One thing I forgot to mention about the B&B was related to the bathroom. They call restrooms toilets over here. So rather than say I need to use the bathroom or restroom, they say “I need to use the toilet.” Just a little Irish education that has not a lot to do with the story.
Anyway, when we got in our room on the first day, one of us needed to use the “toilet”, (I won’t mention who so no one person is too embarrassed. It is kind of like the firing squad, one of the shooters has a blank in his gun so they can all think they are the one that had the blank). Once the task was completed and an attempt was made to flush the toilet, only a little dribble of water would come out. There was no holding tank visible; it was behind the wall. Anyway I could tell this was going to be a bad situation. No one really likes to go tell the front desk that the toilet does not work; then have them come to your room and not only find the toilet working, but see what was left behind by those that did not know it was not working before they used it. For most people the bathroom is sort of a private sanctuary anyway and should not be invaded for any reason; especially if the toilet did not flush. So rather than ask for help, it became my mission to figure out the toilet flushing system without any tools. Even Tina was supportive and gave me great encouragement to get it to flush. I was actually a little surprised by this unusual support, but I think it was because I had no tools in my hand. Otherwise she would have immediately gone to the front desk before we not only had a non-flushing toilet, but a high probability that we might have a broken toilet bowl with a not-so-easy to hide problem on our hands. Anyway, to make an already to long story short, I made several attempts to get it to flush. Suddenly, I remembered that toilets in Ireland have to be pumped before the water will actually start the flushing motion. Four quick pumps and the toilet flushed like a champ. We both celebrated like it was the champ too.
As a post note to this, I got to where I could pump the handle with two quick pumps and get the toilet to flush with the same vigor as four pumps.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Ireland Trip Continued (Day 4)
Well, the jetlag finally caught up with us. It was funny how it did. I woke up this morning at 5:00 AM Ireland time, which is 8 hours ahead of Arizona time. So if my math is correct, that would be about 9:00 PM in Arizona so I was wide awake. We had planned to get going early, but not this early, so I thought I would read for a bit. I read my scriptures and a couple of conference report talks. By this time it was 6:00 AM. I rolled over and thought I would close my eyes for a minute then get up. When I closed my eyes I must have fell instantly back to sleep. I opened my eyes to what I thought was just a few minutes later and looked at my watch to see what time it was. I couldn’t believe it, it was now 10:30 AM. I had gone back to sleep for almost 5 more hours, so much for our early jump on the day.
We had slept to long to take advantage of the free breakfast they were offering at the B&B so we just left to go sight seeing. We had purchased a three day bus pass last night so we didn’t have to pay every time we boarded a bus. Having to pay every time is a pain. You have to have the exact change. If you don’t, you have to pay with what you have and go down to the bus station to get any change coming back. That would really be a pain.
The bus system has been a real challenge. Trying to figure out what buses go where has been difficult. I have even got on their web site and tried to map out our destinations. When we get downtown we can never find the right bus. Once you figure out where the bus you want to go on is located, it does get easier. Bus routes only go to a destination and then back to Dublin city centre. You can not get from on location outside of city centre to another location outside of city centre directly. You have to go from city centre out to the first location and then back to city centre and catch another bus to go to the second destination and then back to city centre again. The other complication is that several buses go to the same route for a certain amount of time then branch out. So we had to be careful to make sure the bus we took would get us to our final destination before branching off to some other place. In the beginning we were having real heartburn over this, but finally figured out that if we ended up somewhere we did not want to go we would see what there was to see where ever we ended up and ride the bus back to city centre and try again to get to where we really wanted to go. Other than it is a little time consuming that plan works out pretty well.
Since we got out going so late, we did not have time to do too much sight seeing. We were supposed to meet at the Finglas chapel at 2:00 PM to meet the other missionaries that had come over. I didn’t really know how to get to the church, but knew there was this huge cemetery across the street from the church. I had never seen the actual church. When I was here 30 years ago, they had just started the footings and floors.
As missionaries on our day off we would go down and haul cement for the footings, stem walls and floor. I can say that I helped build the church that is now the Finglas ward chapel. Thirty years later it is now a beautiful church right on one of the main roads where many people drive by every day. I guess compared to the massive rock churches that are in Ireland, it is somewhat humble looking, but it is a nice church and has a special spirit when you are on its grounds.
As I said the church is right across the street from a huge cemetery. I have pictures of that also. The cemetery is very old, maybe back in the early 17 hundreds. They give tours of the cemetery. The name is the Glasneven Cemetery. Tina and I went over and walked around a bit. The grave stones are massive.
The get together with the missionaries was fun; everyone had their stories and remembrances of Ireland. There were missionaries that came who served clear back in the 1960’s. There were 5 or six from my era. Elder Mills, Anderson, Haden, Deharte, Colman, Christensen, Goodman, and one or two others that I can think of their names. Colman was the only one that was one of my companions.
We had a funny experience together. There was a new missionary coming out, and I think his dad was a dentist. I don’t remember the missionary, but he was worried that his teeth would turn yellow while in Ireland. This is way before all the teeth whiteners they have today. Anyway, we found this yellow paint of some sort and painted out teeth yellow. We ran around yelling that out teeth had turned yellow and we would never get them white again. Jon Colman had a picture of all of us posing with big grins showing off our yellow teeth. We had a good laugh about that.
I know we are commanded to not be excessive in anything we do, but I’ll tell you what, we used the words “do you remember the time” so much that it could be carved into some plaque. Maybe I’ll write a song about it or something.
After the early meeting we all dispersed until this evening. Tina and I went over to the cemetery as I said earlier and looked around. After looking around the cemetery, longer than we needed to, according to Tina, we then went down town to find somewhere to eat. Tina reminded me that we had neglected this ritual the entire day and indicated to some of my missionary friends that I was trying to starve her to death.
