Dublin, Day 2: Dublin Zoo

August 5, 2013Leave a comment

For our first full day in Dublin we decided to do something child-centric (perhaps if we appease the munchkins upfront they’ll allow us to enjoy some museums and cathedrals later this week. I know it’s probably unrealistic, but I can still hope…). The Dublin Zoo came highly recommended to us–and, as an added bonus, we have free admission thanks to our season pass to our zoo in Cork.

After a frustrating attempt to find breakfast before 10 AM (really, do Irish people not have kids that wake up hungry at 6:00?!?! If so, I need to know what “supplements” you give your children to help them sleep in), we drove across town to the zoo.

It was a really fun zoo with lots of lively animals. David INSISTED that we find hippos (thankfully they actually had them at this zoo), so we bee-lined it up to the African Savannah portion of the zoo. Here’s David with his beloved hippos:

The hippos were actually quite entertaining to watch, but I think the main reason David wanted to see the hippos was because he was hoping they would sing and dance like the hippo in his favorite YouTube video.http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zHDLUbssMIw

The hippos didn’t sing, but they did swim and chomp and pounce upon each other.

By late afternoon, everyone was exhausted and ready for a nap (hmmm…maybe we shouldn’t wake up at 6 AM, children). We didn’t quite see everything, but we made some good progress. Since we get in to the zoo for free, we may go back again if we have some extra time later in the week.

After a much-needed siesta we walked along the canal to an area with lots of restaurants. We typically avoid taking the boys out to eat very often (because they’re loud and messy and require more attention than the meal I just paid $20 for) but, hey, we’re on vacation. We found a great Asian street food restaurant called Neon. The food was good and (by Dublin standards) relatively cheap, so the place was busy. Just busy enough that I don’t think the other patrons could hear David yelling 10,000 times about wanting to play the coloring game on my iPhone, busy enough that I could blame the pile of noodles under our table on the family sitting next to us.

The day was absolutely grand. No, it was brilliant (look how Irish I’m becoming–already using fancy words like grand and brilliant!). Brilliantly grand.

Dublin, Day 1: The Rock of Cashel and Temple Bar

August 4, 20131 Comment

This weekend we decided to take our first mini-vacation since moving to Ireland. Monday is a “bank holiday” in Ireland, meaning Jon has a 3-day weekend. We wanted to do something fun with the long weekend and get out of town for some exploring. And, since our fur-baby (dog) Bota will be flying in to Dublin on Thursday morning (yay!!!), Dublin was the natural choice for our getaway.

We left our home in Cork on Saturday morning and started driving north. One of my favorite spots that I visited on my last trip here, The Rock of Cashel, is just off the main highway between Cork and Dublin. Jon didn’t get to see “The Rock” with me, so we decided to stop by on our way up to Dublin.

The Rock of Cashel is an incredible castle built on a high precipice overlooking the town of Cashel. The Rock is reputedly the site where St . Patrick converted the king of Munster in the 5th century, and was the traditional seat of the kings of Munster for several hundred years.

It is an impressive space to walk through and imagine what life must have been like inside these walls 1000 years ago.

David’s favorite part of The Rock was running through the cemetery (we got a few nasty looks for this one, but you do what you can to make history interesting for a 2-year old).

It was un-Irishly warm at The Rock, making for some beautiful views of the castle and the surrounding countryside.

After our stop at The Rock we loaded back into the car and headed on to Dublin. We are staying in a rental house that we found on airbnb.com. As far as I’m concerned, air bnb is the best travel tool ever created. The site allows individuals to list their homes for short-term rentals–and allows people like me to rent out a full house for the same price as a cheap hotel. Plus, you can rent castles on the website. Real castles. I will do that some day, but for this trip it was a bit out of budget. Anyway, our rental house is comfortable and close to all the action in downtown Dublin so we can walk to all of the local attractions.

Things don’t really get hopping until about 9:00 around here, so we gave the boys a late nap and then took our babies out for a taste of the night life! On our first night in Dublin we walked to the infamous Temple Bar area for some dinner and trad (traditional Irish music).

