What is better than to sit at the end of the day and drink wine with friends, or substitutes for friends. – James Joyce Dublin is a literary town. Bookstores, libraries, literary museums and tour, pubs where famous authors hung out, Dublin has them in spades. The city has contributed four Nobel laureates in literature … More An unlikely story (or what to read, see, eat and drink in Dublin)
Above us, only sky. – Motto of Liverpool John Lennon Airport My Ryanair nightmare wasn’t over. Every day for two weeks leading up to our anniversary trip to Dublin, I opened harassing emails from Ryanair asking, “Don’t you want to get through security faster?” or reminding me how I could save ten percent on an … More I never said it was a brilliant idea
Everyone, deep down within, carries a small cemetery of those he has loved. – Romain Rolland Humans have always built monuments to commemorate the dead. Ancient Egyptians mummified the bodies of people and pets before entombing them in pyramids. Prehistoric Britons moved megalithic stones hundreds of miles and encircled them with grave mounds. A Chinese … More Top 10: Cemeteries
I’ve got a surprise especially for you, something that both of us have always wanted to do. – Two Tickets to Paradise With our anniversary looming on the horizon, Robie started hinting around about how 29 years of wedded bliss should count for something. By this, he meant he should be in line for a … More The one going down the low-cost carrier rabbit hole
If you wait for a perfect church, you must wait until you get to heaven. – Charles Spurgeon Since Reid’s post last week was about walking the Camino de Santiago with her sister, I thought I’d put together a collection of church pictures from our time in Liverpool. After all, the destination at the end … More Gallery of Churches in Liverpool, Chester & Dublin
Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. – Winston Churchill I apparently hadn’t thought things through. Because when I asked my sister to walk the Camino de Santiago with me, the reactions I got were, well… bizarre. First, Cheryl didn’t respond to my invitation. Instead, she left the question … More It’ll be grand! *
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern – Samuel Johnson These establishments of social gathering are part of the fabric of life in Great Britain, dispensing food and libations along with providing a venue to watch their beloved English Premiere … More Gallery: Pubs, A British Way of Life
This book is dedicated to all Yankees in the hope that it will teach them how to talk right. – How to Speak Southern Before I moved to Texas, I read Steve Mitchell’s helpful little handbook How to Speak Southern to explain why my new neighbors pronounced “eye” like “ah,” said “Ahmoan” when they meant … More Lern Yerself Scouse
I got nowhere else to go! – An Officer and a Gentleman When people asked, “Why Liverpool?” I couldn’t help conjuring Richard Gere’s soulful cry in the pouring rain when he refused to drop out of officer candidate school. While Robie tried to explain the choice in terms of language (English predominantly spoken), size (a … More Never say never: When we didn’t plan to go to Liverpool
All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting. – Paul Theroux I used to avoid reading travel narratives. I just couldn’t stomach following someone else’s voyage down the Amazon or trek across the Himalayas. Not when I so desperately wanted to be the protagonist in a far-off adventure and reading their … More The Pillars of Hercules
Reid & Robie 