Dingle, Ireland, March 12

Hello from Dingle, Ireland!

I cannot explain properly how amazing this little town is. We have a great AirBnB - we even have our own private elevator. How cool is that?! The view from our apartment is amazing (see pictures below.) I got up to look out the windows yesterday and Jami mentioned that it's hard not constantly getting up to look out the windows all the time. He is not wrong. I sit here in the mornings looking out the window and can't believe I'm here - plus I keep a running commentary going on how many tours buses are currently parked in town. I'm sure Jami loves that ;)

We always thought that our 3 weeks here in Dingle would be when what we are doing actually sinks in. We have gone from NYC to London to Dublin and while we loved all of it, we are ready to be out of the city and enjoying the beauty of Ireland.

Several people asked before our trip what we could do in places for 3 or more weeks at a time. It's hard for people to understand that we are not "vacationing" we are living our life. We can't go, go, go every day or we will be exhausted, sick and tired of this trip. Our times in the cities does feel like we are vacationing because who wants to spend time sitting in a hotel room. Now we are in a very nice, spacious apartment where we can sleep in, cook our own breakfast and decide what we want to do that day. Sometimes, we will be tired or the weather will be bad and we have a stay at home and relax day. Other days, like yesterday, we have a relaxing morning, then we grabbed our cameras and went out exploring Dingle. We stopped into Dick Macks pub where it was more locals than tourists (although the tourists did pop in and out). It was fun sitting there, having a drink and chat.

I have a few pictures from Dingle below and a few more added on the Galleries page. Stay tuned because there will be LOTS more photos. Ireland makes me want to photograph EVERYTHING! Creative Mode has been Activated :)

Dublin, Ireland March 7

Hello from Dublin! I am so happy to be in Ireland!

Dublin is such a different city from London. It's a little grittier and doesn't have the hustle and bustle of London. It's a slower pace and honestly, I like it better than London.

We've had a great week here. We started out by touring the Guinness Storehouse, which was fun, but if we hadn't done the Connossieur Experience we wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. The Connossieur Experience was a small group beer tasting and we learned how to pour a proper pint of Guinness. I'm just going to throw this out there since it's my blog and I can say what I want ;) my pour was better than the Guinness expert himself, Jami. Probably beginner's luck, but I'll take it! After the tour, we visited arguable the oldest bar in Ireland, The Brazen's Head. It was so amazing to sit in the middle of that history.

We also had a guided tour of Kilmainham Gaol. It has a dark, sad history, but we learned a lot about Irish history and seeing the prison itself was very cool. It was built in 1796 and housed men, women and children - see I told you it had a sad history. Our tour guide was phenomenal and that was one of the highlights of this week for me.

I was very excited for the Book of Kells experience at Trinity College. If you don't know, the Book of Kells is a 9th century rendering of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark Luke and John. There was a lot of information on how it was made and the monks who worked on it. The artwork alongside it was incredible and I was glad to have the explanations of what the artwork depicted. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed of the actual Book of Kells. It was under glass and the pages displayed depicted Jesus praying in the Garden of Gesthemane.

After the Book of Kells we got to go into the Long Reading Room. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time and although most of the books have been removed for restoration, we could still walk around the room itself. Some say it inspired parts of Harry Potter, which I can definitely see. We then walked around Trinity College campus and enjoyed the flowers and trees blooming. Although they seem to have aggravated my allergies and I'm a sniffling, sneezing mess today. Whatever - if I have not feel good, I'm happy to not feel good in Ireland!

Monday we are renting a car and driving to Dingle, a southwest peninsula, which is a small village, but a big tourist spot. We are very much looking forward to getting out of cities and driving through the Irish countryside and taking drives along the Irish coastline. So stay tuned. I promise to have better photographs than I do of Dublin!

London Recap, Feb 28

I'm sitting here on our last full day in London (until May). I still can't quite believe that we are not going home, but onto Ireland - yippee!!

I've added a few more pictures below and to the gallery, but I wanted to talk today about my impressions and thoughts about these last 11 nights in this amazing city.

It really is an amazing city. I love it here, but I have to admit London takes quite the bite out of the wallet! We did so many fun things, but I think my favorites were:

1) walking along the Thames, enjoying being with my favorite guy, people watching. We never knew what we were going to run into - like Shakespeare's Globe Theater. No, it's not the original but was rebuilt to look like it was back in the 1600's and used as authentic materials as possible. We wanted to tour, but they're doing some work on it, so we will put that off until we return in May.

2) HISTORY! OMG - my American brain kept getting blown away by seeing all the signs of when buildings were established. A pub established in 1616 that survived the Great London Fire, and walking along and realizing we were right in front of Westminster Abbey. One of the reasons we wanted to see all of Europe was because we both love history and boy, are we seeing it up close and personal. It's so much fun.

3) Photography day when we got up early for sunrise photos of Big Ben and Parliament. We then wandered to a local cafe for a great breakfast then onto Buckingham Palace. We got the obligatory photos of it then sat in St. James Park watching all the people head to the Palace and the ducks trying to scam food off all the people heading to the Palace ;) We then set up along the Mall so that we could photograph the Royal Guard and the Scottish bands making their to the Palace for the changing of the Royal Guard. We will photograph that in May.

London is a huge and very crowded city, but was so clean and everyone was polite. I very much enjoyed sitting at the pub, eating local specialties and having a glass of wine (or two). I'm retired...I can drink wine at 2:00 in the afternoon if I want!

I'm looking forward to coming back at the end of May and staying in a different part of town - Notting Hill.

For now...stay tuned next week for our adventures in Dublin...there may be a pint or ten of Guinness consumed.

February 23, 2026 - We're in London!

Ok - I guess we actually did this go to Europe and start traveling deal ;)

We had a very quick couple of days in NYC before heading across the pond to London on Wednesday and boy, is jet lag a thing! We slept 13+ hours the night we got here! I think we are finally caught up and used to the time change.

We've had a lot of fun so far wandering around. We have visited a couple of pubs and toured Churchill's War Rooms. We have wandered up and down the Thames and are becoming experts on the tube and pub culture ;) It's quite a bit different than in the States, but we are getting the hang of it. Yesterday we went to see London Tower and Tower Bridge. Today we went to the Natural History Museum and the British Museum. We got about 12,000+ steps today and are taking it easy tomorrow morning before we head out for Afternoon Tea. It's an Alice in Wonderland themed tea and I'm really excited for it! Pictures to follow.

Stay tuned for more adventures. I'll get better at the blog thing, I promise.

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