We ended up finding a great place called the Vat House. The food was excellent and the music was so much fun! The musicians even invited the boys to dance and help play their instruments.

We were enjoying ourselves so much that it was nearly 11:00 by the time we left the pub. A late night, but well worth it (well, at least until the boys woke us up at 6:00 the next morning…but I’ll save those adventures for my next post!).

Jacob’s First (Irish) Birthday

July 27, 2013Leave a comment

On Friday we celebrated a very special day: little Jacob’s first birthday! We love our little snuggle bear and can’t imagine our lives without him.

Before we moved to Ireland we had a celebration for him in Washington with our friends and family. It was wonderful to celebrate with all of our loved ones in person–even if it was a full month before his actual birthday.

On Friday we had a fun start to Jacob’s real birthday. After a french toast breakfast we let Jacob open the birthday present that David had picked out for him. It’s a little stuffed cow and Jacob is in love with it. He literally squeals with delight and starts excitedly kicking his feet every time he sees it. He may even love the little cow enough to quit stealing David’s Mimi.

Then the REALLY exciting part of our day started. After present-time we headed out to the Department of Family and Social Services to get our PPS Numbers (kind of like Irish Social Security Numbers). We were actually one of the first ones in line before the offices even opened, so we got processed in about an hour. It could have been much, much worse. The boys were troopers and did a great job hanging out (mostly) patiently while we filled out paperwork and waited our turn to go over our applications. The most exciting part of the morning was when David had to go potty…only there was no toilet at the Department of Family and Social Services. I literally ran through downtown Cork trying to find a public restroom that was open at 9 AM. Since there were no fast food joints or gas stations to pop into we ended up going into the Court House…where all of the toilets were locked…but I managed to pop a loose door open anyway. Desperate times, people. Take that, bathroom-less city.

After our fun morning getting PPS numbers, it was time to start the real birthday adventures. We dropped Jon off at work then headed out to the zoo that we just bought memberships to. We had lots of fun eating our picnic lunch and watching the animals.

Jacob and David both loved playing at the zoo’s playgrounds…until an epic downpour sent us running for our car.

That night we celebrated Jacob’s birthday with some yummy cake (so yummy that Mommy has already eaten most of it. Shhh…don’t tell Jacob!).

Since Daddy didn’t get to go to the zoo with us on Friday, we decided to have one more special outing as a family on Saturday. We went to a local pool during “family swim”–there were lots of fun blow up toys and even some floating basketball hoops to play with. The best part about swimming in Ireland, though, is the fashion. Any time you swim in a public pool here you are required to wear a swim cap. As you can see, they’re adorable. And they fit 2-year olds properly. That’s important.

It was a wonderful birthday for a wonderful little boy. Happy first birthday, sweet Jacob! We love you!

Getting Established

July 24, 20132 Comments

One of my favorite–and most dreaded–parts about moving somewhere new is getting established in my new home–getting past the unpacking and the millions of phone calls to set everything up and finally starting to settle in to this place and find my place in it. It is my favorite part of the move because getting “established” allows me to feel like I belong here and I’m not just some lost tourist. It’s my least favorite part because it’s hard. I’m actually a pretty shy and introverted person so it takes a bit of courage for me to step out there and get involved. It can also take some time and patience to discover what opportunities and resources are available and to break into a new social circle. Thankfully, Ireland has been kind to me. This week I’ve had some exciting breakthroughs in the “getting established” department.

Yesterday I took the boys to our local library so we could get library cards and check out some new books (the 4 books I carried with us on the airplane are getting sooooo BORING).

Each of the boys got his own library card that he can use to check out 10 books at a time from the children’s department. The boys’ cards were free, but I decided to also buy myself a card for 15 Euro because I know I’ll use it. I went ahead and checked out a few books on Irish history from the vast selection of books on that matter (I think about 20% of the library is devoted to books on Irish history)–figured it would be good to know a bit about what I’m getting myself into here. I also signed David up for the library summer reading program. If he reads 15 books he gets a shiny “gold” medal. He’s already 2 books away from his prize (could be due to the fact that we checked out 10 books on soccer…er…football…from the library yesterday).

