Megan and Chris

… not so much actually live, as the train itself did not have wireless. We’re in the foyer of our hotel in Cork, availing ourselves of the wi-fi. This post was written on the train though, so it’s almost the same.

Now it’s my turn to post with more details of our last few days, since I know that will please at least one of our fair readers (hi, mom!).

Our flight was incredibly uneventful. There was a snoring man on the flight to Chicago, nothing to do for seven hours at O’Hare (especially as we didn’t feel like carting our luggage around the interesting terminals) and a mostly-sleepless flight over the Atlantic. We did have the nice seat-back TVs where you can choose when to start your movie, but the sound didn’t work on mine so I read The Time Traveler’s Wife. We actually had a pretty solid tail-wind and ended up arriving an hour ahead of schedule. We made up that hour standing in line at Customs, especially since we arrived right around shift-change time and had to wait for their glacially slow computers to re-start.

Anyway, made it through all that and got on our shuttle bus into Dublin, where the first music we experienced in Ireland was ‘9 to 5’ by Dolly Parton. Ah, feel that Irish authenticity. We dragged our combined eight pieces of luggage towards our hotel, and stowed it away there as our room wouldn’t be ready til 2:00. We wandered a little and then got tickets for the hop-on/hop-off bus tour. We took that completely around the loop twice, stopping for lunch at a sweet café on one of the pedestrian shopping streets. For a randomly chosen place, it had some very impressive food and the best iced tea I’ve ever had in my life. That’s Bewley’s on Grafton Street, if you’re keeping track at home. Highly recommended.

After the bus tour (which we didn’t really hop on or off of, but it was a good way to fill the time we had), our room was ready so we very happily had good long naps, and then found a food court to grab some dinner before Mass. One thing we’ve noticed, as Mom and I did in Scotland, is that it’s hard to find anywhere to eat after 8:00 at night. We’ve managed both nights, but it’s been kind of a tight squeeze and we’re rather looking forward to having our own place and eating when/what we want.

I had previously found a little chapel right next to our hotel that advertised a youth Mass at 8 pm, so we headed over there. Turned out to not really be a youth Mass, but it was Mass nonetheless, and well appreciated. Having slept for several hours in the afternoon, we both managed to stay awake throughout but went almost straight back to bed afterwards. Unfortunately jet lag caused me to be fully awake from 3:30 to 5:30 am, and Chris from about 6:00 onwards.

Monday morning we attended our required orientation in Dublin and learned about fun things like taxes. It was helpful though, and it seems like we can call or email the office anytime if we’re stuck on anything related to living in Ireland. We were hoping to meet some fellow travelers, but everyone kind of just disappeared right away when we were done. Everyone else was planning either on staying in Dublin or going to Galway, but it still might have been nice to get to know them a little.

We wandered in the rain a little after the orientation, thought about going to the Guinness storehouse and decided on a movie instead. We’ll do the Guinness tour another time when we’re slightly more alert. We saw The Time Traveler’s Wife (having just finished the book, I didn’t find it terribly exciting, but Chris enjoyed it), After the movie Chris had a quick nap (I avoided napping in hopes that I would sleep through the night but it didn’t work anyway) and then we went for a walk, had dinner and went to bed. Both of us were up again from about 4:00-6:00, and we’re hoping that we can stop that from happening very soon. It’s not that it’s a big problem to be up and wide awake in the middle of the night, but it makes it rather difficult to be functional in the morning.

We tried to register with the immigration office this morning, but were told we have to do so in Cork. We are given a month after arrival to register, so it’s not super-urgent, but we were told in orientation yesterday that it was easier to do in Dublin. I guess we’ll find out. We taxied to the train station as the idea of eight pieces of luggage on the bus was not appealing. Had a bit of difficulty picking up our pre-booked tickets, but we got everything together in time. There’s nowhere to store large luggage on the train, so we’ve kind of placed it out of the way and hope we don’t get yelled at like we did on the Edinburgh to London train last summer.

So that’s us now. We’re on the train on the way to Cork, where we should arrive just before 2 pm. Our thrilling plan for the day includes finding our hotel, and probably getting cell phones. Woohoo!

