On Thursday, October 3, we went to Hillsborough Castle and Gardens. Hillsborough is the royal residence in Northern Ireland. The grounds and residence were lovely. The last room on the tour was a more casual room that contained photographs of William and Kate, Henry and Meghan, etc.
The view outside the gates:
The Hillsborough house:
After Hillsborough, we met up with Lucy, who took us on a brief tour of Queens University. Cool place.
We went to the Ulster Museum, which was great but also huge and overwhelming for me because I feel as if I have to read and understand everything. Anna rested her suffering feet while the rest of us looked around.
We walked through an English/Protestant neighborhood on the way back to downtown Belfast. So fascinating.
I enjoyed this last e-mail from Jim before I left:
My flight out of Dublin was at 9:20 A.M. Friday, which seemed reasonable when I booked it. Bags and I discussed going back to Dublin Thursday night so I could more easily catch my flight. Her flight wasn't until closer to noon, however, and it would have been sad for her to miss out on time with Rob and Anna and Lucy in Belfast Thursday night and Friday morning just to accommodate me (although she was willing to). We decided we'd both stay in Belfast until Friday morning, and I set my alarm for 4:30 A.M. Friday morning to get an Uber ride to the bus station and catch a bus to Dublin around 5:00. As I got up that morning, however, I realized what a completely terrifying plan that was. I did not have any international cell service, so I could not make any phone calls. Once I left the condo building, I would be locked out and would no longer have wifi to use the Uber app. I couldn't tell where the Uber driver was or when he would arrive. If we couldn't find each other, we would have no way to call each other, and I would be locked out of the building and unable to reach Rob, Anna, and Bags. I was pretty freaked out as I realized all this and headed out into the predawn blackness with no means of communication. I was so grateful I spotted the Uber driver without a problem, and although he was not friendly, he got me to the bus station. I wasn't sure I knew what I was doing at the station, and I couldn't get any information about where to wait because nothing was open. But I went outside at the right time and caught the right train, and everything went according to the harebrained plan. Thank heavens.
It was a lovely trip, and I'm glad Rob and Anna let me tag along, dead weight that I was. I did no research and helped with nothing. I didn't even take out any money the whole time. Rob and Bags paid for everything for me, and then we settled up when we got back. So lame of me, I know, but it was quite amazing. Ireland is a wonderful and interesting place!
I was happily reunited late that night with Jim and the girls. They had a good week together. Anna took Ever a lot, and otherwise the girls just ran free while Jim worked on the house. He killed himself to get our master bathroom and bedroom done so I'd have a big surprise when I got home. It was amazing. He did so much work - tons of drywalling, which made a huge, huge mess. (He figured he had to do that when I wasn't around.) I thought he was maybe going to pick me up at LAX, but when he didn't offer to, I figured he wanted to get the kids to bed or something. Instead, the girls were still up when I got home and he had just finished frantically cleaning everything up and getting things in order in our room. Super surprise! He's the most hard-working husband around.
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