A Challenging Day Rewarded in Dublin

Our bags outside the empty BnB door this morning.

Bertie Ahern, former head of state.

This one's been a long day with highs and lows of equal merit and finishes with a flourish. We had a lot of fun after finding out that the Airbnb where we were staying in Dublin was not open to us. It's a long story, but let's just say we got stood up.

The jilt came after we took two long bus rides to the Dublin suburbs and showed up at the house at about 10:30 this morning. We made a call to find out what happened and were told we'd need to stay there--or do whatever we wanted--until about 5:30. We thought better of it and took a room near the airport at a Holiday Inn. We'd been up since 3 a.m. to get ready for the flight over to Dublin, where we will fly to Amsterdam tomorrow. We had decided on a chill-out day. The best laid plans ...

Anyhow, the Holiday Inn not only worked out, helped round out our Dublin adventure because we got to tour downtown on the way over to the hotel and once there, we went for a walk in an historic park, ran into the former Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, the former Taoscieach (head of government, 1997-2008) at a football stadium at the park across from the Holiday Inn.

My first swan.

Great blue heron in the park.

I had stopped there to ask about the beautiful stadium, about 12,000 seats, and the young man I was talking to, after explaining that this was where a well-known group had played for some time, said, "There: The white-haired man is the former head of government."A few minutes later, a woman in middle age gave an opinion of Bertie that was not so kind. "I wouldn't even give him the time o' day," she said, when I asked if she thought I should go over and say hello. "He's the one that put us in the fix we're in." Damn liberals.

I saw my first swan in the park and got a brief history, revealing that the park had been the estate of one of the privileged until the IRA burned it to the ground in the late 19th Century.

Found a real appreciation for Dublin on a day filled with challenge and fulfillment. But we leave tomorrow for another adventure. Seems Sonya has also adjusted our schedule to extend our stay in the South of France and trim our trip to Marsailles. Good move, I'd say.

This is near our hotel. Frank Gehry would love it.

These evergreens in the park are quite old.

A father and his children share a quiet moment under an old tree.

Sonya iPadding on the crosstown bus.