This morning we did something that got us legally established here in Ireland: we registered our visas at the garda (police) station.

As you can tell from David’s expression, it was an exciting venture. Actually, it wasn’t too bad. We were the first ones in line when the immigration office opened and they got us processed in about 10 minutes. Jon and I both have special visitor/worker permit cards that we have to carry with us at all times just in case somebody suspects we’ve outstayed our welcome.

After I dropped Jon off at work I headed out to Fota to meet up with a mum’s group (how cute is that…mum?!) from our church. Every Wednesday they go to this place called Go Safari to hang out. It’s an indoor play area for kids with food and drinks–perfect for hanging out while the kids run around and burn off some of their boundless energy.

I had a great time getting to know the 6 other ladies and their sweet little kids. They gave me some good tips on where to shop for the cheapest nappies (diapers) and who to contact for babysitting. Cha-ching! David and Jacob both loved playing in the ball pit–so much so that I couldn’t even get a photo of the 3 of us together before one of them would try to squirm away to jump in the balls again:

On Friday we will be going to get our PPS Numbers (kind of like Irish Social Security Numbers). After we have our PPS numbers we can set up our local bank account–something we’re really looking forward to since we’ve been racking up enough foreign transaction fees on our credit cards to purchase a small car. Unless you’re in Ireland. In which case, enough to rent a car for a month. Or maybe just buy a week’s worth of groceries. Oy…

Experiencing Cork City

July 21, 20133 Comments

Jon has become quite the coffee connoisseur over the last couple of years, and item one on his agenda has been to find a quality espresso machine that he can use over here. He’s done months of research on the types of machines that are available so he was just itching to get out to a store and buy one. We decided that this weekend would be “find Jon’s dream machine weekend”. We set out early Saturday morning to downtown Cork where we had a number of recommendations for specialty coffee and kitchen shops to look in.

It soon became quite obvious, however, that this quest was not going to end well. Most stores had no espresso machines whatsoever, and the ones that did carry espresso machines were very high end and out of our comfort zone, budget-wise (we really don’t need to spend over $2,000 on an espresso machine that he can use for two years, do we?). We abandoned our goal of bringing home Jon’s espresso-baby and turned our attention to something more positive.

Since we were already downtown, we decided to make a day of it and do a little sight-seeing. We bought delicious snacks and drinks from a chocolate shop and ate them in this little park:

Then we crossed the River Lee that runs right through the middle of Cork City:

We walked up a large hill to Shandon where the famous “Four-Faced Liar” clock stands at the top of St. Anne’s Cathedral:

When we got back to downtown Cork they had set up a huge street festival for the Street Performance World Championship. They had some really neat street performers for us to watch:

The boys enjoyed watching the live performances:

There were also lots of fun activities for the kids to do. David’s favorite? The soccer game where he won a bag of candy every time he scored a goal!

After we’d had our fill of street fair fun (and maybe a bit too much sun) we went to pick up our NEW CAR!

I’m super-excited about this new car because it’s an automatic–no more trying to figure out a manual while driving on the opposite side of the (narrow) roads. It was quite the journey to actually get this car. After many days of calling car companies we came to the conclusion that there was really only one way we could get a car here. We are doing a long-term rental on the car because they don’t do leases here in Ireland and we don’t qualify for insurance to buy a car. We had hoped to get two cars, but long-term rental is VERY expensive (our car rental costs almost as much as our house each month!). So, for the time being, we will share the one car. One benefit to having a rental is that we can technically change out the car we have every 28 days if we need to. If this car doesn’t end up working well for us, we only have to keep it for 28 days and then we can try something different. We are also going to buy Jon a bike so he can can commute by bike whenever he’s able. Just one more change that we’ll have to adapt to!

