Home..Sweet..Dublin

Returning from my business trip to Germany last week, it was so crazy to come home..to Dublin. While Dublin is now my home for now, Chicago will always be my "home home". 

So Germany! I flew into Dusseldorf, but the conference I was attending called Gamescom  was located in Cologne. I didn't have much time to explore the city since we were at the conference all day, every day for 3 days, then I flew home. But I did manage to take a photo from the cab on the way home from the show.

The cathedral you see there is said to be one of the only things that survived air strikes in WW2. Everything else, like the buildings you see below that were by my hotel, are post-war reconstruction.

Speaking of which, when I mentioned to my mom that I was in Cologne, Germany, it stuck a chord in her memory about my grandfather, Jack Keating's 35 missions in a B-17 "Flying Fortress" bomber during WW2. She dug up his old war journal, and shared the Cologne entries with me, which I have shared with you below. It turns out that he was flying a mission in Cologne 67 years ago to the day that I was there on a business trip.

It was kind of like the Brad Paisley song, Welcome to the Future, when Brad talks about his grandfather at his base in the Philippines fighting the Japanese, but how he (Brad) was on a video chat this morning with a company in Toyko (and he is a SONY recording artist). Brad actually just played 3 concerts in Ireland, one being in Dublin on August 19th! I am devastated to have missed them, but I was still flying home from Germany from the one in Dublin, and the other 2 were in Mayo and Cork. Pad and I have no time for road-trips right now. It's the harvest after all- Peadar goes to work before I get up, and I'm asleep before he gets home! Good (hard-working) man!

But back to Germany. Grandpa K flew 4 missions to Cologne: #16, @24, #27, and his grand finale, #35. Our family is blessed he entered service towards the end of the war, when B-17's had fighter plane escorts. As they were carrying 6,000 pound bombs in them, if anything went wrong it usually did not end up good. And at the beginning of the war the chances of surviving your missions were catastrophically low. Still, 35 missions is a lot to have gone through, even after things got better. 

It took 12 hours for my Grandfather to fly from his base in England to the targets over Germany and back- flying continuously over enemy territory for 10-12 hours. Planes were powered by propeller then, making them slow by today's standards, they didn't go nearly as high, and weren't pressurized, making it very cold! Now we fly at 36,000 feet with our feet up and a glass of wine not a bother in us!

See summaries of his entries here:

Mission #16 was August 15,1944, (67 years to the day from when I was in Cologne). The plane was "Chug-A-Lug"; target was the southeast city airfield.They had intense flak, but with good fighter escort. He flew squadron lead for the first time.

Mission #24 was on October 5, 1944, flying in "Wild Bill." Terrible weather...very hard to locate target which was the MPI Marshalling Yards. They flew at 29,700 feet, the highest he had ever flown! Another flyer's journal referred to the overcast as "Hitler's weather".

Mission #27 was on October 14, 1944 in "Wild Bill", targeting the marshalling yards. They had overcast weather; took a shot in the nose: a piece of flak flew over Carter's head and out the left side. From now on, he will have to lead; may not make X-mas dinner at home. (Carter was the navigator from Merced, California.)

Mission #35 on January 3, 1945. The weather was overcast; they had to divert to the secondary target (PFF Center City); they had 51's for escort. Jack said, "Nice one to finish on. Didn't sweat it out too much. That's all for this tour!" 

*Jack noted in his journal on 11-6-44, "Chug-A-Lug went down today." Grandpa K flew nearly half of his missions in Chug-A-Lug in August and September,1944! However, on 11-6-44 he was flying in "Minnie the Mermaid" and he didn't fly on 11-6-44. The force was with him!  By the grace of God, he made it through 35 missions and I am alive to tell about it!

All of this history got me thinking, and I was recommended the book In the Garden of Beasts  by Erik Larson. Some of you may recognize his name as the author of Devil in the White City (which I heard is being made into a movie with Leo D as creepy serial killer HH Holmes- cannot wait, that will be epic-ly amazing!!) which is about architecture and the Worlds Fair in 1893. But In the Garden of Beasts is about a University of Chicago history professor who against all odds was appointed Ambassador to Germany just as the Nazi party came to political power. His correspondence offers a non-bias look into how Germany transformed in the 1930's, and can help people of today better understand how the Nazi's managed to revolutionize Germany in such a short amount of time. I am only half way through as of now, but it is extremely good so far!

So you may be wondering what I was doing in Germany? We were attending a conference for Gaming companies, and we were pitching boxPAY to them as a mobile payment solution. All the big gaming companies were there:

World of Warcraft and the new 007 Goldeneye game.

In order to eat without getting poisoned, I had to figure out what Celiac was in German, and how to communicate that when I was ordering food. Apparently in German, I am Zoliakie! When I needed to tell them this I just held up my iPhone and had them read the screen on the right below, which basically says I can't have wheat :)

Oh yeah, there was also painted ladies (kind of like the playboy mansion) walking around as well, but dressed as video game characters. And no actual nudity, I think they had underwear on underneath. 

