The trouble with travel...

... is that trips end. Last year, as we were leaving Central America, I quoted Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss). He said something to the effect of don't feel sad when great experiences come to an end, be happy that they occurred. Very good advice, but still... we need to return to Europe, we barely scratched the surface. Dublin is a good city. We walked through Phoenix Park, a very nice urban green space today. There are supposedly red deer funing around in the park. We didn't see any, but all animals do what they want. We also wandered through the miedeval section of town. There are two very old cathedrals there. Both charge admission, so we only looked from the outside. The story as I understand it is that Christ's Church dates from the 11th century. It was built my Irish monks, and was oriented to their independant, free thinking spirit. I believe St. Patrick's, from the 12th centure, was built by British priests who focused more on adhering to doctrines that came from Rome, and focusing less on freethought. The area around these two churches is beautiful - ancient houses and buildings. Irish row houses here have doors that are painted different colors:one might be red, another blue, another yellow, etc. The houses look pretty similar, but the doors are distinctive. We also found an environmental education network for Ireland, I do plan to check their website in depth. We will miss many places... tomorrow we fly to Pittsburgh, Pa., where I have family. We get in late, and will stay in a hotel near the airport. We'll be at my brother's house starting Wednesday until the next Tuesday. Expect some summing up thoughts from there. And yes, we will get photos up... we haven't been at computers where we could do this. I will let folks know when the photos are up. Europe rocks!!!