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years.  We are back in Kelowna now, getting into the swing of normal life after the holidays.  I spent three weeks in Edmonton in December, hanging out with friends and family and getting lots of wedding planning things done.  Chris came home on the 23rd and we got a lot more things done in the week between  Christmas and New Years.  Overall, a productive time!  Somehow though, there is still a whole lot of stuff to do in the next four and a half months.

We’re still managing to get up to Big White despite the growing ‘to-do’ list.  Chris is ski patrolling lots, and I spent last Saturday teaching my roommate Shelly to snowboard.  Eventually I will convert you all…

I started practicum last week, doing drug and alcohol presentations in middle schools as well as lots of other stuff.  Turns out fourth year practicum will actually require some effort, research and creativity on my part (which third year didn’t really need).  It should be a good time though; the counsellor I’m working with is lots of fun.

We’re still working on the process of getting ourselves to Ireland (or really anywhere on that side of the Atlantic).  We aren’t sure when exactly we’re leaving. Right now it looks like it will either be fairly soon after the wedding, or a bit later in the summer. I would like to be back in Kelowna at the beginning of June for my convocation, and then the world is our oyster.  The timeline depends a little on what visas we end up applying for and how long it takes to get that wonderful paperwork done.  We also haven’t really thought a whole lot about where we’re going to live or what we’re going to do there, but that’s the adventure.  There are also several reasons that delaying our leaving til September would be okay too… several weddings, a new niece and/or nephew in August, and there’s the goodness of Kelowna in the summer.

We’re playing with the website a bit, trying to get some more useful information up here.  Hopefully you won’t get lost.

We’ll keep you in the loop.  When we know, you’ll know. Right now, nobody knows. Et cetera.

Hey all,

Just wanted to pass on my social action promotion for the month (semester, year, whatever).

Here is a list of web sites to think about when you’re doing Christmas shopping this year. How many times have we had no idea what to get someone, but bought them something useless anyway just because we’re expected to give and receive material things. The guest speaker at a conference I went to earlier this month said that in 2002, Canadians spent $18 million on gifts, and I’m sure that number goes up every year. There are so many people around the world who need that kind of money more than we need all those possessions and gifts. With organizations like Oxfam and Global Giving, we can still ‘give gifts’, but the benefits are to women, children, men and communities around the world.

I think this is a fantastic idea for all of us to give a few gifts like these this year… and if any of you are considering getting me a present, I highly recommend the ‘Women and Girls‘ tab at Global Giving… or the Women’s Voices section at Oxfam Unwrapped, but there’s less variety there.

Be the change you wish to see in the world!
Global Giving – Donations for Grassroots Projects and Microfinance
OxFam Unwrapped
KIVA – Kiva makes micro loans to people in developing countries.
Chalice – another Canadian organization that provides agicultural and educational support.

There are lots more!!

Or, for awesome material gifts, check out the Hunger Site’s fair trade gifts.

Happy less-than-one-month-til-Christmas!
–
Megan

So Mom called me on Friday (on my way from class to an awesome houseboating weekend!). Following are the essentials of our conversation:

Mom: So we just realized that May 23rd is not, in fact, the long weekend. It’s the Saturday after the long weekend.
Me: ….um. %$#@.

The problem at that point was that when Chris and I were originally setting the date for our wedding, we asked Lauren (my best friend, maid of honour and a teacher in Yellowknife) which weekend she preferred, as she would be the only member of the wedding party travelling to the wedding. She requested the long weekend, and booked her time off before last school year ended. Also, I’ve had lots of conversations with other people that included the assumption that the 23rd is the long weekend (not the least of whom is the mess manager at our reception venue).

So I called Lauren on Saturday afternoon and had a lovely chat in which she told me that she had actually booked her time off around the weekend of the 23rd, not the long weekend. Hurray!! And so, much to everyone’s relief, we are going to stick with May 23rd. But be warned, all, this is not really the long weekend! Please do feel free to make it a long weekend for yourself, but I can’t guarantee your employers will be on board.

Now my only question is, how have we been engaged for an entire year and just found this out now?

In other wedding news, the person we had hoped would DJ at our reception may or may not be in Europe next May. Not that I begrudge him that at all, but if anyone hears of a spectacular, yet reasonably priced DJ who is available the evening of May 23, 2009, we would be eternally grateful if you’d hook us up.

