Ireland: Two Days in Dublin

Day 1: Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Castle (Chester Beatty Library)

We started our day in Dublin by checking into our B&B The Azalea Lodge,which was wonderful. Right off Bernadette told us which bus to catch to get into Dublin and we were on our way for a bit of lunch (see previous post on Avoca). The Azalea Lodge is rated #1 on Trip Advisor for B&Bs for Dublin and I can see why: it was shiny clean, the bed was uber comfortable and Bernadette was super helpful in both recommendations for dining and how to get around. We arrived at 10 am and Bernadete was waiting for us, made us a pot of coffee, had scones for us and explained how to get around and where to eat. While the B&B is outside the city center, it is a short bus ride in. We missed the first breakfast as we overslept, but our second day we were able to partake and Bernadette puts out an amazing spread. The only odd thing is that there are no face cloths, but I am going to email Bernadette about that. We weren't there long enough for it to be a problem and I wasn't sure if it was an Irish thing or not so I wanted to wait until I went to other B&Bs to see. The Azalea Lodge is a true treasure, in my opinion.

We walked to Christ Church Cathedral first. It was very beautiful. We were particularly pleased to hear the organ being played while we were walking around!

I love this photo because of the soft lighting. There is a very small Spanish style house in our neighborhood that has a ceiling like this (on a much less grand scale!). I love it!

Our next stop was Dublin Castle and the Chester Beatty Library, which was voted the best museum in Europe! My particular interest was in the illustrated manuscripts, but they also have illuminated copies of the Qur'an and Egyptian papyrus texts. Because you can't take photos inside, I just have a photo of the sign outside.

Day 2 Breakfast

We slept in and unfortunately missed Bernadette's lovely breakfast and so went to The Cheese Pantry.

I was particularly pleased with my coffee which you can see from the photo below is very strong and creamy. I think it was really a double espresso. The breakfast was just fine, but the coffee was the thing!

Overall, we were a bit disappointed in Irish salmon. The Scottish salmon is much better tasting.

The big day was here: my trip to see the Book of Kells! That was the purpose of the trip for me. Being a librarian, I have always wanted to see the Book of Kells, which is the most famous illustrated manuscript (to see some images of the pages click here).

It was an amazing library. Not only did it have an educational lead up that gave you an intricate knowledge of the book and illustrated manuscripts in general, but they had videos on how to make vellum, how to bind a book like the Book of Kells. They had a video of someone writing in that style of calligraphy with the sound up loud so that you could hear the scratching of the nib on the vellum. You had to step up to the room where the book was held. Sort of like entering a throne room. Fred said it was smaller than he expected. I just loved it. It was amazing. It wasn't as vibrant as I thought it would be, but it was exceedingly fabulous.

St. Patrick's Cathedral and Park was full of people on St. Patrick's day. It was a lovely day for the parade. The cathedral itself was lovely. I prefer Christ Church, smaller and more intimate.



Although, Jonathan Swift was the Dean of St. Pat's. That has to matter for something! Turns out he was quite a guy. He pointed out the hypocritical priests who were getting drunk and acting immorally and held them accountable. He really was a guy with a high moral standard who walked the walk.

Avoca Warning
Now, I do have to add a bit of a warning here about Avoca. It is a handweaver shop, but it seems to be quite a racket to me. When we stopped at the outlet place in Wicklow on Day three, we were quite disappointed to find just a tiny area of handweavings and most of the store taken over with bric a brac for the home. Mostly Crate and Barrel type of stuff. Frankly, I was hoping for some really lovely handwoven things. I did find a great throw and a cool book for a friend, but mainly it seemed a stop for tour buses as it was a big restaurant with a huge buffet. The main thing that irritated me was when Fred went to pay, the woman at the counter asked him if wanted the credit card charged in dollars or euros. I can't imagine what kind of surcharge Avoca is getting from all of those tourists who don't know better and say dollars! So be forewarned. If asked, say euro! Let the credit card automatically charge you the going rate of the day without a surcharge.

