Our first Lansing-area house guests!

Our first visitors from Lansing were some limnology lab folks. Emily Norton Henry (Kendra's former PhD student who graduated last summer), Angela De Palma-Dow (her current MS student), and Emi Fergus (Pat Soranno's current PhD student). They arrived mid-day Saturday on the bus from Dublin, and Kendra's running ex-pat friend Pauline went with Kendra to pick them up from the Europa bus station. After a couple of hours freshening up and chatting, they headed with Kendra and Watson down to QUB to see campus, visit the Botanic Gardens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanic_Gardens_(Belfast)), and do a very quick check of the Ulster Museum. Then, they met Jubin and Jamieson at the Ginger Bistro for dinner before turning in for a much needed night's sleep.

A neat piece of art inside the QUB "castle"

Inside the Palm House Conservatory at the Botanic Gardens - amazing smells!

On Sunday, they took the city bus down to City Centre and did the double-decker sight seeing Belfast City Tour (https://belfastcitysightseeing.com/). Unfortunately, it was raining, so they had to take the closed-top bus and they were all out of the kids packs! But, it was a really interesting 90-minute tour of the city. They all, including Kendra, learned all sorts of things about Belfast they didn't know, and saw some really neat sights. Next time, hopefully it won't be raining so that she can get some pix! After the tour, the rain let up a bit so the group wandered around City Centre for a bit. They went up to the top of the dome in Victoria Centre to see the city from up high, walked along the River Lagan, and checked out the Big Fish and the leaning Albert Clock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Memorial_Clock,_Belfast).

Angela with camera, Emily in middle, Emi in front.

Albert Memorial Clock - yep, it is leaning! 

Supposedly, it is good luck if you kiss the Big Fish!

The sun and clouds were doing amazingly beautiful things that afternoon.

After dinner Sunday night, the gals drove out to Bob and Kath's house to spend Monday with them. Tues and Wed, the went to the north coast (Antrim Co), and Wed night they returned back to our house. Thursday, Kendra drove the gals (yep, she finally drove here in the UK on the other side of the road!) to a couple of really amazing sights between Beflast and Dublin (map here: http://goo.gl/maps/jBofn). After a little detour when they missed an exit off of the highway (woops!), they visited Monasterboice. This site has a 35m-high round tower and a couple of high Celtic crosses, all likely built during the 10th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monasterboice).

Then, they went to Newgrange, which is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There is a visitor centre, called Brú na Bóinne, and three archeological sites that are accessible via a short bus ride - Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth. These 3 sites are Neolithical passage tombs or ritual chambers. Newgrange was the only one open that day, so they took a tour of that one. It is older than the pyramids, dating back to ~3200 BC, and was constructed out of massive boulders and rocks and dirt very precisely so that the sun shines through a window in the chamber as daylight breaks on Dec 21 each year. So cool! Here is more info: http://www.newgrange.com/ and Kendra's pix from the site.

The visitor center - see the little rock pools on either side of the sidewalk?
Below is looking closely into them!

Ten's-hundreds of good-sized frogs and MILLIONS of eggs. 

Newgrange - passage tomb, ritual chamber ~5000 years old.

The front of the chamber - the bottom opening is the door,
the top one is the window that the sub comes into on Dec 21.
Only 50 people each yr get to experience that,
so they have a lottery - I put my sister's name into the drawing! 

Another passage tomb (there are ~35 of them in the area) that has not been excavated
so that when new archeological techniques are discovered there will be intact tombs to learn from. 

Really cool artwork on some of the massive boulders.

The country-side view from the site.

Knowth, in the distance - only open during summer months. I'll be back to see it!

Pussy willows in bloom - it really is spring!

After leaving Newgrange, Kendra brought the limno gals into Drogheda to the bus station so that they could grab a bus into Dublin, starting the 2nd leg of their trip. They would spend 3 nights in Dublin and then fly to Edinburgh where they would spend another 3 nights before returning to the USA. We're so glad that they came to visit us and explore the island of Ireland!