Dublin

Monday August 9th. 2010.

I slept poorly and the 0630h coffee came much too soon, once out of bed and two cups of coffee later I felt almost human and was ready for our tour to Ballyknocken House and Glendalough.

We travelled through Dublin city crossed the Liffey River and out into the countryside, where ancient roads were very narrow, winding and caused much consternation to some of the many from large cities who'd not experienced roads built for the horse and carriage era.

The sun shone brightly, the fields, forests, and farms alone worth the price of the tour. Our first stop was at Ballyknocken house, a working farm/cooking school/bed & breakfast set in a green hill side. The young woman who runs the family business has a TV cooking show and has authored numerous cook books. She gave a lesson in bread and scone making, then we got to sample her creations along with home made butter, rhubarb & ginger jam and black current jam. It was really good.

Next up was a 10th century ruins and burial grounds I have always been interested reading headstones in old cemeteries, many of these were weather worn but I did see some that were readable and dated in the 1600s. We spent an hour with our guide she was great and knew her history, with a lovely Irish lilt making her easy to listen to.

This tour also ran in the afternoon, allowing the smart ones to have a sleep in, maybe it rained on them! Some, including Dorothy were dropped off in the center of Dublin, there was a free shuttle bus for them back to the ship. My knees were letting me know that they'd had enough so back to the ship for me. We passed Trinity Collage The old railway station and enough Guinness ads to let us know we were in Dublin. Dublin Too has a Wheel just like the centennial eye in London, it didn't look too busy though.

Ireland had done well adopting the Euro and with free education through university, produced well educated people who attracted multinational companies to set up shop in Ireland. The money was rolling in and people had lots to spend real estate took off at an alarming rate and the banks were lending like crazy. But alas, it all came crashing down in 08…Ireland is once again exporting it's people, and Canada is high on the list we were told. Many are sorry they switched to the Euro, life is very expensive now.

As a Calgarian, I have much empathy for Ireland, we too know boom and bust, based on the OPEC price of oil. It's not pretty, none who experienced the early 80s in Alberta will forget 21% interest rates and people walking away from mortgages that were worth more than their property was. I hope Irelands economy rebounds, history says it will but we can only hope and pray I guess.

A sea day tomorrow hooray, This voyage is very port intensive and quite grueling, I have to admire those in wheelchairs walkers and canes taking it all in stride and doing it.

I shall try to get this off while many are ashore, and the satellite hopefully will not be as busy. I will also try to title this time, I've a bad habit of forgetting to do that.

TTFN… T

PS wow that came up fAST :)