Irish postscript

It's a rainy, windy Saturday here in Oxford-- so we are hunkered down in the apartment watching the Olympics on the BBC. I (Deb) am doing laundry and Philip is poring over the proofs to his textbook. He only just received them yesterday after waiting nearly 3 weeks for them to return from the typesetter-- and he must have it all corrected by August 29.

I returned from London yesterday after seeing everyone off to their respective flights home to the U.S. Jill, Shannon, and Dad left for Minneapolis directly from Dublin yesterday and then Andy met Alison and I at Heathrow for their own flights back to Raleigh and Seattle. It has been a whirlwind the last 10 days with everyone coming and going, but we all have great memories to take with us.

I thought I would add a few final favorite photos from our Ireland trip. There are so many good ones it was hard to choose which ones to post!

Alison, Dad, Shannon, Jill
on streets of Dublin

Jill, Dad, and Deb
St. Stephen's Green, Dublin

Deb and Alison
Galway Bay

Our favorite photo of Dad--
taken by Alison-- in a Dublin coffee shop
while waiting out a rain squall

There are no elephants in Piccadilly Circus

… but there are lions at Trafalgar Square. That is one of the conclusions that Andy and Phil drew after a whirlwind tour of London on Monday. We used a combination of the hop-on, hop-off bus, an all-day pass on the Underground, a boat cruise on the Thames, and speed-walking in honor the upcoming Olympics to see a lot of the major attractions in one day. As required by the British Tourism bureau, we have lots of pictures of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and the Tower Bridge. We also saw Buckingham Palace, St James Park, the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, and lots more. A picture is worth 1,000 words? Here you go.

A view from St. James park across from Buckingham Palace.

We also made a tour of the Churchill Museum and the War Rooms. The War Rooms were the underground command center of Great Britain during WWII, with the Churchill Museum immediately adjoining it. The Rooms were left in place when the war ended, and were re-opened about 25 years ago with many of the original maps, memos, furniture, signs etc still there. They even uncovered the secret sugar stash that one officer had hidden in his desk. These have been recreated as a fascinating museum of Great Britain during the bombings and the blitz. Being underground, it was hard to take pictures, but here is one that came out OK. Definitely worth including on your next visit to London.

Wax figures in the War rooms where Winston Churchill and his staff made all of the important decisions of WWII

And, as we all know from hearing coaching clichés, there is no I in team. But there is one in London.

Galway Graveyards

Galway greetings!

We're back in our hotels' pub tonight here in western Ireland for today's blog. It's very lively here this evening, with the floor filled with some Irish folk dancers. They have live musicians as well, playing accordian, flute, and violin. We considered tying Dad to the table leg so he doesn't attempt to join in. (Actually, he doesn't know the steps, but it probably wouldn't stop him...)

We had a little less rain here today-- but we did have some misty rain off and on. We started out our day in the two cemeteries located in Galway City, looking for Dad's great-grandparents Burns' graves. We were lucky to run into the caretakers at both places who helped us in our search. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in our quest, but we did get to see some interesting things along the way, and meet some true Irish characters (the caretakers).

Searching for Burnses

After the cemetary tour, we visited the Galway city museum and went shopping. The afternoon was spent wandering the streets of Galway, taking in the sights. Luckily, the torrential rain storm held off until after we returned to the hotel!

Galway Bay (courtesy of Alison)

Tomorrow it's back on the train to Dublin, then a bus to the airport. At the airport, we'll say goodbye to Jill, Shannon, and Grandpa Reid, as they don't fly out until Friday. We fly back to Heathrow on Thursday night, meet up with Andy in London, spend the night near the airport, and then Andy and Alison each fly home on Friday, while I (Deb) take the bus back to Oxford. The next two days are a whirlwind of traveling!

Tolkien and Lewis, and Hoyle’s Rules of Games

While the female half of our family is off hunting leprechauns in Dublin and Galway, the male half (Andy and Phil) have been holding down the flat in England. Alison and Deb took a bus to a hotel at Heathrow on Thursday (July 31) and flew to Dublin early Friday morning. They were in Dublin until Monday morning, then took the three hour train ride to Galway. They will be in Galway until this Thursday, when Alison, Andy, and Deb meet up in Heathrow before Alison and Andy fly home and Deb returns to Oxford.

So what have Phil and Andy been doing in Oxford? On Friday, we went on a lengthy walking tour that showed us the Oxford of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. We saw houses they lived in, pubs they frequented (the Eagle and Child—mentioned earlier), lanes they walked frequently, colleges they attended or taught at, and plaques in their honor. One house where Tolkien lived is on Phil’s regular walk to work, so he has been past it dozens of times without recognizing its significance.

Here is the pub across the street from the Eagle and the Child. The Inklings frequented this pub during WWII when the Eagle and the Child would run out of beer.

We also visited a number of other colleges—more than we did on Andy’s actual college tour when he was in high school in fact. Lincoln College is where John Wesley was a professor, and we were allowed to see his study and rooms. These are not usually open to the public but Phil, flushed with the power of a University of Oxford faculty ID card, persuaded the porter to take us there. New College dates from the 14th century—well, it was new once—and includes some of the original city walls of Oxford. Other colleges on our visit were Balliol (which has a disputed claim to being the oldest college—certainly one of the nicest ones), Trinity (great gardens), Exeter (the Tolkien plaque and Inspector Morse filming sites) and Jesus College (pretty unremarkable actually).