I got talking to a lady named Jane on the bus and asked her where a good place to eat was. She was telling us of all these places and finally told us she would just take us to where they were. Must have been the confused look on my face. She said she was going to dinner anyway. So we got to city centre and walked probably a mile and she showed us the different restaurants on this back street which we would have never found. We picked a place that served hot wings and ribs. It was a good choice, but a bad day to pick to become a vegetarian (sort of a line from the movie “Airplane”). They did give us each a piece of celery so that was our vegetible. All meat after that, but it was sure good. There was this funny Irishman sitting next to us, who must be a regular at the restaurant as he seemed to expect the waiter to know what he wanted. He did finish up with a this bowl of ice cream with raspberries on the top that looked pretty good, so we followed suit and had the same.
After dinner we went back out to the Finglus Chapel for a missionary and member get together. I didn’t know any of the members that came, but they were all very friendly.
You know, there is one thing that really bothers me at get togethers like this and you are with a group of people that you haven’t seen for several years. It is when they come up to you and with a straight face, say to you, “you haven’t changed a bit.” I know they don’t believe I was born yesterday to believe that line. Actually, to be honest, I thought I looked ok when I was younger, not a stud or anything like that, but Ok. Today…I have to confess that I would say my better “looking” days are behind me, so when they tell me I haven’t changed, that concerns me a little. I’m fatter, balder, grayer, more wrinkles, wear glasses, and have shrinking. I guess that tells me that they have certainly changed in at least one way; they are losing their memory. I know that because they can’t remember how good looking I used to be, or they wouldn’t say I haven’t changed. Oh well, I’m sure they are just being polite. I can’t say the same to them, because I can’t even remember who they were.
Anyway, I don’t lose sleep over these kind of things, and have to say I really enjoyed being with all these old Irish Missionaries. Even those I did not serve with; it was fun to share stories. In fact I felt a little like Cinderella leaving the ball, we looked at the clock and it was about 10:30 PM and the last bus ran at 11:30. We ran out to the bus station and road back to city centre with the Christensen’s. They were right down town so they could walk to where they were staying; we on the other hand were still a little fuzzy about which bus would take us home. We spent quite some time running from stop to stop to find the one that went to our place. Finally this 80 year old (my best guess at her age) lady told us to follow her because she was going the in the same basic direction as us. She was so concerned that we might get lost. She kept telling us that we needed to get off one stop after her. Probably told us that four or five times. Finally, after she got off the bus, she waved to get my attention as she walked by the window of the bus where I was sitting and mouthed to me, “T-H-E N-E-X-T S-T-O-P” and pointed down the road in the direction the bus was going. I nodded my head that I understood. Everyone on the bus got a chuckle out of the whole thing. She was right though; the next stop did get us home.
Another midnight night.
We had slept to long to take advantage of the free breakfast they were offering at the B&B so we just left to go sight seeing. We had purchased a three day bus pass last night so we didn’t have to pay every time we boarded a bus. Having to pay every time is a pain. You have to have the exact change. If you don’t, you have to pay with what you have and go down to the bus station to get any change coming back. That would really be a pain.
The bus system has been a real challenge. Trying to figure out what buses go where has been difficult. I have even got on their web site and tried to map out our destinations. When we get downtown we can never find the right bus. Once you figure out where the bus you want to go on is located, it does get easier. Bus routes only go to a destination and then back to Dublin city centre. You can not get from on location outside of city centre to another location outside of city centre directly. You have to go from city centre out to the first location and then back to city centre and catch another bus to go to the second destination and then back to city centre again. The other complication is that several buses go to the same route for a certain amount of time then branch out. So we had to be careful to make sure the bus we took would get us to our final destination before branching off to some other place. In the beginning we were having real heartburn over this, but finally figured out that if we ended up somewhere we did not want to go we would see what there was to see where ever we ended up and ride the bus back to city centre and try again to get to where we really wanted to go. Other than it is a little time consuming that plan works out pretty well.
Since we got out going so late, we did not have time to do too much sight seeing. We were supposed to meet at the Finglas chapel at 2:00 PM to meet the other missionaries that had come over. I didn’t really know how to get to the church, but knew there was this huge cemetery across the street from the church. I had never seen the actual church. When I was here 30 years ago, they had just started the footings and floors.
As missionaries on our day off we would go down and haul cement for the footings, stem walls and floor. I can say that I helped build the church that is now the Finglas ward chapel. Thirty years later it is now a beautiful church right on one of the main roads where many people drive by every day. I guess compared to the massive rock churches that are in Ireland, it is somewhat humble looking, but it is a nice church and has a special spirit when you are on its grounds.
As I said the church is right across the street from a huge cemetery. I have pictures of that also. The cemetery is very old, maybe back in the early 17 hundreds. They give tours of the cemetery. The name is the Glasneven Cemetery. Tina and I went over and walked around a bit. The grave stones are massive.
The get together with the missionaries was fun; everyone had their stories and remembrances of Ireland. There were missionaries that came who served clear back in the 1960’s. There were 5 or six from my era. Elder Mills, Anderson, Haden, Deharte, Colman, Christensen, Goodman, and one or two others that I can think of their names. Colman was the only one that was one of my companions.
We had a funny experience together. There was a new missionary coming out, and I think his dad was a dentist. I don’t remember the missionary, but he was worried that his teeth would turn yellow while in Ireland. This is way before all the teeth whiteners they have today. Anyway, we found this yellow paint of some sort and painted out teeth yellow. We ran around yelling that out teeth had turned yellow and we would never get them white again. Jon Colman had a picture of all of us posing with big grins showing off our yellow teeth. We had a good laugh about that.
