A Galvin Hunting We Will Go

  

On our most recent adventure, we heeded the call of the Galvins' (as well as the Ryans') ancestral homeland across the Celtic Sea to the to seek out our closest known relative in the tiny town of Kenmare. We had no trouble immersing ourselves in the land of our ancestors, although actually tracking down a Galvin became akin to trying to spy a leprechaun: everyone claimed to have seen one and there was evidence of their presence but none could be produced upon request.

One of our kinsman's buses just passing by...

Despite our inability to pin down a local relation, we quickly felt a connection to pint-sized Kenmare. Although the town itself only has a half-dozen streets and just a few shops, it seems to have as many pubs as residents, banishing any doubt as to whether we had landed in the right place.

We have no doubt that we will return one day, hopefully with additional familial reinforcements to track down our wily kin.

Searching high & low

...leaving no stone uncovered

Polo Party

Recently, we decided to immerse ourselves in a English sporting event not commonly seen in the US: a polo match. We had many questions about this sport having never seen it in action (How many horses are there? Is is full contact? Is there a goalie horse?) and were incredibly excited about checking out the polo spectators' attire (well, one of us was). Wanting to make sure and blend in, we took the event incredibly seriously...

Testing the gear

Striking a pose avec le champagne

At the Crown & Corgi, where many a Pimms was consumed

Classing it up in front of the marquee

As expected, we left the match feeling as though our cultural immersion was complete and we obviously needed to plan a family polo match ASAP.  As soon as we all learned how to ride a horse while playing polo, that is.  Possibly a new Thanksgiving tradition?

Joie de Vivre

For our first international excursion, we felt we had to head to the City of Lights. Armed with two additional helpers, Eurostar tickets and what we felt was the bare minimum amount of baby gear, we hit the road....er, tracks.

The journey from London to Paris takes just over two hours by train, with the highlight being the passage through the famed "chunnel."  Unfortunately, we were so excited about the existence of the bar car, that we didn't even notice the passage through the chunnel on the outbound voyage.  A bit anti-climatic but we were unphased.

We arrived into Paris on a beautiful spring day and were able to perceive an apparent difference in work ethic between Londoners and their Gallic cousins.  The parks were packed almost to capacity with people of all ages doing nothing other than sitting in chairs facing the sun.  On a Thursday. At 2 pm.  Clearly this was not a city where something as trivial as a traditional work day would get in the way of  excellent weather.

We quickly caught on to the local mentality and bought a bottle of Bordeaux for our sunset stroll around the Eiffel Tower (luckily no one in the group had any interest in waiting in a seemingly interminable line to actually go up into the tower).

For the next two days, we spent our time strolling around the city, eating and drinking well, and doing our best to get the Parisians to understand our incredibly basic French (i.e. about 7 words).  

I could tell you all of the wonderful things we ate, saw, and drank on our trip, but lets be honest--it would be better if you just booked a trip yourself. Overall, it was a great start to our, hopefully, many Eurotrips to come and gave us a taste of the famed joie de vivre just south of our new border. 

Just one instance of a member of the group witnessed skipping in delight