One more change that we’ve been thinking and praying a lot about for…well…as long as we’ve know that we’d be moving to Ireland…is the church community we would join here. Getting plugged in to a Jesus-loving, gospel-preaching church is our first priority, but–as with many things with this move–we discovered that would be easier said than done. There are very few evangelical Christian churches in Ireland. In fact, our city (the 2nd largest city in the Republic of Ireland) only has about a dozen. A few months back we heard about a church here called Calvary Cork from a friend of mine who knows the pastor. We decided to check it out today.

From the moment we walked in the doors we were blown-away blessed. It’s a small church (50-75 people were there today), but one of the most welcoming I’ve ever been to. Everyone was very friendly and they made us feel right at home. David was able to play in the creche (childcare) during the service (Jacob could have gone, too, if he wasn’t such a cry-baby). David had tons of fun coloring, eating snacks, hearing a short Bible story and playing with lots of sweet little Irish girls (his first response when we picked him up was, “I’m girl crazy!”).

The sermon was great (at least the parts of it I could hear from the baby cry room!). One of the best parts if the whole service, however, was the music. One of the first songs they played was “Grace Alone”, a song written by Dustin Kensrue from our church in Seattle, Mars Hill. We sang this song all the time “back home”–it was so neat to hear this song halfway around the world and worship with these new brothers and sisters who I’ve just met. Really, really cool.

We also had two of our other more petty prayers answered at church this morning. Jon got a great recommendation for a new coffee place that sounds a lot like Philz (his favorite coffee place EVER). And for me: I got invited to a mommy playgroup that meets every Wednesday not too far from our house. I’m really excited to meet some new friends and get to know the people I’ll be living with for the next 2 years!

All in all, it was a great weekend experiencing our new home city. And it really is starting to feel a bit like home.

One Week In: Some “Getting Used To’s”

July 18, 20132 Comments

Today marks the 1-week anniversary of our move to Ireland. To be honest, it all still seems like a blur to me–we’ve been so busy moving and getting settled in to our new house that the days all just blend together (jet lag helps with that, too). There are a lot of things here that are a lot like home–the weather, the landscape, the types of food that are available. In fact, a lot of the time since we’ve been here I have kind of forgotten that we’re in a new country–but then something will snap me back to reality and remind me that I am, in fact, living in a very different place. There are several things that will take some getting used to here. For starters:

This is oppositesville to me. They drive on the left side of the road.

I have to really pay attention to know which lane we should be in, which lane we turn in to, and how close to the edge of the road I am. I’ve actually only driven once this week because we have a manual transmission car and it kinda freaks me out. Jon’s giving me driving lessons in empty parking lots, though, so I feel like I’m 15 again sitting in the driver’s seat for the first time. Good times!

Another difference? There are castles. Everywhere. This is Blackrock Castle and it’s about a 2-minute drive from the business park where Jon works (it’s currently used as an observatory and a restaurant).

I’ve had a couple of “oops” parenting moments, too. When you go out to eat here, they have these little bottles of juice that they’ll give kids with their meals. David sure loves them! And now I know why–they are cordials that you’re supposed to mix with a full glass of water–I was just having him drink them straight. Way to go, Mom–at least highly concentrated fruit syrup never killed anyone, right?

There are also some really neat products here that we don’t have readily available back in the states. My favorite is the washer/dryer. You just put your dirty clothes in, push start, and the machine washes and dries your laundry in one go. I’ve kinda always dreamed of a machine like this, and here it is.

Some products just confuse me. None is more confusing than the humble shower. You see, every time I want to take a shower I have to turn on the hot water downstairs, then go upstairs to turn on the hot water for my shower. See the pull cord hanging from the ceiling? That turns on the hot water. On top of the confusing hot water situation, it’s an electric shower so you have to actually turn on the shower as well (that’s the big box hanging on the wall inside the shower). Energy efficient? Yes. Convenient? Not so much.

Another energy-saving device they have is the wall outlet. Every single wall outlet has a switch that you have to turn on when you want the device that’s plugged in to receive power. When you are done using your electric toothbrush/cell phone charger/toaster/hair dryer you flip off the switch so energy isn’t wasted going to devices that aren’t being used.