Plus, they didn't remove the ink tag from the throw, so I am doubly irritated with them!

Razor Clams and Ireland

Today was day one in Ireland. We flew in from Tampa after a delay in Newark. We actually had quite a full day eating at Avoca, which has surprisingly handsome waiters (ours looked like a young David Bowie. He was so handsome I was initially struck mute. Not something that has often happened to me.). But Avoca, while having a good fish pie,

ultimately failed the restaurant test as their sticky toffee pudding had secret nuts in it. By that I mean that the cook had put pecans or walnuts in the dessert and had not bothered to tell anyone. I am allergic to them. It ruined the dessert for me.

But The Winding Stair was wonderful for dinner. We had an excellent 3-course dinner that included my first experience with razor clams. The dish came with organic leaves and a pansy and some brown toast (delightful). The clams were amazing.

I had the Jacob's Ladder short ribs (melt in your mouth). Fred had the skate, which I thought was a little oily, but he liked. For dessert, I had the bread pudding with whiskey sauce and Fred had a plum and apple crumble. Most excellent.

All in all, a fine culinary day. And we visited Christ Church Cathedral and made an attempt at St. Pat's cathedral, but they were closing in 15 minutes. We also got in to see the Chester Beatty Library, which has been voted as the best museum in Europe. It was a treasure trove of papyrus, illuminated manuscripts, Qur'ans and decorative arts.

Tomorrow, the book of Kells!

Twitter Relationships and Benefits

Twitter is one of those Web 2.0 tools that some people either love or hate. It is after all microblogging (say it in 140 characters or less), which is a bit mindboggling in and of itself. But there are uses and benefits to Twitter.


I found that I didn't appreciate the value of Twitter when it was just me. It took my getting the google sidebar and a Twitter feed before I realized how much there was to learn from my Twitter peeps. If you follow interesting people who are doing fascinating things, posting information, links and photos, then you have a great Twitter feed. That is what makes Twitter a valuable resource: the people you follow.


Admittedly, there are silly people whom I follow like Justshitmydadsays: Justin is 29, living at home and tweets the crazy crap his 74 year old fother says. He's a Twitter sensation.

I also follow Postsecret, which is a very cool idea that has spawned several books. Essentially, people send in their secrets to him anonymously on postcards. He has started posting them on Twitter once a day.


I follow authors like Neil Gaiman and Laurie Halse Anderson and cool librarians who I think rock like Elizabeth. I follow comedians, Rainn Wilson, and the odd David Lynch (I don't know why I follow him, he is so very odd). And I follow people who read lots of books like Flashlight Worthy Books.


I also follow other teachers, technology gurus, dog trainers and social media types. And I follow my friends. And all of these people share a little bit of themselves with me throughout the day. Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don't. Depends on when I am looking at the Twitter feed.


So when I was giving a colleague a Twitter tutorial the other day and found a reply I had missed from one of my blog readers, I was really thrilled. It was about our adding captions to our photos in our blog about our guide dog puppy. Since she is blind, without the figure captions she has no idea what the photos are about. It made me really happy that I had added the captions, but it also made me happy that I now had this extended network where my blog readers could connect with me via Twitter and comment. It makes for a different relationship, but one that is valid nonetheless.


So, all of you Twitter detractors, find some quirky, informative people and follow them. If nothing else, you might just get a laugh every day.

Finally, A True Brasilian Restaurant!

We found a gem today through our favorite iPhone app Urbanspoon. If you don't already have Urbanspoon on your iPhone, you need to download it RIGHT NOW. It's free. It is wonderful. We have found several kick ass restaurants that we would have never found otherwise, if not for Urbanspoon.

Terra Mar Brazilian Steakhouse is at 6715 49th St. N., Pinellas Park, FL 727.525.1100. They do take reservations, but it is a very casual place in a strip mall. They have about 15 tables, so if you have a big party, it would be good to call ahead as the the party of 8 did today at lunch.

