Tuesday September 3

We learned a bit about washer/dryers yesterday, thanks to Sue's willingness to give it a try. Unless you know what you're doing, laundry can take 3 hours to complete its several cycles, and it is not kind to those who forget to remove a tube of lipstick from a pocket. The rest of us benefited by learning from Sue, and we will leave Edinburgh tomorrow with clean clothes.

We did quite a bit of walking today, heading back up to the Castle and taking an hour-long historical tour of underground Edinburgh, parts of which date back to the 18th century. Including a ghost story or two, the tour was entertaining and interesting. We learned more about the plague than I had known before and more about emptying waste buckets than I needed to know.

Anchor Close

There are often tiny passageways between buildings that are called "closes" in this city. Many of them have good stories behind them. One in particular, Anchor Close, marks the location of the printer who produced the works of Robert Burns and the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Until 1771, the parents of Sir Walter Scott resided there.

We went to Piemaker for a bite to eat and were not disappointed. This is a tiny walk-in-and-order-but-don't-plan-to-stay-long type of vendor, so we did all of that. Tart-sized individual steak and ale pie and shepherd's pie were just excellent.

Then we walked the remainder of the Royal Mile and across to the site of the National Monument, a sharp left to begin the return trip, choosing to walk through the very pretty Princes Street Gardens rather than fighting foot traffic along the street above.

Bagpiper

Because we hadn't walked enough, we then climbed the 87 steps back up in the direction of Edinburgh Castle for more shopping, and then finally back to the apartment.

Because we still hadn't walked enough, we returned to Princes Street to find a recommended restaurant, Cafe Royal, in New Town. It too was a fine choice.

By now we had walked enough, so we took a taxi, Terry and I riding in jump seats facing the rear, and got back to the apartment yet again, this time to stay put until we leave tomorrow.

13,408 steps today, 6+ miles.

Monday September 2

And so we arose at 4:15 and made our 7:45 ferry, taxing Steve to do the driving again. The Dukes at Queens sent us off with a takeaway breakfast, which was a nice touch. We would return there.

After two hours in comfort on the ferry, we arrived in Scotland, Troon specifically, and headed to Edinburgh, several more hours away. We have an apartment here for the next two days. It was not ready when we arrived at noon, but we found a nearby Starbucks to waste an hour in quite happily.

After settling into the apartment (2 bedrooms, kitchen, bath, washer/dryer [and I mean washer/dryer -- we will see how well it does either shortly]) not far from Edinburgh Castle.

Off we went in the direction of said Castle, Terry navigating because she still has a sense of direction, and eventually discovered that the enormous mound with huge buildings overlooking us was indeed the Castle. A nice brisk uphill trudge and we were there, admissions paid (we are called "concessions" due to our ages, which saved quite a few pounds on the fee), and off uphill again to see what we could see.

Terry, Sue, Steve

We still are unsure of the exact year in which the Castle began to be constructed, but King David I built St. Margaret's Chapel on the grounds in memory of his mother who died in 1093. And Terry recalls seeing a mention of walls that were there in the 800s AD. Can you imagine?

Edinburgh below the Castle

The view from the parapets is a stunner, with even the Firth of Forth visible in the distance.

We spent a good two hours looking through the Castle, including an historical museum of the Royal Scots Guards and another showing the long involved history of the crown jewels. Included there was the royal crown, full of garnets and amethysts and looking mighty heavy.

Leaving the Castle, we headed for the Royal Mile and found a highly recommended restaurant, Angels and Bagpipes (which had neither), where I had haggis and survived! It's not all that bad and I can check it off my list of native foods to try. (It's way better than manudo.)

Back to the apartment to rest two of our number who are dealing with colds and not enjoying it. Tomorrow is another day!

16,694 steps today, 8 miles.

Sunday September 1

Today we left Dublin and drove to Belfast, Northern Ireland, close to where we will depart for Scotland tomorrow early morning. We resolved to drive off what they call the motorways and instead wander the back roads along the coast of the Irish Sea. No such luck. We got lost time and again, but it was all in fun and we arrived in Belfast around 3pm.

Interesting that there was no border guard, no passport check, no nothing when we crossed the border from Ireland into Northern Ireland. 

We were lucky enough to have reservations at Dukes at Queens, a quaint hotel with modern amenities and the usual large and well-appointed bathroom with absolutely no storage. After having spent many hours in the car, we decided a long walk was in order, so we headed for City Hall. This is an  enormous and beautiful building with a memorial to Queen Victoria in its front and a Jumbotron in its side yard that was showing an international steeplechase competition.

Belfast City Hall

Then down to the waterfront to see what that looked like.

Belfast is pretty dark and very dirty. There's a lot of cigarette smoking in the UK, much more than you would encounter on the streets of the US. I watched a young man take a small packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, choose one to light and smoke, and throw the empty packet on the sidewalk. I can't remember the last time I saw that happen.

We returned on foot to the Dukes at Queens for dinner since we saw very few open restaurants and nothing of interest during our walk. We had low expectations about dinner and were very pleasantly surprised by a delicious meal in seedy-ish surroundings. Then to bed for a 4:15am wakeup call to make sure we get to Larne, 45 minutes north, in time for the ferry at 7:45.

8874 steps today, 4.5 miles or so.

