On the way to Ireland and Day 1!

We have made it safely to Dublin.  We had a quick nap in the early afternoon and will power through the rest of the day so we can adjust to the time change more easily.

Our little plane from Harrisburg to Boston

Aer Lingus to Dublin!

Our first view of Ireland!!  Love the shamrock on the tip of the wing!

Arriving at the Dublin Airport

Timmies in Dublin??

Garden of Remembrance

Jonhn's Irish Stew for supper

Guinness and beef pie for my supper

Ireland bound!

Finally time to get this poor neglected blog back in use!!  We are heading to Dublin Ireland for a conference (International Health Economics Association).  I will be presenting a paper at the conference.  We are going a week early so that we can do some exploring around Dublin and Ireland.  Getting so excited!!  Our flight leaves this evening and we will arrive tomorrow morning.  I will be seriously jet-lagged and short on sleep.  The plan is to do some exploring during the day on Monday and then get to sleep early Monday evening - that should hopefully get our internal clocks reset some!

We plan to post pictures and descriptions of our Irish adventure here (and on Facebook...)!!

Not a bad amount of luggage for two weeks!!  We manage to pack as light as we can!

Well we have been traveling again. This time it was a day trip to Atlantic City. We thought it was a fun way to spend Labor Day. We left Lancaster at 8 in the morning on the bus. We arrived in Atlantic city at 10:30. We were given 30 dollars each to spend at the casino. We do not have a picture of Karen winning any money. She says she teaches stats and knows that gambling is a losing game. I never took a stats course so I do not know that it is a losing fame so I gambled and won $300.00.

John's lucky machine!

$300 richer - cashed out and left instead of leaving that at the casino!

Here is where we had lunch

The beach - storm a coming!!

Nice seating area on a mall near the casino - looks out onto the beach

Relaxing

The view from those nice chairs behind us

The boardwalk

Here is a video of a pretty water fountain show at the mall we were in.  Fair warning - this video is about 9 or 10 minutes long!

John and his mission trip to New Jersey.

Well we had one last major trip planned for the summer.  We were planning to go to New Jersey and help out after Hurricane Sandy.  Karen said she had to stay back and prep for the courses this fall so I went with 5 other people from my church to help out in the rebuilding.One thing we did notice soon after we arrived was the massive amount of destruction as well as what is still left to clean up.  Here is one picture I took out of the car on the way to the job site.

 

We arrived at the command center.  It was located in a church/school.  The group organizing it was the Baptist Men of North Carolina.  They had a vast amount of resources right on site - everything from trailers full of tools to bunk houses to one trailer that was full of washers and dryers so people could get their laundry done.

Our group was assigned a lot of little jobs at one families home.  Here is me taking some measurements.  Our moto was measure once and cut twice, or I think that's what it was.

We got a lot of work but it was not all work. We did have some time to relax.  One day we went down to the beach.

That's me in the water!

We also had time in the evenings to relax.  It was good to relax after a day of work.

It was great to help out and meet a lot of people - those helping out and those who need help.  It was a great experience!  There is still a lot of destruction that needs to be cleaned up but a lot has been done.  The last day I took a picture of this banner that I think summed up the thinking of the people of the area.

  

State College PA

So we are back home and slowly getting over our jet lag.  I had to go to a meeting up at University Park so we took a quick road trip there.  We had lunch at the Penn State Creamery!

Front entrance - someone must have been in a hurry and broke the door!!

Mine - Death by Chocolate

John's - No sugar added Strawberry

After lunch we went to the Palmer Museum of Art.  This place was very nice!!  They had a lot of very nice art work to see.

Then I went off to my meeting and John continued to wander around campus.  We had a nice supper out (seafood buffet!) and then drove home.

What John was doing while Karen was at the conference. (Day 3)

I started the day by going straight to the Museum of Australian Currency Notes.

In 1966 the country of Australia went to decimal currency.

Here is a video that I say at the museum.

It was a fun museum and I learned a lot about Australia.  I had more time left so I thought I would go back to The Botanical Gardens.

I sat by this pond for a long time.

Finally a view of the Harbour from The Botanical Gardens!

A fun three days of exploring Sydney!

What John was doing while Karen was at the conference. (Day 2)

Today my main goal was to cross over the Harbour Bridge.

Here I go!

A view of the Opera House from the bridge.

Made it to the other side!

I had some more time so I decided to head to the Botanical Gardens.  This is the lower area of the gardens called The Domain.

While I was in The Domain I stopped by The Art Gallery of New South Wales.  A lot of beautiful works of art in the gallery.

No this is not me after all the walking I did.  This was a work of art at the gallery.  There where many other types and works of art.

All in all it was a fun day and I got to see a lot of Sydney.  On my way back to the Hotel I say a museum I thought I would check out tomorrow.