But I am back in Dublin now and happy to be here. Last night we went out for a team dinner at the Schoolhouse Bar in Ballsbridge, and I STILL cannot get a dirty vodka martini anywhere. I think it's because they don't keep olives as a garnish at the bar, and if they do, they are sitting in oil, not brine, like the place last night. I ordered a seafood plate and was fully not prepared for what came out.....

Fully shelled crab, prawns (with claws and eyeballs and everything), oysters and these baby snails things. It was a serious effort to get about an ounce of food! But nonetheless delicious. Would you dare eat the plate above?

As a sign-off, I want to give a shout out to all the farmers out there harvesting 18 hours a day. If you live in Ireland and are driving around in the countryside this month, you might be especially slowed down by all of the tractors and International Harvesters. < Worth the click ;) Just be glad there isn't a traffic jam like the one below that you're stuck in! 

Peace, Love & Tractors,

Amanda

Guten tag! Off to Germany tomorrow...

Hello all my loyal friends and fam, sorry for the no-post last week, I was afraid I ran out of things to say!

But thankfully no, there is always something going on, and this week you can find me talking away on the homepage of boxpay.com, just click the video to watch me talk about our mobile billing platform :)

We also had a painter come into the office this week to install Idea Paint, which essentially turns our wall into a whiteboard that we can brainstorm on, which is pretty cool.

We also went to the Leopardstown Horse Races this week for work, since we had people from our Australia and South Africa offices in. We dressed up all nice and fancy but forgot to take pictures because we were too busy cocktailing and betting on the races.

Peadar and I went to Skerries last night and ate at Blue. I took these pictures from the deck where we were having a drink.

The tide was really low so all the boats were beached! 

 Anyway, I am off to Cologne, Germany tomorrow for my first business trip so I will take good pics there and share with you all!

XOXO

Amanda

Snow Whyte and the 7 Dubs

Chimpy, Stumpy, Lumpy, Mushy, Fishy, Skippy, Slippy!

Sound Familiar? No, its not Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, it's the Clan Mhuire Gaelic Football Team! No joke, those are just some of the nicknames you can hear roared and shouting from the sidelines.

Peadar plays Gaelic Football, which I can best describe to my American clan as a cross between soccer and rugby. But as any GAA fan will tell you, the Irish invented their sport first, long before the other 2 existed. Clan Mhuire is the local club, and there are like 22 divisions and his team plays in the 3rd one. Think like AAA baseball. (If you were wondering which nickname Peadar has, it's Krusty). 

We had a bunch of bbqs and events last weekend so I got my hair did. Took a funny makeup-less pic while I was all roller-ed up and thought I would share with all you fantastic people. Made a new friend at the hair salon (go me!) but she recently invited me to a vegan meet-up group and yoga class so I am not sure we are on the same page. But she was lovely all the same. 

My little brother Gregory is in town. Every time I hear his full name now I think of Talladega Nights and Jean Gerrard's boyfriend Gregory from France. Haha, well anyway, Greg goes by Greg, and he is in Dublin experiencing my cool life. So naturally, we took Greg to the Whyte Gun Club for a shooting lesson with Eddie (Pad's Dad). He did extremely well! Check him out in the storage locker below:

Eddie showed us this gun pictured above, and told us its net worth...get ready... $25,000 retail value. Apparently the more detailed the engraving and the better the metal and craftsmanship are the more $$ a gun is. Makes sense but still...that's a car, or a down payment on a house! Wonder who the lucky purchaser will be?

Pic: Greg and I out for an afternoon of clay pigeon and rabbit shooting.

On Tuesday we got down and touristy and went on a Viking Splash Tour. Similar to the Duck Tours in the Wisconsin Dells which we went on when we were little. (Greg and I both remembered those tours similarly, as one of the scariest, most awesome adventures of our youth!) They are the WW2 Army DUKWs that go on land and water. Our tour guide said ours had been documented as actually participating in D-Day. How cool is that? Our viking guide was really funny and had us roaring at unsuspecting victims on cell phones or reading maps at street corners. I would highly recco the tour as a fun way to see historic shiz in Dubs.

Pad, Greg and I are going to the GAA (Gaelic Football, come on now, remember above) semi-final in Croke Park, also known as Croker (love) on Saturday night. Dublin vs. Tyrone, should be a good one! (What do I know?! haha) 

XOXO

Keating 

Happy Birthday to Me!

Hi Everyone! Happy Birthday to me! Peadar and I celebrated with some dinner and champagne last night. Roll on Moet & Chandon.  

It was Malahide Summer Days in our little village over the weekend. We had amazing weather and loads of people came out. There was everything from jazzercise in the park, to bands playing on the street, and the restaurants each had little booths with great bbqs! 

I went for a walk, a long ass walk down the beach on Saturday because Peadar was working (joys of being a farmer, can't imagine what the impending harvest is going to be like) and I took some great pics along the beach. People were actually swimming in the water even though it was only like 65 degrees out, but hey, that's a scorcher to the Irish.