I know we are commanded to not be excessive in anything we do, but I’ll tell you what, we used the words “do you remember the time” so much that it could be carved into some plaque. Maybe I’ll write a song about it or something.
After the early meeting we all dispersed until this evening. Tina and I went over to the cemetery as I said earlier and looked around. After looking around the cemetery, longer than we needed to, according to Tina, we then went down town to find somewhere to eat. Tina reminded me that we had neglected this ritual the entire day and indicated to some of my missionary friends that I was trying to starve her to death.
I got talking to a lady named Jane on the bus and asked her where a good place to eat was. She was telling us of all these places and finally told us she would just take us to where they were. Must have been the confused look on my face. She said she was going to dinner anyway. So we got to city centre and walked probably a mile and she showed us the different restaurants on this back street which we would have never found. We picked a place that served hot wings and ribs. It was a good choice, but a bad day to pick to become a vegetarian (sort of a line from the movie “Airplane”). They did give us each a piece of celery so that was our vegetible. All meat after that, but it was sure good. There was this funny Irishman sitting next to us, who must be a regular at the restaurant as he seemed to expect the waiter to know what he wanted. He did finish up with a this bowl of ice cream with raspberries on the top that looked pretty good, so we followed suit and had the same.
After dinner we went back out to the Finglus Chapel for a missionary and member get together. I didn’t know any of the members that came, but they were all very friendly.
You know, there is one thing that really bothers me at get togethers like this and you are with a group of people that you haven’t seen for several years. It is when they come up to you and with a straight face, say to you, “you haven’t changed a bit.” I know they don’t believe I was born yesterday to believe that line. Actually, to be honest, I thought I looked ok when I was younger, not a stud or anything like that, but Ok. Today…I have to confess that I would say my better “looking” days are behind me, so when they tell me I haven’t changed, that concerns me a little. I’m fatter, balder, grayer, more wrinkles, wear glasses, and have shrinking. I guess that tells me that they have certainly changed in at least one way; they are losing their memory. I know that because they can’t remember how good looking I used to be, or they wouldn’t say I haven’t changed. Oh well, I’m sure they are just being polite. I can’t say the same to them, because I can’t even remember who they were.
Anyway, I don’t lose sleep over these kind of things, and have to say I really enjoyed being with all these old Irish Missionaries. Even those I did not serve with; it was fun to share stories. In fact I felt a little like Cinderella leaving the ball, we looked at the clock and it was about 10:30 PM and the last bus ran at 11:30. We ran out to the bus station and road back to city centre with the Christensen’s. They were right down town so they could walk to where they were staying; we on the other hand were still a little fuzzy about which bus would take us home. We spent quite some time running from stop to stop to find the one that went to our place. Finally this 80 year old (my best guess at her age) lady told us to follow her because she was going the in the same basic direction as us. She was so concerned that we might get lost. She kept telling us that we needed to get off one stop after her. Probably told us that four or five times. Finally, after she got off the bus, she waved to get my attention as she walked by the window of the bus where I was sitting and mouthed to me, “T-H-E N-E-X-T S-T-O-P” and pointed down the road in the direction the bus was going. I nodded my head that I understood. Everyone on the bus got a chuckle out of the whole thing. She was right though; the next stop did get us home.
Another midnight night.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Ireland Vacation Continued (Day 5)
Saturday, July 24, 2010 (24th of July to remember when the Mormons first came into the Salt Lake Valley)
I’m having a hard time keeping up on things. I was either too tired or we are out to late.
This morning we did this tour of Dublin riding buses that do what they call hop on hop off bus tours. The bus goes to several places of interest throughout the city and you can get on and off at any of these places. It was interesting and we thought about stopping at a few of the stops, but it was raining so we stayed on the bus. The driver would give commentary as he drove. When we got to the end, we decided to take it again and get off at a couple of places. The first was St. Stephens Green a park down town. We walked Grafton Street. It is a popular spot for everyone to go. There are a lot of entertainers that are working the people for money. One man did a puppet with the strings. He was really good and was making a bunch of money. If I could get pictures to my block page, I would have one so you could see his little puppet.
We then toured Christ Church which is down town. It was built in the one thousand BC era. It was interesting. I cost six euros a piece to go in. The man at the door told us if we would attend church on Sunday we could tour the church for free. It had a crypt under it. There was some very old stuff down in the crypt. It was interesting.
We had a dinner at the Finglas building which the ward members provided and then had a testimony meeting in the chapel. That was very spiritual. There is a man by the name of Tom Murphy who was baptized a month or so before I arrived in Ireland. He is now the district president for the Southern part of Ireland. He was a professional golfer, maybe the best from Ireland, or one of the best. It was a big sacrifice for him to be baptized. He told us that he was thinking back to when he was baptized and there were five people including himself that were baptized around the same time. They were all under thirty. Since that time from and from those five people, he counted over 150 people that have received the gospel and over 50 that have served missions. Who knows how many people those who have served missions affected? Think of it, from just five people who had the courage to accept the gospel; now hundreds, if not thousands now have the blessing of the gospel. I know many missionaries went home from Ireland feeling like their efforts were of no value.
I remember one missionary; he was the most obedient missionary I knew and the hardest working. He knew the scriptures forward and backward. He was humble and served faithfully for 23 months, but never had a baptism. In his last month he quit working and decided that all that obedience and hard work went for nothing. He did not come to the reunion. I have always wondered what happened to him. I really looked up to him and felt bad that he gave up one month early.
