January's Last Day

On our way to school tomorrow Maggie will announce to  me that another week has gone by. She definitely prefers the weekends here. Tonight at dinner when announcing her "highs and lows" she talked about her low being going to school and her high being coming home. Prying parents that we are, Sheila and I probed. She doesn't talk about school at home like this, and it certainly isn't harder for her. She insisted that it's just school and that everyone would prefer the weekends over the weekdays. We still worry some.

 It was a fairly normal day today with the three of us heading off to school. Sheila had to go into Dublin today to pick up a particular French book for Maggie at Trinity College. She then poked around town a bit.

I grabbed a few pictures of UCD for the record and headed home after class. Here's the view from my office on a sunny day.

Here is the Geary Institute:


The campus is not particularly beautiful. Mostly 1970s buildings, with a few more postmodern types sprinkled in (pictures to come). They are making a "lake" in its center which will definitely be nice.

These photos are taken outside the building that houses the economics department (a total 1970s cement monstrosity made of four or five buildings that look like blocks put together haphazardly--pictures to come):

I grabbed lunch at the Centra across the street, standing in "queue" with all of the students for a sandwich. I know that this is a Western European country with quite similar food, but it still took me a while to understand what the sandwich options were and I still don't quite know what I got or what the options were to make it better. It looked like breaded chicken with various toppings to be put into a baguette. The toppings included all the usual suspects, but you could also add french fries, ketchup or potato salad.

I biked home and ran by a little corner shop near Maggie's school to pick up some bread and the best chocolate chip cookies in the town.

I got caught in a short shower right after this and then met Johnny and Sheila at tennis.

We are starting to plan a few getaways since the kids have a short break mid-feb and then our back-to-back long spring breaks happen in March (and the flights are unbelievably cheap-$70 to Paris round-trip). I have two weeks off and then the kids have another two weeks off directly after that. Our big trip will be to Greece to see my cousin Jeanne (and the sun). We are looking at heading to Athens and then around to her on the west coast in Arta or to fly into Corfu and head south to her.

Here's our bucket list:

1. Paris (I've never been)
2. London (kids have never been)
3. Rome and Asisi (this is Sheila's bucket list but I'm certainly game)
4. Scotland (my sister-in-law is coming and we're planning to take the ferry from Belfast)
5. One hurling game in Croke Park
6. One "football" game against Liverpool (see yesterday's post)
7. One rugby game in Aviva stadium (four stops up on the Dart)
7.5. I'd love to see some Belfast Giants hockey but their season may run out faster than our ability to get up there
8. Lots of touristy things around Dublin
9. A trip to Galway with Sheila's folks
10. Back to Dingle and Inch Beach, with Cork and Kinsale on the way home

Suggestions welcome!