Starting the Irish adventure

The Irish adventure was born in July 2016 as we sweltered through an Arizona summer and saw gorgeous videos of Ireland. It gelled during our two-week trip to Ireland in August. We decided that IF we could sell our house for the right price (we did) and IF I could get Irish citizenship (I did), we would move to Ireland for at least several months. So the journey has begun and here we are in New York City.
We flew out of Phoenix at 8:00 a.m. via Minneapolis. Something usually goes wrong when we travel to New York and this time was no exception. One of our bags is missing. I left my iPad at LaGuardia (at the Baggage Claim office when I was filing my claim on my lost bag thank goodness.)
But we are here, we have a whole day before we board the Queen Mary so there is plenty of time (I hope!) for my bag to arrive (it's on a plane to LaGuardia as I type) and for me to trek back out to LaGuardia to claim my iPad. Things could have been much worse.
I am feeling tired but not sleepy. We are now well on our way on our adventure. And there are still plenty of tender mercies happening. Just the fact that I am in a comfortable room actually IN New York City is great.
Leaving Scottsdale, packing and unpacking, weighing, unpacking, throwing out or heading over to Goodwill with donations (good-bye extra jacket, good-bye nightgown, my extra pair of boots....), that's all behind us. Ahead of us is a day in New York and on Thursday the ship.
So those are the things I am grateful for tonight--a safe drive to Phoenix Airport in the rental car. No problems checking in, flights on time, enough money to buy food at the airports. A safe (if rather long and hairy) cab ride from LaGuardia. Golly is there a LOT of traffic! It didn't help that we arrived at rush hour and it was pouring rain. I was glad I wasn't the one driving!! The hotel--Hotel Le Bleu--is very comfortable. We are in central Brooklyn, great location.
All in all, a very good day!

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January 2024 and blogging

I haven't posted on my blog for a long time. Partly that was due to not knowing what to write about and partly it was wondering if I wanted to put myself "out there" anymore. And in what way. I subscribe to a few blogs on Substack, which is a subscription-based blog. You can pay to have your own blog, you can pay for someone else's blog, and that means you get to write and post and get comments back from a whole lot of people. You can comment on other people's blogs--if you pay--or else you can just read the blog and not pay. Of course you might miss some of the "pay only" content--much like modern news media has teaser stuff but to read the whole article, you have to pay for a subscription. The Substack blogs cover all kinds of topics and there are a few "professional" writers--meaning they're journalists and writers who have published and been paid larger bucks than the $5 a month they get per subscription on Substack--but I think most ...

Sunday in Richmond Park & Memories

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Life on board the Queen Mary

Passenger's log on the Queen Mary 2: Dec 9th - First Day at Sea Didn't sleep well--think it was the soused mackerel at dinner. Anyway, R and I woke up at about 6:00 am and discussed the order of the day. Quite the swell outside and I can feel the roll of the ship. (No seasickness thank goodness!) Despite the mackerel, I was hungry so we went to King's Court at 6:30 a.m. Buffet with loads of choice of course. We sat in an alcove looking out at the ocean. Our server was from Croatia, Slavan. I asked him my burning question of the day--why did we get a free bottle of wine but a regular bottle of Diet Coke cost $3.75? Diet Pepsi is $1.00 less. Fruit juices are free on tap. Coffee, tea, milk, ditto. But you have to pay for soft drinks. Very odd. Slavan says it is because Cunard can't get a good contract with Coke. Hmmm.... our local School District back in Sierra Vista can negotiate .50 a can for the soda machines in the teachers' lounges but Cunard has to cha...

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