Monday, December 18, 2006

John & Kat Come to Visit

December 18, 2006

The weekend before Thanksgiving (that’s deer-season opening-weekend to you Wisconsinites) our friends John and Kat from Menomonie arrived in Cork for a week-long visit. Kat was here to do some training at Dunhill, and John tagged along to work on some business connections here for UW-Stout. It was good to have old friends around this week, as it’s usually a big family week for us – deer season with the Deery family, then off to Detroit for Thanksgiving with the Saura family.

Since Kat and John were here to work, we had to squeeze in some sightseeing on the weekends. Kat’s brother Andy joined us from London for the first weekend, and we were able to treat everyone to some of the fine Irish weather we’ve gotten used to. While waiting in Cork for Andy’s arrival, we did a little touring around the city and made a quick visit to Kinsale. We spent Sunday touring along the Copper Coast.

The second weekend we were off to Wexford, about an hour north of here, for some shopping, then visited the Irish National Heritage Park, a great place to get the broad sweep of Irish history in one place.

We have to give John and Kat a big public thank you – they were kind enough to bring us a number of things we either forgot to bring, or haven’t been able to get here. As mentioned below, I’m now back in business with a tripod for some of the more difficult photos here.

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Thanksgiving 2006

December 18, 2006

In Ireland there is no Thanksgiving…

Well okay, they may give thanks, but they haven’t built a ridiculous shopping holiday around it.

Thankfully, they’re willing to celebrate it on our behalf. We had friends from the States visiting over the holiday week. Since they were here to work, Thanksgiving Day was a work day for all of us. But, Thanksgiving night we went out to dinner with the board of the Dunhill Multi-Education Centre, where Kathleen works. It wasn’t quite the 3-day Italian feast that we usually enjoy in Detroit with Kathleen’s family, but it was very special to celebrate and share our holiday with both old friends and new.

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Ceifin 2006

December 18, 2006

Shortly after we got to Ireland, we of course began haunting the local library. On my first trip there, I found a great book called Working Towards Balance that explored the changes in Irish society due to the booming economy. Reading the book, I learned that it was actually a collection of the papers presented [...]

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Cheeseheads in Dublin

December 18, 2006

On November 4, Connie Loden, from the Heart of Wisconsin Business and Economic Alliance in Wisconsin Rapids, arrived in Dublin with a group of people from the Wisconsin Rapids area. Their purpose was a tour of Ireland looking at regional branding and marketing initiatives in communities, and other types of small-community and rural-area economic development. [...]

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