Dublin check-in

It’s me, hi!  I’m the blogger, it’s me.

Nothing like a timely reference, right?  Never mind.  Just posting a shot or two from today in Dublin!

Like, for example, this plaque from the building where The Messiah was first performed.

And this view of a Calatrava bridge over the Liffey.

And this reassurance that I can get me a decaf oatmilk latte.

Or this sculptural tribute to music, apparently.

Some Dublin for you!

a short walk on a quiet morning

I was up early today.  Unsurprising:  I had to get a turkey in the oven.  5:30, and the bird was in.  I read a bit, then, when it was light, I wandered over to Starbucks.  A quiet day on the Pasadena streets. 

I strolled, sipped, and drank in the day.  And my decaf latte.

And now back to the cooking I have to get done!

Medford, other than the wedding, that is

I thought I'd save the wedding activities for last and otherwise wrap up Medford in a post today.

Last Saturday morning, the day of the wedding, we woke up to a town looking damp and socked in.  The forecast was favourable for later in the day, happily, and hey, I like cool autumn temperatures.  I got myself dolled up in walking gear, and with Conrad in tow, we set out on a pathway that eventually led us close enough to (big shock here!) Starbucks. 

We picked up drinks then came back to the hotel to have breakfast with Ann.  Van got himself out of bed eventually, and declared that he wanted breakfast in town at Over Easy, a little diner that we had seen the day before.  A great idea, I just wish I hadn't already eaten breakfast!

So we went into town and got a table, saying hello to a pair of wedding guests we'd met the night before and who were finishing their own breakfast.  Van ordered a full meal, but Conrad and I kept it light.  A savoury muffin for me, with an egg in the center, and a shared marionberry pastry,

plus a megamosa (elderflower and grapefruit) to sip slowly (and not finish - that was a big mimosa!).

Verdict?  So good (and great service) that we tried to go back the next day.  Tried.  Ah well.  Van and I then sent Conrad off to get a trim to clean up his head for later that day,

and then it was back to the hotel.

Sunday started the same way as Saturday.  Conrad and I set out on a walk, intending to go longer and make it to a Starbucks downtown.  Part way there, while we were checking the map, I had the smart idea to make sure that that Starbucks was, in fact, open.  It was, in fact, not.  So we course corrected and ended up at the Starbucks from the previous morning,

coming back along the route we'd gone out the day before. 

We packed, checked out, and headed to Over Easy, which - we weren't surprised, just dismayed - had a waitlist of about forty minutes.  The next place we tried was pretty much the same.  We might have waited, but we had a plane to catch, so we tried a third place.  The Winter Berry cocktail was a nice brunch treat,

but man, did we have to wait a looooooooong time for our food in a not-too-busy place.  We might have been better off waiting for Over Easy.

And then it was to the airport where we found Ann sitting with Deb and Renee at our gate. 

Deb and Renee (and Peter's niece, Eve) were on our flight, and Ann was awaiting a delayed flight yet to be boarded at a nearby gate.  So it was that we had a last little bit of time with some of the folks we had enjoyed the wedding with.  We boarded soon after, and our time in Medford was done.

Comard

 Oh, did you not know?  I am now married to Comard.  He is a delight.

Peoria

My confession: in 9 years (and a bit) in Illinois, I've so seldom ventured outside of Chicago that I haven't yet seen most of the larger regional centers, including the state capital, Springfield. This week I took a baby step forward, spending Thursday night in Peoria.

I can't comment on Peoria quite so much and favourably as I did on South Bend a couple of weeks ago. The weather, for one, was kind of lousy. Grey, wet, cool, misty. The city sits overlooking the Illinois River, yet the afternoon RAS and I arrived, we could barely tell there was a river below the bluffs. We did take a nice drive through a swanky neighbourhood, but given conditions, real estate porn shots weren't going to happen. We also left fairly quickly after our presentation Friday morning, so we didn't explore very far then either.

A few things I noted:

There are hills, landscape, texture, colour. I think on a crisp, clear fall day with the leaves turning, it must be gorgeous.

The downtown needs an infusion of life and businesses.


There are offices downtown, but few services and amenities. A metro area on 350,000 and no Starbucks (or other chain) in the downtown core? Odd, and on a morning when it was damp and cold and we really wanted coffee, it was more than just odd. It became a little desperate. We found a Starbucks up near Bradley University.


Driving there from Chicago is nicer than the drive to Urbana (and the stop for lunch at a smalltown BK was priceless for the self-serve soda fountain with suggested pop-food pairings). Not so flat, not so much a dull, straight landscape of corn fields (though, as you can see, we passed between cornfields coming and going).
Even on a gloomy day, it wasn't bad, perhaps because it was new to me and perhaps because I had RAS for company.

I hope to get back to Peoria one day, in fact. Always good to see the rest of the state. May it not take me until 2018 so to do!