Here’s one last post to recap the rest of our trip. We’re home now, after a nine-hour plane ride [which was delayed three hours], and then the three-hour trip back from Calgary on top of that. We were pretty happy to be home when we got here. I was asleep by 9:30 [having gotten up at about 5:30 am London time, which is 10:30 the night before here in Edmonton], and up at 6:00 am this morning. Sometimes jet lag does give one the advantage of feeling productive in the morning.

Anyhow, we arrived in London last Wednesday afternoon. We found our hotel, and discovered that to use their wireless internet, we’d have to pay the equivalent of $50 for the three days we were there. Obviously we decided not to, and then we filled our days and didn’t manage to get to a café or anywhere else with internet, which is why you haven’t gotten an update since then!

On Wednesday evening, we met up with mom’s cousins Johnathan and Julie and their respective partners for dinner. We all ate way too much and had a marvelous time. Thursday morning we met Johnathan again, and he gave us a lightening-quick tour of a few of the must-see places in London, including Buckingham Palace, St. James’ Park, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. After he left us and went back to work, we returned to a few of those places to see them more fully. We made it back to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard, but we couldn’t see much from the back of the crowd and, well, we got bored fast. So we headed out to a little market we had seen with Johnathan and had lunch there, and then to Westminster Abbey. We spent several hours there and probably could have spent more, except that they kind of kicked us out ‘cause it was closing. It’s so fantastically huge, and every square inch is painted or carved or inlaid with gold [or all three] or otherwise covered in art. And then there are all the tombstones and memorial stones to look at, despite having no idea who most of the people mentioned were.

We went for dinner with Johnathan and his son Steve at a great little place where – novel of novels – we could get our own drinks with as much ice as we wanted. Having walked around a lot for most of our trip, we often asked for ‘ice water’ with our meals. Apparently to the Scottish and British, this meant we wanted approximately two cubes of ice in our tepid water. So it truly was a novelty to be able to fill our glasses with ice. And the food was pretty excellent too.

Thursday night we went to see Wicked – ‘the untold story of the witches of Oz’ at the Apollo Victoria theatre. I don’t even have words to describe how incredibly spectacular this show is. Having never been to a show of this caliber, I was thoroughly blown away. The stage set-up, the props, voices, music, dancing, story… all of it was amazing. We had really good seats too, right at the front of the balcony. If anyone else is ever in London, I highly recommend spending the money to see such a show. It is very much worth it.

Friday we got tickets for the hop-on/hop-off tourist bus [double-decker, of course] that goes around to all of the important sites in London. We got a good commentary on a lot of it [some buses had live commentary and others had pre-recorded audio], and learned fun tidbits like the fact that the lobby of Australia House [the High Commissioner for Australia in London] was used as Gringotts Bank in the Harry Potter movies. We got off first at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, which was very cool but occasionally more than a little creepy. The first room is set up as a Hollywood party, and all the figures are just scattered around the room [among the hordes of live tourists], so you never quite know if the person you almost ran into is live or wax. I liked that you can take pictures with the wax figures.

Our other main stop was the Tower of London. It’s a massive place, a bit hard to get around without a guide, and to be honest, I was a little sick of castles by then. But we did see the Crown jewels and the torture exhibit, which was the reason I wanted to go in the first place. Mission accomplished.

We took a boat ride along the Thames [which is really gross to look at because it’s a tidal river, but apparently is very clean] back to the Westminster Abbey area, had supper and then went on a fantastic pub walk. Our guide was American, but had been doing these tours for something like 25 years and was a ridiculous fountain of useless [but interesting] information about the history of London.

And thus ended our last day in London. By the time we left Edinburgh, I was pretty ready to come home, but I’m really glad we went to London. It was definitely worth it, and we did and saw a lot of things that were really different than anything else we’d done or seen on the rest of the trip.

I just put up the rest of the photos [well, a selection of them] from Stirling right up to London. You can find them HERE.

So that’s that. We’re home, for a few days at least. Hope you all enjoyed our updates, and didn’t mind the ridiculous length of a few of these posts.

Love, Us!