Visitors from Another Planet

It's been a busy couple of weeks. We had visitors, normal life stuff, and preparations for our trip home are well underway. I'll talk about our visitors first and cover the other stuff later :-)

My baby brother, Morgan, and his girlfriend, Kataneh, got here on February 11. Morgan had been to Ireland before and had an idea of what it's all about. Kataneh had never been. The first day was mostly walking around with M&K in a daze trying to get use to the time change. The next day they took the tour bus and did a spin around the city. Unfortunately that was Monday and a lot of things were closed. On the upside, Kataneh found Penny's and decided it's her favorite store of all time. Monday night I meet up with M&K at a bar in Temple Bar. We had a few drinks, ate dinner, and got to hear a group of Frenchmen burst out into song in the middle of a bar. It was fun to experience some of the nightlife.

Tuesday the plan was for the Holavarri's to do our immigration stuff in the morning and then we would all meet up at Guinness for lunch and a tour. BUT I had no idea how long the immigration line would be. We waited an hour to get our number to get in the actual line. Then two and a half hours later, they just stamped our passports and sent us on our way. By that time lunch had passed us by but we went to Guinness anyway. The tour was fun and the sunset drink in the Gravity Bar was beautiful.

Wednesday Morgan, Kataneh, Kahlil and I hit the road. The first day we drove to Galway. Since Kahlil fell asleep, we pushed straight through and got there in the early afternoon. We had lunch and found a Penny's. Kataneh and I were pretty happy to shop for a bit. After a little checking around, we found a B&B that could take us for the night. Wednesday was Valentines Day... sort of a funny day to go out with your son, brother and his girlfriend :-) But we did go out and have a great dinner. Although I felt a little bad for the love birds in our immediate area as Kahlil was a little tired and cranky. After dinner Kahlil and I went back to the B&B where Kahlil fell asleep right away. Morgan and Kataneh, on the other hand, had an exciting night out. They found a bar that had live music. Kataneh struck up an affair with the 90 year old according player. She was quite smitten with him.

The next day we hit the road again. On our way south, we stopped at the Aliwee caves. It was ok for breaking up the drive, but that was about it. We continued on to the Cliffs of Moher. They just opened a brand new visitor center and stone walls so you can't fall over. It was really beautiful. But the most amazing thing was the picture of Morgan's twin. We walked into the visitor center and they had a bank of screens with pictures of people who recently visited the Cliffs. Right in the middle is a picture of 'Morgan'. We had to look for a long time to decide it really wasn't Morgan, but somebody who looked like him and had similar glasses and coat. After getting over the Morgan-has-a-twin episode, we took the ferry to shorten our drive to Killarnie. We got to Killanry pretty late and went out for dinner right away. There was an Indian restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. Sitting at the table across from us was a little girl about five years old. I'm sorry to tell Tivi she has competition for Kahlil's attention as this little girls was putting the moves on him. Not only did she smile, do the shy face bury and wave, but she WINKED! Kahlil was pretty taken. After dinner Kahlil and I headed back to the hotel and M&K hit the town. But I think they hadn't fully recovered from the night as they got back to the hotel shortly after we did.

Friday we kept heading south to go to Middleton. Morgan really wanted to see the distillery there. The tour was great. I told Morgan he should volunteer to be a whiskey tester at the end of the tour. He raised his hand, but since he had been picked to ring the bell at the pot still, he didn't get to be a tester. Next time. After the tour, we loaded back up and headed for home. Poor Kahlil was really sick of being stuck in the car seat and was pretty cranky the last hour of the drive. But when we got home and I took him out of the seat he was goofy happy and pretty attached to his dad.

Saturday we did some shopping around Dublin. Some last minute shopping for M&K and getting our warm weather clothes for us. Another trip to Penny's really made Morgan happy... NOT! That night Jay, Morgan, and Kataneh did the literary pub crawl. Since they didn't get home until after 3am, I think they had a pretty good time.

Sunday we were going to do some more exploring south of Dublin, but the evening before had taken a lot out of J, M, & K. So it ended up being a hang around the house day.

Monday morning M&K loaded up and grabbed a cab for the airport. It was great fun to spend the time with them. Morgan's favorite part of the trip was the Cliffs or Moher (I bet it was because of his twin :-), and Kataneh's favorite was seeing Kahlil. She is pretty attached to his cheeks.