There were many moving testimonies and even though I did not get up, I think that meeting may be the highlight of our trip. I really got to see that the work we did was not in vain. There are now two stakes and a district in Ireland. Many of the young people we baptized are now parents and have children that have served missions. It was a really emotionally moving meeting.
I’m having a hard time keeping up on things. I was either too tired or we are out to late.
This morning we did this tour of Dublin riding buses that do what they call hop on hop off bus tours. The bus goes to several places of interest throughout the city and you can get on and off at any of these places. It was interesting and we thought about stopping at a few of the stops, but it was raining so we stayed on the bus. The driver would give commentary as he drove. When we got to the end, we decided to take it again and get off at a couple of places. The first was St. Stephens Green a park down town. We walked Grafton Street. It is a popular spot for everyone to go. There are a lot of entertainers that are working the people for money. One man did a puppet with the strings. He was really good and was making a bunch of money. If I could get pictures to my block page, I would have one so you could see his little puppet.
We then toured Christ Church which is down town. It was built in the one thousand BC era. It was interesting. I cost six euros a piece to go in. The man at the door told us if we would attend church on Sunday we could tour the church for free. It had a crypt under it. There was some very old stuff down in the crypt. It was interesting.
We had a dinner at the Finglas building which the ward members provided and then had a testimony meeting in the chapel. That was very spiritual. There is a man by the name of Tom Murphy who was baptized a month or so before I arrived in Ireland. He is now the district president for the Southern part of Ireland. He was a professional golfer, maybe the best from Ireland, or one of the best. It was a big sacrifice for him to be baptized. He told us that he was thinking back to when he was baptized and there were five people including himself that were baptized around the same time. They were all under thirty. Since that time from and from those five people, he counted over 150 people that have received the gospel and over 50 that have served missions. Who knows how many people those who have served missions affected? Think of it, from just five people who had the courage to accept the gospel; now hundreds, if not thousands now have the blessing of the gospel. I know many missionaries went home from Ireland feeling like their efforts were of no value.
I remember one missionary; he was the most obedient missionary I knew and the hardest working. He knew the scriptures forward and backward. He was humble and served faithfully for 23 months, but never had a baptism. In his last month he quit working and decided that all that obedience and hard work went for nothing. He did not come to the reunion. I have always wondered what happened to him. I really looked up to him and felt bad that he gave up one month early.
There were many moving testimonies and even though I did not get up, I think that meeting may be the highlight of our trip. I really got to see that the work we did was not in vain. There are now two stakes and a district in Ireland. Many of the young people we baptized are now parents and have children that have served missions. It was a really emotionally moving meeting.
Ireland Vacation (Continued)
Thursday, July 23, 2010
After flying out of Las Vegas we flew for 10 hours and over 5000 miles (Tina thinks the mileage is a little high) we finally landed in London. I tried to sleep as much as I could to beat the jetlag situation that I knew would was coming. I read some and that didn't put me to sleep, so I watched a movie. Still awake; I was beginning to worry. The guy sitting next to us seemed to have no problem sleeping. He probably got a good 5-6 hours. Finally I got my phone out which I had downloaded the audio of the last General Conference. I put my head phones on and started with the first session. I don’t think I made it past the opening prayer. When I woke up I was on the last talk. I drifted back to sleep and when I woke again, I was over half way through the second session. I did this a few more times. Judging by the sessions, I figured I must have got 3-4 hours of sleep time in.
Unfortunately, Tina didn't load general conference on her ipod so she didn't get too much sleep on the flight, maybe a half hour or so. I'll bet she'll never make that mistake again. You should have seen her in London. She could not stay awake, but there was so much going on in the terminal that she really couldn't sleep either. She tried lying on benches, sitting up and sleeping, but nothing seemed to work. I pretended I wasn't with her as much as possible as she was flopping all over the place. I was worried that her head would become a dangerous weapon, falling back and forth the way it was and that she might hurt herself, me or someone else. To compound the issue, out plane from London to Ireland was delayed over an hour.
You know how we always talk about how it seems that time has been sped up? This does not seem to be the case in airports. The conversations in airports go something like this. "What time is it?", "11:03!" Then thirty minutes later, "what time is it now?", "11:07". There must be some sort of time warp in reverse that hangs over airports. Finally after what seemed to be about 4 days, but was actually around 5 hours according to our clocks, we finally were able to board the plane from going from London to Dublin, Ireland. It was the Irish airline, Air Lingus.
Once boarded, Tina did not even need conference to stimulate her ability to sleep. She slept the entire hour that it took to fly to Ireland. In fact she woke up and asked when they were going to bring snacks. Little late for that…
Once we landed in Dublin we converted our money from Dollars to Euros and took a bus to where we were staying. It is a little Bed & Breakfast called the Arial House located on Lansdowne Road. The building is old on the outside, but nice inside. If I could get the pictures from my camera to this computer, I would post it right below here. Since I can't you'll have to use your imagination. I'll get the pictures loaded later.
After checking in, we took the city bus to what they call City Centre (spelling correct for over here). We wandered around and checked out the sights on Connolly Street, which is where everything in Dublin starts from. Not much had changed other than they have built this huge spire that goes way up into the sky. I mean way up. It was to replace something that was there before, but was blown up by the IRA. It was supposed to be built in 2000 for the new Millennium, but they didn't get it completed until 4 years later. They were going to call it something like the "New Millennium Spire", but since it was so late, they had to name it something else. I think they might just call it "The Spire".
