parents, pedestrians, and pasta

We spent last night in Newbridge, so this morning, after Mary made us a filling breakfast, Willie took us on a bit of a car tour to the National horseracing track (The Curragh) , the army barracks, and Mary’s other home: the golf course. The latter seems to employ sheep to trim and fertilize the green! After a quick goodbye to Mary and Willie (wherein they loaded us with food and generous gifts for the kids), we then headed back to Dun Laoghaire to met John and Sheila, who arrived midday from their dream vacation in Italy, Austria and Germany. We almost ran out of gas on the way from Newbridge, and we took a wrong road that sent us a few kilometres off course, but we still managed to meet the airport shuttle on time.

We gave John and Sheila a whirlwind walking tour of Dun Laoghaire and ate some lunch (which included some of Mary’s soda bread), and then we all headed to Dublin on the DART. We re-visited a number of our favorite spots in City Centre and saw a few new sites too (like the Ha’penny Bridge), but mostly we just walked and wandered. It was fun being the “experts.” The kids felt a particular ownership of the DART, St Stephen’s, and the ice cream shop in Temple bar. Don’t worry, we made John and Sheila drink Guinness too! We then had dinner in an Italian restaurant near Temple Bar and wandered some more before coming home with tired feet. And we made BIG plans for tomorrow too …