Kings adventures

Monday, April 30, 2012

Day 1 part 2

It seems Ted and Nancy have settled in in Raphoe but are finding the weather quite wintry. They are very grateful (as are we!) to our good friends Evy and Geoffrey for going all the way to the airport in Belfast to collect them after they had missed their flight from Heathrow and had to take a later flight.
We have spent the afternoon in Victoria wandering about and trying to get a sense of the place. As you can see below, Jim's quest for Irish pubs throughout the world continues.

Ted's daughter, Erin, and her husband Kevin came to visit in the evening so we had all our queries dealt with except one. As I had not started to prepare dinner when they arrived, I did not realise that I had no idea how to use Nancy's state of the art electronic electric cooker. We pushed all possible buttons in all possible combinations to be greeted with varying bleeps and alarms and I had just completed my first f dance at the thought of starving overnight when I had a brainwave that finally solved the problem. That was immediately followed by the h dance!

The Irish Times Irish Pub

The building it is in is quite nice.

While we were admiring these totems at the entrance to a square, a young man came up to us and told us that his uncle had carved them. Then he just walked off!

This is a view of Government Buildings. It is quite imposing.

One of the floating houses in the wharf. There are supposed to be more but we saw only one.

One of the beautiful spring flowerbeds at the wharf.

Today it is raining, probably to make us feel at home. Our plan was to take a hop on hop off bus in order to find out more about the city and discover which areas require a longer visit. No holiday is complete without some hopping on and off! Hopefully the rain will not hinder us.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

29th April - Day 1 Canadian adventure

Front of house. Curiously the front door is at the side.

Here we are finally in the suburbs of Victoria after 24 hours in transit yesterday. All flights went smoothly with the odd bouts of turbulence. We negotiated all airports without too much stress and finally arrived in Victoria airport at 3.30am Irish time. We are 8 hours behind here so please be aware of that if anyone is texting as I leave my phone on at night. Jim enjoyed the views over Greenland with its mountain and glaciers. I was too busy watching The Muppets, The Help, We bought a Zoo and Mr. Popper's Penguins. I really enjoyed the penguins. The flight from Calgary to Victoria was spectacular for the first half as we flew over the Rockies in totally clear sky. Then the clouds arrived blotting out everything and causing quite a rocky descent - no pun intended! we were met at the airport by a friend of Nancy's, Lynn, and transported here. we lost little time getting to bed where Jim snored blissfully as I tossed and turned obviously past my sleep. Not to worry, there will be plenty time for sleep. We are all unpacked now in our new home and ready to set off exploring.

Decking at back. Jim behind the camera and Fionnuala at the door.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Preparations for new adventure

Jim and I are currently sorting the house out for 4 consecutive exchages with Canadian families. Our first exchange is in Victoria on Vancouver Island. While there we are taking a cruise up to Alaska and we hope to drive across the Rockies. The second exchange is in Grimsby between Toronto and Niagara Falls. Number 3 is in Ottawa and number 4 in Charlottetown, on Prince Edward Island. We are hoping that the experience will measure up to the last adventure when we were in Vietnam, Australis, Tasmania and New Zealand. I also hope that I will be able to upload photos from the beginning.

Day one in Canada - April 28th!