Yesterday, we had a fabulous speaker, Conor McNamara. He's an expert in Irish history and culture and it's clear that he has a passion for the subject. His talk is a good foundation for the coming days.
We had a quick lunch, then a bus ride to County Wicklow and Glendalough (pronounced glen-da-lock), one of the earliest christian monastic sites. The site sits at the base of 2 lakes, in the middle of a national park. It was among my favorite places in the last visits here because it's a refreshing change from being in the city and I get to be in nature for a chunk of time.
Once we leave the city limits, we're in the rolling hills of the countryside. I just love the patchwork quilt of farmland!
Here's Glendalogh:
While we were out of the city, he had dinner at Johnnie Fox's, Ireland's highest-elevation pub. It's a fun evening with good Irish food, music and dancing. Later, we go to Dublin's Riverdance show, so it's a great preview for that. We arrived early, so I pulled out the watercolor paints and spread them out on one of the tables. The students LOVED it!
Today, we had 2 counselors as guest speakers. One dear man, Padraig (pronounced poor-ig) O'Morain, who has also been a columnist. He has a beautiful way of seeing and phrasing things and I love hearing him talk. I only wish I had gotten a photo of him... He's been a counselor for over 30 years, and it wasn't his first career! Same with Chris Murphy. Both have lead the counseling movement in their own way here in Ireland.
We had the afternoon free, so I walked (about 3 miles) with my colleagues Jill, her husband and Narketta to the Guinness Storehouse/Brewery. None of us wanted to go on a tour, we just wanted to go to the gift shop, only in order to do THAT, we had to each buy a tour ticket at about $20 per person! I figured a photo in front would be enough:
It's easy to walk here and most things are close. I really like being able to go and do without much effort. We could have taken a city bus to the brewery, but we walked along the river and enjoyed the time together.
I'm noticing that only now am I releasing the habit of feeling the need to BE SOMEWHERE. With this free afternoon, the only time limit was meeting the group for dinner at 6. I actually took a brief nap before heading to the brewery. It's taken a week to start to unwind.
Dinner tonight was at the Trocadero restaurant.
The food was WONDERFUL! Chicken stuffed with pesto on top of whipped butternut squash.
And pecan pie -- not nearly as sweet as true, Southern PE-can pie -- for dessert.
Isn't that pretty?!?
Tomorrow, we go to Belfast. It's another highlight of the trip for me, although for different reasons. The area still has unrest, with some riots in the last few weeks. In an interesting twist, they tend to leave tourists completely alone...
More soon!
Suzan
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