London Detour

We got to London and had a free coupon for transportation to the hotel and a coupon for a free dinner.  We got to our hotel and checked in.  Then we had dinner.

I talked Sarah into going downtown after dinner for a quick tour.  I thought I knew my way around on the Express train downtown and the subway around London.

We got round trip tickets for the Express.  When we got downtown, we got day passes for the subway and a map of the tourist sites.

The first stop I decided we should see was Marble Arch.  It was crazy there because a Kylie Manogue concert had just ended and people were all over.

From there, we went to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.  Then we stopped at the Buckingham Palace stop but couldn’t find the palace.

Finally, we went to King’s Cross Station to see platform 9 ¾ where Harry Potter was filmed.  Unfortunately, we never found it.  It wasn’t between platform 9 and 10.

We took the subway back to the Express.  Unfortunately, the subway stopped and we had to wait for quite a while.  By the time we got there the last Express had left the station.

We asked a nice information man how we could get back to our hotel.  He said we could take a normal train for a couple of stops.  Then get off and take a bus.  It was great that we caught him before he went home because he closed up right after he told us what to do.

We waited for the train.  Then got to the bus stop and waited in the rain for the bus.  Then took that bus and missed our stop to get off at our hotel.  We went into the airport and had to find a taxi in the empty airport to get back to our hotel.

By the time we got back to our hotel it was 2 am and we had to get up at 5 am to catch our flight back to Canada.  It was quite the Father’s Day mis-adventure.

Cancellation and Quick Action

It was time to go fly back to Canada.  My sister drove us to the airport and dropped us off.  We went through security and were waiting outside the gate.  We were waiting a long time.  Sarah got up to go to the bathroom and noticed that the sign said that our flight was cancelled.  We asked a customer service lady and she said we would have to go back to get our luggage and book another flight.

Fortunately, she opened the arrivals door for us and we were able to get back through customs to get our baggage.  Then we went to the customer service counter and we were among the first people from our flight there.

There were very few people working at the customer service.  So we had to wait a long time.  But we were able to get a flight in the afternoon to London and then free hotel accommodation at an airport hotel to leave the next morning on a flight to Canada.

We were able to go to a special check in counter and didn’t have to wait in line.

When we were leaving customer service, we noticed a line up hundreds of yards long of people who were waiting behind us.

Related to the President

Before we left Tipperary, we stopped to take a picture of us outside my cousin’s butcher shop.  It was closed but it was nice to see the Williams sign.

While we were taking pictures, a man from the pub across the street came over and asked if we wanted him to take a picture of all of us together.  He assumed we were related to the owner of the butcher shop.

He told us that we were related to President Obama because the man who owned the butcher shop was related to President Obama.

As we were driving to Tipperary, we went through a town and noticed all these American flags on the main street.  On the way home, we stopped and took pictures of the house that Obama’s Great Great Great Great Great … Grandfather on his mother’s side lived.  There was a coffee shop named after the President and there was a big picture of Obama drinking Guinness in the local pub.

Other Ivans

My Aunt Ivy told me I had an Uncle named Ivan.  He was the son of the sister of my grandfather.  He is dead now but would be in his 90’s if he was still alive.

My Aunt Ivy has five children.  One of her sons is named Ivan.

It seems so strange to me to have relatives named Ivan because I thought it was a very Russian name for someone who was Irish.

Tea in Tipperary

The last day of our trip to Ireland, my sister took us to Tipperary to visit my cousins on my mother’s side of the family.  I had never met them.  But I knew that my cousin, Pearl, lived in the old house that my Aunt Milly owned where I had stayed when I was a child.

It was a two hour drive.  When we got there we, of course, had to have tea.

Then we took a tour of the farm and saw the cattle, sheep and calfs.

When we got back, I met my cousin, Harold and a few of Pearl’s nine children.  We then had lunch at the big kitchen table.

After lunch, my Aunt Ivy visited.  She is the keeper of the family tree.  She came with lots of old pictures.  Pearl made copies of them for us.

Then we had tea with Ivy before we went back to Greystones.

Dublin

On the second day of Sarah’s and my visit to Ireland, we decided to tour Dublin.  Unfortunately, we slept in so late, it was 4 pm by the time we left to catch the train.

There was no one working at the station because it was Saturday.  At first, we were waiting on the wrong side of the tracks.  Fortunately, we asked someone and were able to run to the other side before the train left for Dublin.

We got to Dublin and asked a newspaper man about the bus tour.  We found the bus and took the tour.  We sat on the upper deck of a double decker bus with no roof.  It was cold and raining. I didn’t have a jacket or a sweater but the tour was a good way to learn about Dublin in a short period of time.

After the tour, we went to Trinity College where my Mom got her degree.  Then we bought some souvenirs.  Sarah bought me an Irish wool sweater as a Father’s Day present.  I bought some Flake chocolate bars and Cheese and Onion Crisps.

On the way to dinner, we stopped at a Tim Horton’s for a coffee and took some pictures.  We had to walk a long way to the pub where we wanted to eat at.  We were walking beside the River Liffey and stopped to take some pictures on the Ha-Penny bridge.  Sarah took a picture of me and I took a picture of Sarah.  Sarah got a kick out the fact that I took about 20 pictures of the ground and my feet and my coffee cup by accident because I don’t know how to use an iPhone camera.

We had dinner at the oldest pub in Dublin.  It was established in 1168.  I had a Guinness with my Bangers and Mash.

When we left the restaurant it was raining.  We walked to O’Connell Street and took pictures of all the statues.  Then we walked back to the train to go back to Greystones.  Again we were on the wrong side of the tracks.  Fortunately, there was a worker there to help us.

When we got back to Greystones, we had to find a payphone and money to pay for a call to Daphne’s cellphone to tell her we were back so she could come and pick us up.  After we called her, we decided to go into a restaurant for an ice cream cone.  A man came up to me and asked “are you Ivan?”  It was my Aunt Yvonne’s husband.  He was told to look for us if we came home too late to pick us up.  He was supposed to tell us to take a taxi.

We had our ice cream and in the end my sister picked us up.

Choc Ice

When we were leaving Greystones, it was rush hour and the kids in the local school were getting picked up by their parents.  My sister wanted to see if the old candy store was still where it was when we were little kids and visited Greystones.  She let us out of the car in the traffic jam to walk to find the store.  We found the store and bought three Choc Ice and three bags of Cheese and Onion Crisps.  We just got out of the store with our purchases and my sister was coming around the corner in the traffic jam to pick us up.

Sarah took a picture of the Choc Ice and emailed it to Julia.  Julia couldn’t believe that Choc Ice was a real thing.  She thought Grampa Taylor had just made out the name.