By now it is getting later and we are hungry. We looked and looked for what they call chippers. They are these greasy food joints that sell fish and chips (French fries). They also sell chicken. I lived on these things when I was on my mission. They cook everything in these big vats of grease. Once it is done they wrap the meat, in my case chicken and the chips in paper. Actually before wrapping it, they cover everything with malt vinegar. There is so much grease on the food that it would soak the paper, but man was it good. I suspect that it probably either clogged my arteries and shortened my life by 20 years or they are so well lubricated that I will live to be 100. Hopefully not the second! My maximum height in my hay day was not that great, and I have noticed that I'm on a decline so if I were to live to be 100 I'll be lucky to be 4 feet tall.
Anyway, back to the chipper. We found one and it was just like I remember it. I ate all mine and half of Tina's. The next place we headed was to find an Irish Swiss Roll. I'm guessing that it is not really Irish, probably Swiss. Even though the address on the box is in Ireland, I'm guessing they must have imported a bunch of Swiss people to make them. At any rate, it was pretty good, but not as good as I remember. It may have been the brand, or maybe they were really made by the Irish and their recipe is not as good as what the Swiss have.
You also had to eat them with a pint of milk. The milk cartons have changed now also. They used to be in these pyramid looking cartons, but now they are in little plastic bottles. Expensive plastic bottles I might add. It was like 1.80 Euros for a pint.
After enjoying two of my fondest memories we set out back home. One problem, we didn't know how to get back to where we were staying. Fortunately, the Irish people are very nice and helpful, but you have to get used to the way they give directions. They do it a little backward from how I would give directions. Where I would say, "See that 1st stop light down there? Go to the light and turn left; walk 50 yards and you'll see the bus stop at the next corner, on the right hand side." Here is how they like to give instructions. "See that 2nd stoplight down there? Don't go that far. Now see how at the first stoplight you can go right? Don't go right. Turn left. When you get to the next corner, don't go through it, stop before you get to it; make sure you are not on the left side of the road and the bus stop will be right there." Why they think I need to know all the places not to go, I'm not sure, but living here for two years I became and expert in culling out all the non essential information. We finally got on the right bus and with a little more help from our Irish friends, made it home by 11:00 PM. Keep in mind it is not getting dark until after 10:30 PM.
So that was our day three. I did not let the plane delay nor our inability to find our way back to the B&B deter the good luck feeling I have since getting to ride in the Executive Shuttle for the same price as it would have cost to ride in the regular shuttle. That was my good luck charm.
I can’t believe I have finally returned to Ireland…
After flying out of Las Vegas we flew for 10 hours and over 5000 miles (Tina thinks the mileage is a little high) we finally landed in London. I tried to sleep as much as I could to beat the jetlag situation that I knew would was coming. I read some and that didn't put me to sleep, so I watched a movie. Still awake; I was beginning to worry. The guy sitting next to us seemed to have no problem sleeping. He probably got a good 5-6 hours. Finally I got my phone out which I had downloaded the audio of the last General Conference. I put my head phones on and started with the first session. I don’t think I made it past the opening prayer. When I woke up I was on the last talk. I drifted back to sleep and when I woke again, I was over half way through the second session. I did this a few more times. Judging by the sessions, I figured I must have got 3-4 hours of sleep time in.
Unfortunately, Tina didn't load general conference on her ipod so she didn't get too much sleep on the flight, maybe a half hour or so. I'll bet she'll never make that mistake again. You should have seen her in London. She could not stay awake, but there was so much going on in the terminal that she really couldn't sleep either. She tried lying on benches, sitting up and sleeping, but nothing seemed to work. I pretended I wasn't with her as much as possible as she was flopping all over the place. I was worried that her head would become a dangerous weapon, falling back and forth the way it was and that she might hurt herself, me or someone else. To compound the issue, out plane from London to Ireland was delayed over an hour.
You know how we always talk about how it seems that time has been sped up? This does not seem to be the case in airports. The conversations in airports go something like this. "What time is it?", "11:03!" Then thirty minutes later, "what time is it now?", "11:07". There must be some sort of time warp in reverse that hangs over airports. Finally after what seemed to be about 4 days, but was actually around 5 hours according to our clocks, we finally were able to board the plane from going from London to Dublin, Ireland. It was the Irish airline, Air Lingus.
Once boarded, Tina did not even need conference to stimulate her ability to sleep. She slept the entire hour that it took to fly to Ireland. In fact she woke up and asked when they were going to bring snacks. Little late for that…
Once we landed in Dublin we converted our money from Dollars to Euros and took a bus to where we were staying. It is a little Bed & Breakfast called the Arial House located on Lansdowne Road. The building is old on the outside, but nice inside. If I could get the pictures from my camera to this computer, I would post it right below here. Since I can't you'll have to use your imagination. I'll get the pictures loaded later.
After checking in, we took the city bus to what they call City Centre (spelling correct for over here). We wandered around and checked out the sights on Connolly Street, which is where everything in Dublin starts from. Not much had changed other than they have built this huge spire that goes way up into the sky. I mean way up. It was to replace something that was there before, but was blown up by the IRA. It was supposed to be built in 2000 for the new Millennium, but they didn't get it completed until 4 years later. They were going to call it something like the "New Millennium Spire", but since it was so late, they had to name it something else. I think they might just call it "The Spire".
By now it is getting later and we are hungry. We looked and looked for what they call chippers. They are these greasy food joints that sell fish and chips (French fries). They also sell chicken. I lived on these things when I was on my mission. They cook everything in these big vats of grease. Once it is done they wrap the meat, in my case chicken and the chips in paper. Actually before wrapping it, they cover everything with malt vinegar. There is so much grease on the food that it would soak the paper, but man was it good. I suspect that it probably either clogged my arteries and shortened my life by 20 years or they are so well lubricated that I will live to be 100. Hopefully not the second! My maximum height in my hay day was not that great, and I have noticed that I'm on a decline so if I were to live to be 100 I'll be lucky to be 4 feet tall.
