of the way the Irish lived dating back to 7000 B.C., the stone ...

... opposed to military time) -fahrenheit degrees -shower curtains or doors...or just showers ...

... out when we were there. I remember it smelling bad there as well. Here are is a picture of how far the tide had gone out. Here is another picture. You can really see the difference in the first picture.

Hi *nd H*ppy New Ye*r to everybody, Th*nks for t*king the time to stop guzzling leftover Christm*s c*ke *nd re*d my blog. I'm now b*ck home in the l*nd of w*rm fires, cool Guinness, woolly swe*ters *nd b*d comb-overs. It's gre*t, re*lly gl*d I went home for Christm*s, you h*ve to *ppreci*te Irel*nd for the cr*ic, quips *nd b*nter. The country h*s ch*nged so much in the l*st ten ye*rs, it's *m*zing. When I st*rted college in 1996, I h*d h*rdly ever seen * non-white person there. Now, m ...

... tears, as I am now, writing this five weeks later. I'm around 90% set on going back to volunteer sometime in the next eighteen months or so, there's so much that needs to be done here, in terms of education, healthcare, sanitation. How anyone can go there, stay in the grotesque new Meridien hotel and pay $15 for afternoon tea in a country where so many kids don't attend school and teachers, who earn $25 a month, blackmail students into buying candy from them, under threat of giving ...

... to a pub called Langton’s for dinner and a few drinks. It wasn’t quite the style of Irish pub that I had imagined, it was all marble and brown couches in the modernist design I was more used to in the try-hard pretentious venues around my former work-place in Martin Place in the middle of Sydney. But it was an evening we all enjoyed immensely, the craic was grand and it was a total gas. T’anks a million Shauna for a wonderful time.

... by the hire car company to get us out of the airport car park coming to a fee of €48, the unclear route signs heading south out of Dublin towards County Wexford leading me to take a slightly convoluted course, the struggle to find a pub still serving food at 9pm in the town of Arklow, and then when we did chance upon one finding out they didn’t have my first, second, third, fourth or fifth choices ...