El Presidente

I had a pretty busy little Wednesday this week.  Or a busy week in general, I guess.  I confess that I didn't cook anything new for my weekly post, because we made a hell of a lot of Spaghetti and Meatballs on Monday and have been eating them every night.  Whoops.  So stay tuned for the cooking next week.

My Spanish class started on Wednesday!  It was supposed to start on Monday but my class was canceled so I got into another class.  Unfortunately it conflicted with an American Women's group outing I had already signed up for (that's right, I signed up for something, BY MYSELF, thank you very much) so I couldn't stay.  I went for the first 20 minutes and met my 10 classmates and the teacher and got to introduce myself and get an overview of the class.  I think I'm gonna like it!  I'm younger than everyone in the class by at least 20 years but that's AOK with me.  And none of them have amazing Spanish skillz either, so I feel good about that too.  It just felt really good to engage my brain and to speak Spanish again.  Ahh.  I hated to leave but I won't miss another one!

The outing with the AW group was a tour of the President's house (of Ireland), called the Aras an Uachtarain, and a "sit down" with the First Lady!  I figured this was kind of an exciting opportunity and I shouldn't miss it, even though I had Spanish class and knew no one else going and didn't have a way to get there.  It's evidently a big deal to be let inside the house so I decided to go for it.  One expensive cab ride later, I was pulling up to the Irish White House!  Cooooool!

We were welcomed into the house and brought down a long hallway into one of the State Rooms for tea, coffee, and a few classy snacks.  There was a lot of me standing around by myself, busying myself with the tea and the scones and walking around the room, but that's ok.  The guard then informed us that the President and the First Lady had to change their plans and had JUST left the night before for South America, so they wouldn't be joining us.  Boooo.  I began to regret my decision until our guard/tour guide started talking and delighted all of us with his Irish charm and history of the house.

Side note: all these pictures are grainy from my iPhone but I did what I could.

The back side of the house, with some random lady.

The long hallway we walked down to the state room.

The main state room, where the Pres receives dignitaries and foreign leaders and what not.  Evidently Clinton and Obama both have pictures with the Pres in front of this fireplace.

Oh look!  I found the pic.

This is technically the front yard/grounds of the house.  Lovely.

My cup o' tea and baby scone.  Yum.

The next room over held portraits of all the presidents of Ireland.  These two were the first president,  Douglas Hyde, and the eighth, Mary McAleese.  Keep in mind Ireland became a Republic in the 1930s so they're only on their ninth!

This is a huge phoenix on the carpet, to represent Ireland "rising from the ashes".

Pretty gold ceiling.

Realllly pretty chandelier.  Evidently when the Queen was here a year or two ago, she commented that it would look nice in her palace.  Not happening, Liz!

Close up.

This tree in the distance was planted by Queen Victoria!  Coool!

This other tree on the left, which you can hardly see, was planted by the Pope when he came in 1979.

Here's the front of the house, with a bunch of randos.

This beautiful couch was a gift from France's President Charles de Gualle, and it came from the bedroom of Marie Antoinette at Versailles!  I sat on the same place where Marie did!  Pretty awesome. 

This table was given to Bill Clinton upon his visit by the Prime Minister, and he turned around and regifted it to the President.  They joke that Bill must have been flying Ryanair out of there, which he why he handed it off.
(Ryanair doesn't let you take anything on board with you.  #Irishjokes)

Daniel O'Connell, a big time revolutionary.  Everyone loves this guy here.  

The backyard/grounds, filled with cows!  Who knew.

The house had a ton of cool history; it was built in the mid-eighteenth century by the grounds keeper as his own home, and then it became the place all the royals visited and stayed when they'd visit.  It was finally turned into to the President's home in 1938, I believe.  I eventually made a few friends and even got a ride home from one of them, so it was a good outing all together and a good opportunity to take advantage of some of these crazy things the American Women's group has to offer!