Anyway, back to the chipper. We found one and it was just like I remember it. I ate all mine and half of Tina's. The next place we headed was to find an Irish Swiss Roll. I'm guessing that it is not really Irish, probably Swiss. Even though the address on the box is in Ireland, I'm guessing they must have imported a bunch of Swiss people to make them. At any rate, it was pretty good, but not as good as I remember. It may have been the brand, or maybe they were really made by the Irish and their recipe is not as good as what the Swiss have.
You also had to eat them with a pint of milk. The milk cartons have changed now also. They used to be in these pyramid looking cartons, but now they are in little plastic bottles. Expensive plastic bottles I might add. It was like 1.80 Euros for a pint.
After enjoying two of my fondest memories we set out back home. One problem, we didn't know how to get back to where we were staying. Fortunately, the Irish people are very nice and helpful, but you have to get used to the way they give directions. They do it a little backward from how I would give directions. Where I would say, "See that 1st stop light down there? Go to the light and turn left; walk 50 yards and you'll see the bus stop at the next corner, on the right hand side." Here is how they like to give instructions. "See that 2nd stoplight down there? Don't go that far. Now see how at the first stoplight you can go right? Don't go right. Turn left. When you get to the next corner, don't go through it, stop before you get to it; make sure you are not on the left side of the road and the bus stop will be right there." Why they think I need to know all the places not to go, I'm not sure, but living here for two years I became and expert in culling out all the non essential information. We finally got on the right bus and with a little more help from our Irish friends, made it home by 11:00 PM. Keep in mind it is not getting dark until after 10:30 PM.
So that was our day three. I did not let the plane delay nor our inability to find our way back to the B&B deter the good luck feeling I have since getting to ride in the Executive Shuttle for the same price as it would have cost to ride in the regular shuttle. That was my good luck charm.
I can’t believe I have finally returned to Ireland…
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Our Trip To Ireland
Because I forgot my journal on Tina's and my trip to Ireland and I happen to have a lap top with me and four hours to kill sitting in the airport, this seems to be a good time to start a blog. The purpose of this trip you ask, well if you didn't, I will tell you any way. Tina and I have made it thirty blissful years as a married couple and have raised five wonderful children, three being married and having equally wonderful spouses. My wife said I have to say that. Actually I probably would have anyway. We have two still at home. We have two grandsons on the way, and one lost dog (A story for another day). That pretty much rounds out our family. The two pregnent ones litterally.
The second reason for this trip is the fact that I served a church mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints in 1977 through 1979. This year there is a missionary reunion being held in Ireland. So that sounded kind of fun. Can't wait to see some of my old friends. Of course they may not still be friends since for the past 30+ years I have made no attemp to contact them. Of course as near as I can tell they have made no attempt to contact me either. I'll do my best to keep the heat on them. Maybe I'll tell them I have been looking everywhere for them. I wonder if lying at a missionary reunion is acceptable. School reunion maybe, but we should have our limits. This is somewhat church related. I could probably probably justify it in the category of not wanting to hurting any one's feelings.
Actually there is a third, and probably the most important reason for this trip. I loved the people in Ireland and I always hoped I could return someday to see if I can find any of them. The 30 year thing and the reunion were just good excuses to make it happen.
So here we go.
Our daughter Natalie, who has a wonderful husband named Jacob, not the same one mentioned in the bible, but maybe named after. Anyway, Natalie agreed to come stay at our house and watch Tanner and Sam (the two at home mentioned above) for the first week while we are gone. I probably forgot to mention we are going to Ireland for two weeks. The second week they will be traveling to Utah to attend EFY (Especially for Youth) at Brigham Young University. So we really only have to worry about what they will be doing for one week. Natalie is a professional house sitter in which she watched some rich folks three childern and seemed to do pretty good. They even took Natalie with them on their vacations. Tina and I figured with that resume we could trust her to do a good job. Plus the price was right. A tank of gas to get back home. If there are those out there thinking we are taking advantage of the situation, it is her brothers for crying out loud, so we felt the "tend for free" rule applied. And the fact that she will have this special opportunity to bond with her brothers, she should probably be paying us.
Anyway, where was I? Lets start with Monday, July 19th, 2010. The date (19th) is very important and I will explain it later. I worked all day and Tina and I headed to Utah in the evening. We planned to stay at Tina's parents for the night and then leave the car there and ride the shuttle from St. George Utah to Las Vagas Nevada where we would be flying out from. The ride to Utah was pretty uneventful, other than I notice when it got dark and the stars started to come out I was using an app on my phone which identifies the name of the star and it's location was off quite a ways. It was not a sleep loss issue or anything like that, but left me guessing on some of the planets I was trying to identify.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010. The big day has finally arrived. By 5:00 PM (PDT) tonight we will be traveling to Ireland. We were both pretty excited. We did plan to attend the temple this morning before leaving (hoping for a little extra insurance on the plane ride accross the ocean). Because of our shuttle leave time from St. George, we did not make it.
While we were there I called my mother and she reported that she had recked on her bicycle and broke her wrist and would be having surgery on Wednesday. We went over and visited with her for a while. She was in good spirits, but you could tell in some pain. We had a nice visit.
We had a good break on the shuttle trip to Las Vegas. They made a mistake and over booked the cheap shuttle and had to put us on the "Executive Shuttle" for the same cost of the regular shuttle. I considered this a good sign of how the trip was going to go. They even gave you a complemetry 4 oz. bottle of water. It went down pretty fast and I would have drank Tina's, but by the time I thought of it, I could see that she was madly shaking her's upside down trying to get a few more drops. Actually she was reading a book, and giving me the "don't even think of it" glare.
