Marianna's European Adventures: Old Man Pete Comes to Visit!

My dad was in London this week for various reasons so he was able to pop over for a quick weekend visit to check in on me.

I ran across the street to his hotel at noon on Saturday to meet him there. After checking at the desk I was told that he hadn't checked in yet. The sofas in the lobby were looking comfortable so I settled myself in. Interesting characters were in the hotel that morning, including a team of some sort, I believe field hockey, but I can't be certain. Now they were some attractive men. They filed out of the hotel restaurant wearing their team blazers and ties, athletic bags slung over their shoulders, hair nicely kept. So dad was a few minutes late, with people like that milling around the lobby, I could wait.

After they left and Dad still wasn't there, things were no longer as fantastic. To top it off the desk clerk was starting to stare at me suspiciously. While I couldn't find anything in the lobby particularly stealable, I'm pretty sure he was convinced I was going to try and make off with something before the morning was out.

An hour and 15 minutes later Dad came bustling into the lobby, muttering something about damn Irish air traffic controllers. Seemed like a reasonable excuse for being late.

After getting to his room Dad unloaded his bag, which was basically filled with stuff for me. WIN. Including various hotel soaps and shampoos that he had collected along the way. Also included, a bag of chocolate milk mix that he suggested I use for "bartering". I was too busy eyeing the box of Girl Scout cookies to fully recognize the ridiculousness of that idea and eagerly accepted it.

We set out for City Center with the initial plan of getting my mother a Valentines Day gift. After visiting countless (well...2.5) museum shops (not museums, however) he found what he was looking for. So the day was declared a success at the early hour of 2 o clock. A celebratory trip to the Chester Beatty Library was then in order. I found the informative video about Chester Beatty to be more interesting than the library (which is a great collection of oriental and middle east religious items, very interesting in itself). Lets not lie, I found the amazing half sombrero, half ten gallon hat that Mr. Beatty was so found of wearing throughout the video to be the best part.

After a nice trip through St Stephens Green we decided to head out for dinner. Dad produced two pamphlets that he had picked up some where that promised a free pint with dinner at a restaurant in Temple Bar. Works for me! So off we went.

After that we returned to Dublin 4 and Dad went to bed while I walked to Donnybrook with some friends to hang out at a pub.

The next day we were up early and on our way to Howth, a fishing village to the north of Dublin. Our first stop was the Sunday Market for some scones and tea. We then went down to the waterfront to enjoy them, stopping to watch the seals frolic along the way. We explored the village some more before grabbing some lunch from the Lebanese food stand. We had to head back to Dublin after lunch so that Dad could catch his flight back to London.

The interesting thing about Howth was the lack of English speaking people. I heard Spanish, Polish, French and other assorted languages, but barely any English. Even the English-speaking Irish had such thick accents that it needed subtitles.

The first half of the semester is almost done (wow, fast) so I will be doing some work this week...ick. I'm also finishing up my spring break plans, which will be spent in Italy. So look forward to entries on that in the coming days!