When I went into our backyard for the first time I saw this large black bin. Since I’ve been discovering all of these energy-saving devices all over the house, I got really excited to see that we had our very own compost bin!

Unfortunately, when I opened my compost bin for the first time, I was gravely disappointed. Turns out, our “compost bin” is actually our coal bin. I didn’t even know people still used coal! Hmmm…not quite sure what to do with that…

The grocery store is actually a lot like the grocery stores I’m used to shopping at back “home”. There are a few key differences, though. Groceries cost about 30% more than I’m used to spending–plus I still haven’t figured out how to use coupons (called “vouchers” here). Another interesting part of shopping here is the whole cart situation–you have to insert a coin every time you want a cart (it is returned to you when you return the cart). You also have to bring your own bags. They have no free bags available. So, if you forget your bag (or if your reusable shopping bags happen to be on a cargo ship somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean) then you have to buy reusable bags on the spot for about $2 a pop. Guess who has a collection of 10 new reusable shopping bags?

Other shopping experiences are quite different from what I’m used to. I haven’t found an equivalent to Target or WalMart yet, but this place came about the closest as far as the products available. How you shop there, however, is pretty unique. You walk into a showroom that has a bunch of computer stations and catalogs set up. You browse the catalogs and find the items you’d like to buy. Then you write down the item numbers on little slips of paper and take your “ticket” to the cash register. After you pay for your items, you have a seat in the waiting area while they collect your purchases. Then they bring them out to you and you’re set to go. I actually kind of like this method of shopping because in the future I’ll be able to enter my purchases online and then just pick them up in the store–no winding through shopping aisles with 2 screaming children, thank you.

Then there are the beds. The beds come in many sizes: twin, full, queen, california queen, king and california king. The sheets, however, only come in 3 sizes. We’ve looked in half a dozen stores and can still only find sheets that are in the sizes “single”, “double”, or “king”. None of those sizes fits any of the beds in our house. So, we just bought a bunch of flat sheets (since none of the fitted ones fit on our mattresses). We put one flat sheet on top of the mattress and do our best to tuck it in–then we re-tuck it in every morning. I think someone could make a killing here selling sheets that actually fit mattresses. Just saying.

Yes, there are many things that we’re getting used to. It will probably take awhile but, slowly and surely, we’re starting to get the hang of it all.

Moving To “Ireland House”

July 16, 20132 Comments

Yesterday we officially moved in to “our” house!

While it feels good to finally be in our own space after living out of suitcases for the last two weeks, the move itself could have gone more smoothly.

Our house is fully furnished–which we took to mean there would be some furnishings in the home. Furnishings there are…as well as cupboards full of pots and pans, closets full of old linens, and dressers full of clothes. The dishwasher was even full if dirty dishes for me to clean–just what I wanted to do on moving day!

Needless to say, there was there a lot of organizing that had to be done before we could even begin unpacking. To make the day even more interesting, yesterday was also Jon’s first day of work. So, while Jon went off to the office, the boys and I went to work on the house.

David helped by sitting in a basket watching Daniel Tiger episodes on the iPad (what did parents do before iPads???):

And Jacob helped me by being a good little baby and taking a nice, long nap:

Jon came home during his lunch hour so we could make a run to the grocery store (I thought it was a good idea to replace the previous tenants’ moldy food with some fresh options). The grocery store had everything we needed…and then some!

In the afternoon Jacob helped me do laundry the European way: we washed our clothes in the washing machine that’s in our kitchen, then hung them out to dry.

Now that I got some of the major organizing and cleaning out of the way, our house is already starting to feel (a bit) like home. The boys seem to like the house (we have soccer fields in our back yard–what’s not to love?!) and it’s a nice cozy space. It’s a bit smaller than what we’re used to, but it has everything we need. Commence “Project Family Closeness”!

