Helena in Dublin -- October 25th 2009

On Sunday we decided on a sightseeing walk through Dublin. We started from Pearse Station, passed Trinity College and just entered Grafton Street as it started raining, so we went for a coffee. Having enjoyed muffins and cake, we took off for a walk over Grafton Street, admiring St Stephen Green's shopping center. From there we walk to St George's Arcades to St Patrick's Church, visited Audeon's Church, passed Christ Church and strolled through Temple Bar.

We crossed the Liffey over the Ha'Penny Bridge (of course) and then took the Luas to Heuston Station from where we walked through the park of the Museum of Modern Art to Kilmainham Goal.

Feed hurting, we returned back to Grafton Street and rewarded ourselves with a delicious meal and hot chocolate with marshmellows at Bewley's coffee shop, before returning home...

Helena in Dublin -- October 24th 2009

As there is not so much to see in Dublin, we decided to make a trip into the green. We took the Dart to Bray and from there a bus to Powerscourt Gardens. The weather was just magnificient, exactly how you would wish for when having visitors.
We strolled through the gardens, enjoyed the grotto and the Japanese Garden and spent a significant amount of time with watching, photographing and smelling the rose bushes.
Hungry, after so much activity, we had lunch at the Avoca restaurant. Delicious, as usual! We took our leave to Enniskerry town from where the bus was supposed to start every 20 min. We had to wait an hour, but were finally picked up and transported back to Bray. The sun were hiding behind clouds now and after a only short walk along the beach, we decided to return to town to reward ourselves with going to the cinema. A wonderful lazy day!

Shopping in Belfast - September 20th 2009

After a while shopping in Dublin can be extremely annoying and even frustrating. All shops offer practially the same (all trowsers too short, all shirts too wide or to small and too colourful), no healthy variation at all. I was disgusted and therefore, in order to find myself anything worth to wear, decided to do a weekend shopping trip to Belfast.

I was lucky the next day with wonderful weather, so I left the hotel eagerly to stroll through the city...

Once more -- Howth in September

Whoever said the summer is over, was wrong. I thought, after enough weekends of being at home or out of town, it was about time to return to Howth. I expected it to be windy and a little chilly, but it was warm and sunny. And it was extremely busy out there!

Instead of being covered in yellow, the mountains were violet...

Cavan --- again! September 2009

This time not on my own... Wood Warrior and Boxing Bonnie spent a lot of their time between the different saunas and the swimming pool (especially the outdoor pool). They ventured for a short trip through the forests, almost crawled back through the mud and met the cattle in the field...

Visit from Munich - August 2009

Christina came to visit me for almost a week, and as we did not have much time during the week (I had to work), we drove away over the weekend. Sligo. The weather wasn't too good, but we were extremely lazy anyway. We just managed a short trip to town, had a wonderful dinner there... And we checked out the Thermal Suite and the Razul... very relaxing!

We have IKEA in Dublin - at last!

We took the bus at Merrion Square to go shopping at the recently opened Dublin store of IKEA. Our bus journey took us through an extremely dodgy area with walled-up skyscrapers; I had to think of the movie Into the West; even horses were grazing there!



















It was quite a contrast when we finally entered the IKEA building and walked between hundreds of people (too many children!) from one showroom to the other. Just like at home. Awesome!
Of course we couldn't resist to buy some candles and Indira... The smell when walking to the check-out points through the damp remembered me of our Ikea, Praktiker and Obi; fresh wood and dust. Oh, I certainly loved putting my apartment together and I absolutely crave to do it again, for a new one!