I think the entire population of the Malahide Yacht Club was out on the water, see the sails dotting the horizon? Maybe one day I'll be cool enough to be a member ;)

So anyway I was walking down the beach, and I just kept walking and walking down through Portmarnock, a town that is famous for its golf club, which doesn't let women in. Well let me tell you that sure didn't keep me out. I was walking down the beach and there was fewer and fewer people. I kept looking in the distance thinking I could see a road, and Peadar could pick me up there, not realizing there was water in between me and that road. I knew I was in trouble when the beach started curving, and I found myself on a sandbar peninsula. I heard voices and ran ahead to find a couple, and I was planning on asking them how to get out of there when they said..."do you know which way the road is?" We were all stranded.  Well turning around meant at least a 2 or 3 mile walk back and my new found friends and I were not prepared to go back. We were on an adventure damn it, and we were going to Bear Grylls our way through this thing.

You are welcome for the picture of him (in Ireland, actually) in no shirt!!! My new friends and I literally hopped a stream and waded our way through marsh quality grass, when we spotted...that's it... the Portmarock Golf Club! We dodged some flying golf balls and flaunted our feminism (well except for the guy that was there) as we ran through hole after hole of staring, unapproving men in old school golf sweaters. In end we doged security and Peadar was waiting for me at the entrance (I had called him earlier for a ride home). My hero.

Later on we went back into town in Malahide for an evening concert, but I was so tired from my big adventure that I went home early. It turned out okay though, because then on Sunday I had plenty of energy to go to the beach with these 3 gems pictured below. I then became one of the Irish swimming in the water I was laughing at on Saturday. Funny how that happens...

How's that heat wave in Chicago?

XOXO

Amanda

Wedding Bells, Irish Songs, Country Living

 Hey everyone! Pad and I had a great weekend in Killarney, Co. Kerry for a wedding of Peadar's cousin!

But the Friday before we left, we shot a promotional video at the office. See the lighting and cameras below. In the end they decided they needed and girl and a non-Irish accent, so I made the cut and will be in the video! I'll send you a link when the editing is finished.

The lights were really bright so Gavin (my boss and co-founder of boxPAY) wore sunnies during the breaks.

After work on Friday, Peadar and I drove 4 hours down from Dublin to Killarney. Check out the map below. Ireland is smaller than Illinois, so 4 hours is definitely the most it takes to get anywhere, and usually anywhere you go is about half that time!

It's really funny how many animals you see in the countryside. We stopped at this hotel for dinner on the way down and there were just these horses hanging out by the parking lot. You could go right up to them!

But we finally made it down and there was a lovely wedding! See Joe and Juliet below...

And Peadar and I...

Okay this is seriously not a joke, late the night of the wedding, usually at around 5AM (yes Irish weddings last that long) there is a "singsong," where everyone sits around and listens to different people taking turns to sing, or all sing together. I didn't make it to the 5AM singsong thanks to all the wine I had, but lucky for me there was a repeat performance the next night at dinner. Check out the video to see what I mean!

I am going to post the words to another song that someone else sang that I thought was really lovely and you would enjoy:

This version is by the Dubliners, but the song is called simply "A Song For Ireland"

Walking all the day
near tall towers where falcons build their nests
Silver wings they fly,
They know the call for freedom in their breasts,
Saw Black Head against the sky
Where twisted rocks they run down to the sea
Living on your western shore,
Saw summer sun sets, I asked for more,
I stood by your Atlantic Sea,
And I sang a song for Ireland

Drinking all the day,
In old pubs where fiddlers love to play,
Saw one touch the bow,
He played a reel that seamed so grand and gay,
I stood on Dingle beach and cast,
In wild foam for Atlantic bass,
Living on your western shore,
Saw summer sunsets, I asked for more,
I stood by your Atlantic Sea,
And sang a song for Ireland

Talking all the day,
With true friends who try to make you stay,
Telling jokes and news,
Singing songs to while the time away,
Watched the galway salmon run,
Like silver dancing, darting in the sun,
living on your western shore,
Saw summer sunsets, I asked for more,
I stood by your Atlantic Sea,
And i sang a song for Ireland

Dreaming in the night,
I saw a land where no-one had to fight,
Waking in your dawn,
I saw you crying in the morning light,
sleeping where the falcons fly,
They twist and turn all in your air-blue sky,
Living on your western shore,
Saw summer sunsets, I asked for more,
I stood by your Atlantic sea,
And I sang a song for Ireland 

A really popular thing to do is drive the 'Ring of Kerry' to enjoy the scenery. Pad was keen to do this, but seeing as how I get really carsick on Irish roads (think one lane winding roads and small stick shift cars) and it was really rainy and overcast anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion the 'Ring of Kerry' may be like the 'Road to Hana' for all of you that have ever been to Maui or have heard of that! So I did all my sightseeing from the view of the spa we went to on Monday, Aghadoe Heights.

Lastly, on our way home, we stopped to see Peadar's good pal Gerry Delaney. Ger has visited Chicago 2x with Pad, this is us on NYE below:

Anyway Ger is building a house, which is going great for him, and he bought a new heard of heffers (cows). He so kindly showed them to Pad and I, and I was freaking out laughing, running around in them. I'm a real country girl now! Cows are big and look funny (and are smelly!) in real life.

Would you even know me if you met me now?

XOXO Amanda