I have to confess that I am not a real world traveler and when it came to tipping the driver once we arrived in Las Vegas, I was unsure how much to give him. I had a five, but didn't feel he earned that much since he was driving to Las Vegas anyway. It wasn't like he went out of his way to get us there. Anyway, neither Tina nor I had anything less than a five dollar bill, so that is what I ended up giving him. He didn't respond with "wow, thanks for the big tip." So he was either speachless that I gave him so much or he felt shafted. I have made a mental note to carry 20 one dollar bills in my pocket when traveling. Especially in Las Vegas. No one here does anything without expecting something in return, usually in the form of green backs.
Once we arrived in Las Vegas we rushed to get checked in. Mainly to get rid of the heavy bags we were luging around. Remember when I said earlier that the date would be important? Well, this is where what the date of the week came into play. As we excitedly walk up to the check in counter and showed our passports to the attendent, he looked at them and checked our check in time and declared that the tickets were good, but not until tomorrow. What??? as Tina grabbed the reservations out of his hand. What day is it she ask. The 20th the clerk responded. Your tickets are not good until tomorrow. After some haggling about a small mistake of one day, we were told we could pay extra to go today. That would put us in London a day early with no flight to Ireland until the next day. Of course I stayed very calm about this small error and we tried to take the "bright side" approach. At least it was not off by a day earlier, which would have meant we would have missed our flight. To avoid the embarrassment in front of those standing in line behind us, I thought about saying, "Oh, we forgot some stuff, I'll go get it", and then never come back, or at least until the right day. Anyway here we were stuck in the airport a day early, gorrila weight lugguge and no transportation. I'm not sure this little setback is a change in luck from my original feeling of getting the luxury shuttle for the price of the cheap one.
We ended up getting on the internet and finding a Hotel that provided free shuttle service. The room was only 20 dollars, which was much cheaper than driving back to Utah. They also had a free breakfast. So being the tight wads we are, that is the option we took.
We stayed at the Palace Station. For eight bucks we could upgrade and stay in the tower part of the hotel, but since we were only staying long enought to get back to the airport, we did decided not. I figured I could use the extra eight dollars too tip everyone that needed tipping.
We decided since we had some time to kill, we would try and get to the Las Vegas temple. We checked on a cab and it was $35-40 dollars one away, and Tina thought that was to expensive. I reminded her that some people spend their life savings to get to the temple. She agreed, but still thought it was too expensive. I have an Aunt that lives here in Las Vegas and I figured I could call her and see if there was a cheaper alternative, like maybe she would come and get us. I did call her and we had a nice visit. I had to withstand the chastening of not calling her and staying at her place. Once we got through all that, she reported that the temple is closed for two weeks, to be cleaned. I'm sure Tina was inspired to not want to spend our life savings to attend a temple that is closed. I kidded with my Aunt, that we were debating on going to the Temle of go to the casino and gamble, and it look like we only had one choice since the temple was closed." (That is a joke, I would never gamble on anything.)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 - Well the right day to go to Ireland has finally came. We had our free breakfast at the Hotel and took the shuttle back to the Airport. It is now 3:44, we are actually less than one hour from flying out so I need to run. You know how you get really worried when they announce the boarding will begin in less than one hour and you don't bust your way infront of everyone even though you have assigned seating. We are flying on a big Virgin Atlantic. On the side it says "The Wizzarding World of Harry Potter". I certainly hope the flight is more straight forward than some of the flights I seen him take in his moves.
Tina just came up to me and complained that a regular candy bar in the airport is $1.25. Highway robbery I tell you . Well if I'm going to beat all the old ladies to the front of the line, I better get going.
Believe it or not I just ran into one of my old missionary buddies, Elder Mills, in the Airport. I can't remember or probably never knew his first name. He is on the same flight that we are on, he has his wife and four of his children. I quickly ask him where he had been all these years and why he had not stayed in touch. As you can tell, I went in offensive right away, before he could ask me why I had not stayed in touch. He didn't seem to upset that we had not stayed in touch. Probably had a lot to do with that look on his face that he couldn't remember me.
The second reason for this trip is the fact that I served a church mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints in 1977 through 1979. This year there is a missionary reunion being held in Ireland. So that sounded kind of fun. Can't wait to see some of my old friends. Of course they may not still be friends since for the past 30+ years I have made no attemp to contact them. Of course as near as I can tell they have made no attempt to contact me either. I'll do my best to keep the heat on them. Maybe I'll tell them I have been looking everywhere for them. I wonder if lying at a missionary reunion is acceptable. School reunion maybe, but we should have our limits. This is somewhat church related. I could probably probably justify it in the category of not wanting to hurting any one's feelings.
Actually there is a third, and probably the most important reason for this trip. I loved the people in Ireland and I always hoped I could return someday to see if I can find any of them. The 30 year thing and the reunion were just good excuses to make it happen.
So here we go.
Our daughter Natalie, who has a wonderful husband named Jacob, not the same one mentioned in the bible, but maybe named after. Anyway, Natalie agreed to come stay at our house and watch Tanner and Sam (the two at home mentioned above) for the first week while we are gone. I probably forgot to mention we are going to Ireland for two weeks. The second week they will be traveling to Utah to attend EFY (Especially for Youth) at Brigham Young University. So we really only have to worry about what they will be doing for one week. Natalie is a professional house sitter in which she watched some rich folks three childern and seemed to do pretty good. They even took Natalie with them on their vacations. Tina and I figured with that resume we could trust her to do a good job. Plus the price was right. A tank of gas to get back home. If there are those out there thinking we are taking advantage of the situation, it is her brothers for crying out loud, so we felt the "tend for free" rule applied. And the fact that she will have this special opportunity to bond with her brothers, she should probably be paying us.
