End of the Trip

July 9th

Well, as often happens, I became less diligent about writing as we entered the final stages of our trip. Things became hectic, I became lazy, and the result was no blogging from London on. As I write now we’re experiencing moderate turbulence on our flight from Dublin to Paris. After a short layover in Paris we’ll be just a 9-hour flight from home. It’s sad but a bit of a relief at the same time. I’m fairly exhausted and very satisfied thanks to a trip that truly proved to be the grand adventure I was hoping it would be.

So, London and after…

July 2nd

My family and Grandma arrived on a flight from Lisbon early afternoon London time. We were greeted by some rather stuffy passport control personnel who demanded to know the exact street address of the hotel in which we’d be staying while in London. This forced us to dig through our bags for the address, which forced us out of the line. Amidts the hubub, Grandma lost track of her passport. She was sure that the man who had helped her initially at the desk had held onto it, but he had since vanished and no one believed Grandma’s story. After much digging and a little worrying, finally a helpful attendant went over to the original desk and found Grandma’s passport. This wasn’t the best welcome we could have hoped to receive on arriving in London. But, oh well, we were there. We managed to then make it easily through the airport and onto our 75-minute express bus to downtown London.

We then arrived at Victoria station, which meant a 15-minute walk to our hotel, the Blades. It was an easy stroll through Westminster, apparently one of the ritziest, most expensive neighborhoods in London. When we got to the Blades we were welcomed by a shirtless David hanging out on his second floor, street-facing room. Though I could’ve handled seeing less of David – ha, ha – it was a welcome site to see him and of course the rest of his family. It was a fun, happy reunion after three days of being separated.

The rest of that afternoon and evening were pretty chill. The adults went out for a pint, we all relaxed for a time, then everyone except Maria and David, who were meeting a friend of David’s, went out for dinner and did some walking along the Thames. Tricia stayed out a bit longer with the kids and got some great pictures near Big Ben and Parliment. But, more or less, the day was over. It was another long travel day, but we were very happy to be in a comfortable hotel – though not short on long, tall staircases – and ready to attack the city the next morning.

July 4th – 8th

While I’d love to write about all our adventures on these last five days of our trip, I’m honestly running out of gas. I’m just going to summarize and hit the high points.

July 4th brought Sammie and me to Wimbleson. This turned into one of the most fantastic experiences of my life, and definitely one of my all time top sports memories of my life. We waited in the que to enter, we marched into the entrance with a packed crowd accompanied by a school band, we ate strawberries and cream and we say Tornado Black play girls juniors, the Bryan Brothers win their doubles semi match, and Novac Jocavic warm up prior to winning his semi final singles match. We watched a few other juniors matches and also took in some of the men’s semis from the hill on the big screen. It was fabulous!!!

July 5th was a travel day, and what a travel day it was. We left London early in the morning and ended up boarding the wrong train. We were supposed to be on an express train but ended up on a local train. It set the whole day, and our journey to Ireland, back about 4 hours. But, after getting over my stress and heading the advice of a Londener who told me to “chill,” we did have a good day. We boarded the later ferry from Wales to Ireland and arrived in Dublin around 5:00 rather than around 1:00. We picked up our car from the airport, I got a crash course in driving a stick-shift on the opposite side of the road, and we were off for Kilkenny. It was a pretty drive and we were so happy to receive our warm welcome 90 minutes later from Helen at the Pinecrest B&B. The Aragos joined us for a delightful tea in the breakfast room, the five of us went into town for a late dinner, then Tricia and I walked the town, hit a pub for a little World Cup viewing, then retreated back to our room for a much-needed and deserved night’s sleep. Whew! What a day!!!

The following day, July 6th, was a beauty. Unfortunately, it was another travel day, but it was a relaxing travel day, and not nearly like the exhausting one we had the day earlier. Our full Irish breakfast was huge and wonderful then we were on our way. The Aragos headed toward the fast road to Kinsale, while we planned to meander our way south. It was a gorgeous, rewarding drive. We spent much of it on tiny, two-lane roads that wound through pastures and farmlands and rolling hills and small towns. We stopped for picnic food in one town then enjoyed a meal from the top of a hill, enjoying grand views of the green countryside below us. We said hello to a few sheep, got a little too close to the left side of the road on a few occasions, then eventually found our way to the beautiful harbor town of Kinsale by mid afternoon. We met the Aragos at our hotel – Jim Edwards, which lay above a bustling pub restaurant – then walked the town a bit.  Some of us returned to Jim Edwards for dinner, we enjoyed a one-man musical session at another pub, then Tricia and I finished the evening with some more music at yet another pub in town