Saturday August 31

The Long Room, Trinity College

Today began again on the "English" bus, this time for a short trip into Dublin where we visited the astounding Book of Kells at Trinity College. After learning about the sources of the dyes used for ink, treatment of the calf skin for the covers, binding and decoration, we visited the Long Room, which houses both restored and over 100,000 to-be-restored ancient texts. This is a dark and beautiful room in which the oldest text I saw dated from 5 years after Columbus discovered America.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

We returned to our two buses and were given a panoramic tour of Dublin, seeing the many bridges built over the ages over the River Liffey, the houses of Parliament, Phoenix Park where the US Ambassador's residence is located, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Then we were returned to Trinity College and set free for several hours on our own.

Kindelan Matriarch

Thanks to Terry's keen sense of direction, we located a recommended restaurant, The Bank, and lunched on fish and chips and fine Irish ale. Then we were off on a shopping quest, ultimately successful, and returned to the bus for a short trip back to City West Hotel.

Dinner took place at the hotel, with long rectangular tables full of Kindelans, the eldest 93 years old and sharp as a tack. We exchanged more details about ourselves, shared email addresses, and planned the next reunion in 3-5 years in (perhaps) Cordoba, Spain. We US Kindelans resolved to bring a larger contingent.

Walked 12,046 steps, 6 miles.

Friday August 30

When we went to breakfast Friday morning, the very first person we met was Ultano Kindelan from Madrid, the spitting image of our father, so we knew we were in the right place. We went off by bus to visit the site of the Battle of the Boyne, where the Kindelans were on the losing side and as a consequence were invited to depart Ireland in 1690. Those who left went to either Spain or Cuba; the Spanish line died out after some time while the Cuban contingent prospered, mostly in the military, and some of them then emigrated to Spain. Most of the Kindelans at this reunion are from either the Cuban or the Cuban/Spanish line.

We are a product of the great exception to the 1690 exodus. At least one Kindelan stayed in Ireland and at some point during the potato famine of the 1840s and 1850s Bernard left Ireland for New England.  Bernard begat Stephen Edwin, and Stephen begat ten children, one of whom was Stephen Jr, father of those of us who are here celebrating with cousins we never knew we had.

St. Ultano's Church, County Meath

We  have traveled here and there for two days together, and several of us wish we knew Spanish. While we are on the "English" bus, there's a whole lot of Spanish being spoken on the English bus. We have resolved to learn Spanish before the next reunion.

After the Battle site, we went to an ancient family church, Saint Ultano, and a spring-fed well on the grounds of a lovely large mansion recently purchased by an American family who plan to restore the tiny church in the coming years.

Ballinakill House, County Meath

Farewell from O'Malley Family

We were then treated to lunch at Ballinakill House in County Meath by Mary O'Malley, the current owner of what was once the family home. There were 93 of us, if you can imagine that many strangers large dropping by for lunch. The host family were lovely, turning their 150-year old house and gardens over to us for several hours while we dined and roamed and thanked them profusely for their hospitality. We learned more about our ancient family from several people from the neighborhood interested in their local history. One produced a map with the Kindelan property noted and another had photographed a page in a county register showing Edward Kindelan as the 94th name.

Back to City West Hotel to freshen up for dinner, dancing, and presentations by each family sector (there are 6 such sectors in attendance, 4 from Spain and 2 from the US giving a short history of its part of the family. Terry represented us well with a nice slide show about the 8 children of Bernard (who emigrated from Ireland), the 10 children of Stephen, down to the 5 children of Stephen Jr., Dad. The evening was fun and funny and went on beyond midnight.

Walked 4409 steps, just over 2 miles.

Wednesday August 28/Thursday August 29

This has been an eventful few days, beginning with a flight to Boston early Wednesday morning, water taxi to the Faneuil Hall area, long walk to Haru --the restaurant where nephew Tim works -- on Huntington Avenue. Lunch/visit with Tim followed by water taxi (which is a fun way to get to the airport from downtown Boston) back to Logan.

Met Terry in time for our flight to JFK and then that evening to Heathrow. These flights were not without their own excitement, including a missed flight to London, but we got the next one, not without more excitement, and arrived in London just one hour late.

Steve and Sue were waiting with the car, and off we went to Holyhead in Wales, there to catch the ferry to Dublin, where we were due for the beginning of the Kindelan family gathering. Suffice it to say that thanks to Steve's heroic driving efforts we made it. We were exhausted and glad to finally be at the City West Hotel outside Dublin, and we all slept very well.

Walked 14,608 steps today, about 7 miles.

It is time for a new walkabout. This time, across the pond: Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales. This time, with company: sister Terry, brother Steve, sister-in-law Sue. Daily posts and photos as before, just from a different perspective.

We will start with a Kindelan family reunion in Dublin, part of Ireland's The Gathering, an open invitation to anyone ever Irish, however remotely, to come back to the old sod and visit with family members from around the globe. It turns out that the Kindelans left Ireland in the mid-1840s to go either to the United States or to Spain. Most of those attending this reunion are from Madrid. We will be interested in seeing whether they have the clear blue eyes, fair skin, possibly red hair, and perhaps the Roman nose of our father and several of his 9 siblings.

We will meet them Thursday, August 29, in Dublin. And that will be the start of our new adventure.