Anyway, where was I? Lets start with Monday, July 19th, 2010. The date (19th) is very important and I will explain it later. I worked all day and Tina and I headed to Utah in the evening. We planned to stay at Tina's parents for the night and then leave the car there and ride the shuttle from St. George Utah to Las Vagas Nevada where we would be flying out from. The ride to Utah was pretty uneventful, other than I notice when it got dark and the stars started to come out I was using an app on my phone which identifies the name of the star and it's location was off quite a ways. It was not a sleep loss issue or anything like that, but left me guessing on some of the planets I was trying to identify.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010. The big day has finally arrived. By 5:00 PM (PDT) tonight we will be traveling to Ireland. We were both pretty excited. We did plan to attend the temple this morning before leaving (hoping for a little extra insurance on the plane ride accross the ocean). Because of our shuttle leave time from St. George, we did not make it.
While we were there I called my mother and she reported that she had recked on her bicycle and broke her wrist and would be having surgery on Wednesday. We went over and visited with her for a while. She was in good spirits, but you could tell in some pain. We had a nice visit.
We had a good break on the shuttle trip to Las Vegas. They made a mistake and over booked the cheap shuttle and had to put us on the "Executive Shuttle" for the same cost of the regular shuttle. I considered this a good sign of how the trip was going to go. They even gave you a complemetry 4 oz. bottle of water. It went down pretty fast and I would have drank Tina's, but by the time I thought of it, I could see that she was madly shaking her's upside down trying to get a few more drops. Actually she was reading a book, and giving me the "don't even think of it" glare.
I have to confess that I am not a real world traveler and when it came to tipping the driver once we arrived in Las Vegas, I was unsure how much to give him. I had a five, but didn't feel he earned that much since he was driving to Las Vegas anyway. It wasn't like he went out of his way to get us there. Anyway, neither Tina nor I had anything less than a five dollar bill, so that is what I ended up giving him. He didn't respond with "wow, thanks for the big tip." So he was either speachless that I gave him so much or he felt shafted. I have made a mental note to carry 20 one dollar bills in my pocket when traveling. Especially in Las Vegas. No one here does anything without expecting something in return, usually in the form of green backs.
Once we arrived in Las Vegas we rushed to get checked in. Mainly to get rid of the heavy bags we were luging around. Remember when I said earlier that the date would be important? Well, this is where what the date of the week came into play. As we excitedly walk up to the check in counter and showed our passports to the attendent, he looked at them and checked our check in time and declared that the tickets were good, but not until tomorrow. What??? as Tina grabbed the reservations out of his hand. What day is it she ask. The 20th the clerk responded. Your tickets are not good until tomorrow. After some haggling about a small mistake of one day, we were told we could pay extra to go today. That would put us in London a day early with no flight to Ireland until the next day. Of course I stayed very calm about this small error and we tried to take the "bright side" approach. At least it was not off by a day earlier, which would have meant we would have missed our flight. To avoid the embarrassment in front of those standing in line behind us, I thought about saying, "Oh, we forgot some stuff, I'll go get it", and then never come back, or at least until the right day. Anyway here we were stuck in the airport a day early, gorrila weight lugguge and no transportation. I'm not sure this little setback is a change in luck from my original feeling of getting the luxury shuttle for the price of the cheap one.
We ended up getting on the internet and finding a Hotel that provided free shuttle service. The room was only 20 dollars, which was much cheaper than driving back to Utah. They also had a free breakfast. So being the tight wads we are, that is the option we took.
We stayed at the Palace Station. For eight bucks we could upgrade and stay in the tower part of the hotel, but since we were only staying long enought to get back to the airport, we did decided not. I figured I could use the extra eight dollars too tip everyone that needed tipping.
We decided since we had some time to kill, we would try and get to the Las Vegas temple. We checked on a cab and it was $35-40 dollars one away, and Tina thought that was to expensive. I reminded her that some people spend their life savings to get to the temple. She agreed, but still thought it was too expensive. I have an Aunt that lives here in Las Vegas and I figured I could call her and see if there was a cheaper alternative, like maybe she would come and get us. I did call her and we had a nice visit. I had to withstand the chastening of not calling her and staying at her place. Once we got through all that, she reported that the temple is closed for two weeks, to be cleaned. I'm sure Tina was inspired to not want to spend our life savings to attend a temple that is closed. I kidded with my Aunt, that we were debating on going to the Temle of go to the casino and gamble, and it look like we only had one choice since the temple was closed." (That is a joke, I would never gamble on anything.)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 - Well the right day to go to Ireland has finally came. We had our free breakfast at the Hotel and took the shuttle back to the Airport. It is now 3:44, we are actually less than one hour from flying out so I need to run. You know how you get really worried when they announce the boarding will begin in less than one hour and you don't bust your way infront of everyone even though you have assigned seating. We are flying on a big Virgin Atlantic. On the side it says "The Wizzarding World of Harry Potter". I certainly hope the flight is more straight forward than some of the flights I seen him take in his moves.
Tina just came up to me and complained that a regular candy bar in the airport is $1.25. Highway robbery I tell you . Well if I'm going to beat all the old ladies to the front of the line, I better get going.
Believe it or not I just ran into one of my old missionary buddies, Elder Mills, in the Airport. I can't remember or probably never knew his first name. He is on the same flight that we are on, he has his wife and four of his children. I quickly ask him where he had been all these years and why he had not stayed in touch. As you can tell, I went in offensive right away, before he could ask me why I had not stayed in touch. He didn't seem to upset that we had not stayed in touch. Probably had a lot to do with that look on his face that he couldn't remember me.
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