On Sunday the all you can eat lunch buffet is $8.95 without the churrascaria, $14.95 with it. I recommend that you splurge and get the churrascaria. In fact, I recommend that you dress up and pretend that you are at Boizao because the food is amazing and tastes homemade! You aren't going to get pao de queijo at Boizao and you aren't going to get mousse de maracuja there either (OMG, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, it was that good!).

They have a salad bar section, a fresh made soup, two rices and black beans and two entrees on the buffet. Farofa can be had upon request. When we went for meats they had fresh made sausage, chicken, sishkabob, filet mignon, garlic steak, pork tenderloin, and then I had to stop the waiter from bringing us more meat so I don't what else he was cooking!

Seriously folks, this is real Brasilian cooking at great prices with amazing service. The restaurant may not be fancy, but it is wonderful. Do not miss it.

Uh, no, you didn't.

Strange, weird thing just happened. I got a friend request from someone who I didn't recognize either by name or photo. This is her message to me:

Hi, This is (blank) from (blank) high school. How are you?

No identifying information or any clues as to who she is or how I should know her. So I sent a message to two of my high school friends and asked them if they recognized her name or could find her in the yearbook (I have no idea where mine is).

She isn't in the yearbook. So what is the etiquette? Do you ignore the person? Or do you call their bluff? Why would someone who didn't go to high school with you claim to go to high school with you?

That's just too weird. Way too weird.

Reader’s Advisory

I met with a former student the other day for dinner. She had great news: she was accepted into medical school. As we were catching up, she said that her mother had given her instructions that she was to get more book recommendations from me. Her mom was so pleased with my suggestions of The Thirteenth Tale and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie that she only wants to get book recommendations from me! That made me exceedingly happy, then it made me very nervous.

It’s hard to always get a book recommendation right all the time. It is nice when you are on a good recommendation streak, but I am a bit fearful now of screwing it up. I suggested Beat the Reaper and The Hunger Games and then said I would have to give it some more thought. I haven’t been reading much lately and I wanted to make sure my picks would be good ones. If anyone has any sure fire hits out there, let me know!

David Schickler - Great High School Author Visit

Last week we had author David Schickler come and visit our school to talk about fiction writing. He spoke to our AP Lang, AP Lit, Sophomore English and Creative Writing classes and he was wonderful. He was wonderfully interactive with the students and gave them great tips on how to make the writing pop.

While he wouldn't be a good author for younger audiences as he material is definitely upper school material, he was wonderful with the high school students. The AP teachers really liked him, which was quite a coup!

If you haven't read Kissing in Manhattan, here's my review of it. I really enjoy it.

Kissing in Manhattan by David Schickler


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
At first, I was unsure whether I would like this book as I tend to enjoy novels more than short stories. But this book is a bit of odd duck. It is a collection of short stories, but they all intertwine; characters from one story show up in the next and they are tied together by the Preemption Apartment building where the main characters live.

You get a real Sex in the City feel for the first story, but there is a character mentioned, James Branch, who is dining alone and repeating the name of his entree outloud to himself. Something about that one small mention made James stand out for me and so when he popped up again in a charming magical realism story about a pair of opal earrings, I was hooked. James, for me, is the overriding reason to read the book. He is kind and compassionate, although at the end his compassion is a bit hard to comprehend. He is the one you root for, one of those very sweet men that you know if they will just come out of their shell a bit, and if some woman would just give them a moment of their time, magic would happen, love would happen.

Some of the stories stand on their own, and others definitely need to lean on their fellow chapters. Regardless, this is a lovely and well-written book that is a delight to read. And while the negative comments of some of my book club members were that the women are weak and the men are too demanding, I think James Branch silences those quibbles. James and the woman he ends up with (name not given so as not to spoil the book) redeem that dark quality in other stories and bring it all to a hopeful end.

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