We also went to the Hoyle’s Game Shop, which we also walk past daily. Andy loves board games, so we had been saving this visit for him. Do you know the expression, “According to Hoyle”, meaning that something that is in the rules? Or the book, Hoyles Rules of Games, which lists the rules for hundreds of different games? This is the shop behind those expressions, established in the mid-1700s. It is historically interesting, if a little small and dingy. But all of us might be a little dingy after 350 years of settling disputes over the rules, I guess. (We also went to a much larger and better game shop with no historical significance located on Cowley Road not far from our flat on Saturday.) So we have managed to stay busy.

Slainte'

This blog post is a first, in several ways. It is the first one posted from Ireland; it is the first composed using free wifi internet in a pub; and it is the first written by a guest author!! This is a special "cross-over" blog entry, written by Alison.

As Dad mentioned in his previous entry, Mom and I are in Ireland with my aunt, cousin, and grandfather, and our access to the internet has been rather spotty. We discovered that we could access it from our apartment in the hotel... if we propped the laptop on a windowsill... and rubbed our stomachs while patting our heads and standing on one foot. Ok, maybe not the last part... but it couldn't have hurt! So we were forced to bring the computer down to the hotel pub, where we had absolutely no choice but to drink a pint of Guinness while surfing the internet.

Internet access in the pub!

We arrived in Dublin on Friday and spent the weekend exploring Ireland's capital. We saw lots of sights, including St. Patrick's cathedral, Trinity College (and the Book of Kells), the Guinness Storehouse, the River Liffey and its bridges, the old jail, and an infinite number of things named after O'Connell. Since we had weekend passes to a "hop-on, hop-off" bus, we could probably give you a great tour of Dublin, hitting all the main highlights!!

On Monday, we took the train across the country to Galway, on the west coast. We spent Monday evening exploring the city, and then today we took a bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher and Burren National Park. The Irish countryside is beautiful and very picturesque... although we found out firsthand WHY the Emerald Isle is so green! In between ducking raindrops and storm clouds we did manage to see the cliffs, although we were unable to catch a glimpse of any leprechauns (which they call Fairies here). Now we are recuperating in the pub with pints and half-pints of Guinness, Smitwicks, tap water, and Budweiser (we'll let you guess who is drinking what!). There is a group of musicians doing live music, and it definitely contributes to a very Irish atmosphere!

Here are a couple of pictures from the last few days:

Alison, Shannon, Jill, Reid, Deb in Galway

The Cliffs of Moher

Grandpa Reid lighting a candle at St. Nicholas Church in Galway, where his grandfather may have been baptized.

~Alison

Blog clog

Hello, faithful readers. We apologize for not posting blogs for the past few days, but here is the explanation. Deb posts the blogs since she knows how to include pictures, videos, links, etc. The software for posting is on her computer. We take turns writing the blogs, as you have probably figured out. You can tell mine (Phil’s)—they are longer, go off topic frequently, and don’t convey as much information.

So why no postings in the past few days? Deb and Alison left Oxford (on Thursday) for Ireland (arrived Friday) and are currently there with Deb’s father, sister, and niece. Although she purposely booked rooms that said they have internet connections, the connections have been weak or non-existent so she has not been able to post. I will do my best to provide some updates, but it will be one-sided (from this side of the Irish Sea), and Deb will post some Ireland blogs when she returns.

Warwick Castle

On Wednesday July 30th, the four of us spent the day at Warwick Castle, considered to England’s best medieval castle and a major tourist attraction. The trip involved two short train rides and about an hour and a half. A castle was built on the site on the River Avon by William the Conqueror (the original Norman) in about 1080 AD, and figured in many battles, prisons, sieges, and political maneuverings until it was given to the Earl of Warwick in the 17th century. Then it became a country home and estate for the next 300 hundred years, before being opened to the public. The castle is celebrating some anniversary this year—could be its 1000th, its 500th or any other one since some famous event occurred there—so there were special attractions all day long.

The castle and its grounds are spectacular, and we had a beautiful sunny day to enjoy it. We arrived in time to see the launching of the trebuchet, an oak structure 70 feet tall that sent a 50 pound iron ball at least 200 yards downfield. It was impressive, and Andy took a video that captures the event. Although this one launched an iron ball, trebuchets in the medieval times were often used to send flaming grease pots or diseased animals over the walls of the city. Based on the scorch marks on the ground, they do sometimes send a flaming cargo but we saw no signs of animal carcasses being used. A bit later, we watched a re-enactment of a jousting contest, featuring a variety of events to unseat the other rider, to spear an iron ring, or other sporting contests on horseback. There was also a trick rider who rode standing in the saddle or hanging off of one side with his shoulders inches from the ground. And whatever else happened, the event usually concluded with hand to hand combat involving swords, clubs, and general slamming each other to the ground. The guys playing the knights had to be professional stunt men, but it was still remarkable that no one really got hurt.

A view of all the peasants in Warwick Castle.

The castle featured tours of the dungeon, the ramparts, the ball rooms, armour rooms, and so on. Remarkably for such a large castle, all of the routes ended up at the same gift shop, which was probably not a feature of the original castle. In addition to the medieval rooms, there was also a tour recreating a dinner party in 1898 attended by, among others, Winston Churchill and two future kings of England, as well as various dukes, earls, countesses, and other elite members of British society. Warwick Castle is reputed to be one of the most haunted sites in England but no ghosts were in evidence. We did see the falcon that escaped during the falconry show, one of the dangers of acts involving animals. After a long day together, we ended up back home and played a few board games before bed time.