Now we’ll just have to see if we can find room for the 57 boxes of stuff we’re having shipped here from the states. My next order of business may have to be finding the Irish equivalent to Goodwill stores…

Fota Wildlife Park

July 14, 20132 Comments

We had expected to be able to move in to our house yesterday. However, as we were getting ready to leave Seattle a few days ago, our landlord contacted us to let us know that his tenants wouldn’t be moved out until Monday. So, instead of unpacking and settling in to our new home this weekend, we found ourselves with some free time on our hands. We rarely have free time together as a family–let alone a whole weekend–let alone in a foreign country. Plus, the church we found here is out of town on a retreat this weekend so we didn’t even have that to go to today. All that to say, we got another family fun day today. Yahoo!

We decided to drive just outside of the Cork City Center to the Fota Wildlife Park.

It’s a really neat zoo with free-roaming and barely-fenced-in animals–perfect for getting up close and personal with the wildlife. Here’s Jon walking up to some Mara (large South American rodents) and wallabies:

There were also zebras, ostriches, and giraffes in a large enclosure near the entrance:

We saw lots of monkeys, including a sprightly baby Gibbon (on the roof in this photo):

All of the monkeys are housed on their own private islands:

We had so much fun at Fota that we bought a membership so we can return again soon!

On our way back to Cork we drove through the town of Cobh (formerly called Queenstown). This was the last port that Titanic stopped at to pick up passengers before making her fateful journey out to sea. Coincidentally, this is also the port where the ship Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Missile , thus instigating World War I. Besides it’s fascinating history, Cobh is just a quaint little town:

From Cobh we caught the (2 minute ride) car ferry back across the water to Rochestown (where our house is).

Tomorrow will be moving day and Jon’s first day of work–back to reality!

Inchydoney Beach

July 13, 2013Leave a comment

Ireland is currently experiencing the hottest summer they’ve had in 15 years. It’s been near 80 degrees since we got here–definitely warm by Seattle standards, and unheard of by Irish standards. We decided to take advantage of the sunshine today and skip out on our responsibilities (i.e. setting up utilities and looking for a car) so we could go to the beach. Seems reasonable to me.

The lady who owns the house we’re staying in recommended place called Inchydoney Beach. It’s about an hour outside if Cork in the west side of the county on the Atlantic Ocean. Driving up to the beach was breathtaking!

Seeing as every Irish person went to the beach today, it was quite busy at the beach. We snagged the last empty parking space and walked down to the sand.

After we dropped off our stuff, it was time to play! This was the first time 75% of our family had been in the Atlantic Ocean.

David had fun playing in the waves.

Beautiful place, beautiful day, beautiful boys.

On our way back to Cork we drove through some cute little towns…

…and almost got run off the road by this tractor:

Until later, friends!

Our First Day In Ireland

July 12, 20133 Comments

Today was our first full day in Ireland. We slept in and then spent the rest of the day exploring.

We started by going to a Vodafone store in town and signing up for new cell phone plans. Priorities, people! We now have (local) calling/texting capability as well as Internet access.

After getting our phones taken care of we drove up to our new house. We can’t move in until Monday, but I still wanted to see where it was.

Here is the outside of the house–it’s a middle unit in a 4-unit townhouse:

There is a nice grassy field across the street from our house in the middle of our neighborhood. David and Bota will have so much fun playing here!

We walked down the block to Garryduff Sports Center, the sports complex that our yard backs up to. They have soccer fields, tennis courts, and even a small golf course:

After walking around our neighborhood for a while, we decided to go check out the walking path that leads to Jon’s office.

It was a nice walk that took us over the water, past a small castle, and through the woods.

We went in to Cypress and saw Jon’s new office.

On our walk back from Cypress we stopped by the Mahon Point Shopping Center to look around.

We got smoothies and let the boys play in the shopping center play area. I can see myself spending many rainy days here!

We ate dinner at our rental house then had some playtime out in the courtyard.

It’s already the boys’ bedtime here–good thing, because we’re all tired from our busy day!

We Love, Teach, Grow

My journey through motherhood

Category: Family Life