Nollaig Shona Daoibh!
This year, we decided to celebrate Christmas in Ireland and invite our adult children to join us. Christmas marks the end of our fourth month in Ireland. The family arrived on December 17, and we spent 3 days in Dublin and 2 days in Paris before returning to our home in the west of Ireland.
We wanted to make sure that our kids saw the best of Ireland, so we hit Dublin museums and the Boyne Valley, and the Guinness Brewery Tour before traveling to Paris.
We’ve come to expect amazing hospitality from the Irish, but we were a bit apprehensive about traveling to Paris. It’s one language where no one in the family has any proficiency. Ken studied it for 2 years in undergrad, but it didn’t stick, and he is convinced that it negatively impacted his spelling ability. I downloaded Babbel to pick up a few quick phrases and off we flew.
What is it about studying a new language that makes you recall the last one you studied? I would approach a shop owner to ask a question and my mind filled with Irish and Spanish. When I managed to remember “oui” instead of “sí” or even “tá,” my accent must have been rather convincing, as the waitstaff generally posed their questions to me instead of others in the group.
The Parisian were incredibly patient and friendly. My daughter, who is expecting, had several bouts of nausea and vomiting. One morning she left our restaurant to avoid vomiting at the table, and a woman stopped and handed her a package of tissues. No one seemed bothered by our limited French, and we had two lovely days in Paris. Our limited time limited us to the big tourist spots: the Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, and what’s left of Notre Dame Cathedral.
We preordered most of our holiday feast in advance of our travels, as everything closes on Christmas eve and will be closed for Christmas and St. Stephen’s Day (December 26). Our friends told us to expect the shops to be picked over when we returned on Christmas eve, but we were pleasantly surprised to find the grocers well stocked. We realized we didn’t buy enough bananas, but we’ll survive.
Back home in Mayo, we hiked around Croagh Patrick and Westport House, and spent a few days bumping around Westport, then settled in for the holiday. One of my colleagues from Atlantic Technological University (ATU) left a homemade Porter cake and cranberry sauce on our doorstep on Christmas eve (we were out for supper). It was one of dozens of lovely surprises we’ve experienced since we arrived, from our friends in Dublin who put us up for over a week while we were getting the car insurance and banking sorted, to our neighbors and landlord who have been so welcoming, to my ATU colleagues who have provided advice, support, and endless assistance with my work to my colleagues at Mayo North East who are the reason I applied for the Fulbright.
We had a very happy Christmas and wish you all a very happy 2023. Here’s to looking forward to more Irish adventures.