It has been interesting, though. The number of burrito vendors in Dublin is exploding, with at least three places opening in City Centre since I arrived. And the quality is going up, too: Of the three places I’ll mention below as the best, only one was open last summer.

A few tasting notes and then I’ll tell you what I like best:

• At most places, I tried (on different days) both the chicken and the pork. Chicken is easy to cook, but unless you get the seasonings right turns out bland. Pork, on the other hand, is hard to cook right, and a lot of places wind up with a sloppy wet mess that would be more at home in an elementary school cafeteria line.

• I had a lot of trouble finding salsas that I like. I like the medium corn salsa at Chipotle, but I’ll also settle for a medium tomato-based salsa. At a surprising number of places here, the medium salsa is a salsa verde. I’m not a fan of the style. But, it turns out, the Irish seem to like their food fairly mildly spiced, so I can usually get by with the hot salsa here.

• Lots of places here (even some of the good places) overstuff their burritos. To me, the beauty of the burrito is partly in being a self-contained food item. If it falls apart, then it fails that test.

So, here it is. The best burritos in Dublin, by my reckoning:

• Tuzo. Opened a few months ago on Dawson Street and has since become my most frequent burrito. The ingredients here always taste super fresh, bursting with flavor. My only complaint is that sometimes the burritos are overfilled and fall apart.

• Pablo Picante. I’ve only ever been to the Baggot Street location. Not sure how long they’ve been around, but they certainly predate me. Good burritos, and the best, most interesting (in my opinion) salsa in Dublin in their “Smokie.”

• Tolteca. Just opened on Suffolk Street, where I discovered them, but apparently they had a location on Upper Baggot Street already. The closest thing I’ve found to a Chipotle clone in Ireland, down to free refills on fountain drinks (unheard of in Europe, though the cups here are tiny by American standards) and white and brown rice choices (only recently rolled out at Chipotle). They have good chips and a kids’ menu, too.

Honorable mention goes to:

• Burritos and Blues. I was unimpressed the first couple of times that I went here, but I wound up having a couple excellent pork burritos. (I still can’t really recommend the chicken, though.) Also, their black beans are refried, which is … odd.

• Boojum. Went here about three times, and the burritos weren’t bad. In fact, I had a chicken burrito that was outstanding, though overstuffed. But it’s a long trek from my office, and twice I’ve made the walk only to have to wait for them because they were late opening.

The strangest thing about the symposium, particularly given the topic, is that it has no web page that I can find. It was claimed, though, that the presentations would be posted online and available as a podcast. I’ll follow up by email this week and, if I find anything, I’ll update this post. In the meantime, here’s a press release about the event, which does contain a link to the Provost of Trinity College’s¹ prepared remarks².

In this blog post, though, I want to mention two particular sources of inspiration to me from the day:

1. Simon Bates gave a talk titled “Flipping the Classroom, Flipping the Culture.” I’ve known about active learning for a long time, and I’ve tried to incorporate it into my teaching to some extent. But I’ve always felt that I could and should do more. This talk gave me a model that I’m going to try the next time I teach undergraduates.³ This Prezi appears to be an earlier version of the same talk.⁴

2. Audrey Watters, of the blog Hack Education, gave a talk titled “Who’s Education Data Is It?” It was an interesting talk, with lots of food for thought, and she put some of her thoughts on the subject in a Storify here. I enjoyed her talk, and I’m really glad that I found her blog, which distills a large amount of news and information into something that I can actually track. Watters also made a Storify which is currently probably the best available record of the symposium.

   But the moment of inspiration actually came in the panel at the end of the day. Someone asked about the relevance of the app/music/ebook marketplace to higher education. Some panelists riffed on iTunesU and then started down a tangent about tools and platforms. And then Watters said: “The web is the platform.” I’ve heard this a million times, so it shouldn’t have been profound. But for years I’ve been guilty of sticking my course content into our Sakai-based LMS because it’s so easy. I need to do better and liberate that content onto the web. And the next time I teach a course, I will try to do so.

Plus, I agree with Dr. Drang: Apple played hardball with Google and wound up getting most of what they wanted, in the form of a standalone Google Maps app, anyway.

But, I tried using the Apple Maps app a few times while traveling around rural Ireland last week, and searching is awful. To give the best example: On our way to County Cork, we stopped at the Rock of Cashel. The bathrooms there were being renovated—it is low season, to say the least. So, when we finished our visit, we wanted to find a restroom before getting back on the road. Near the parking lot, I saw a discarded McDonald’s cup. As an American, I instinctively associate McDonald’s with clean(ish) restrooms on road trips. And, while there aren’t many McDonald’s in Ireland, I thought maybe there was one in Cashel.

So, I pull out my phone, open the Apple Maps app, and type McDonald’s in the search box. And the first result? A McDonald’s in Cashel, Ontario, Canada, 3200 miles away. No, I am not kidding. This is not a point of interest problem. This is a search problem.

As it turns out, there is a McDonald’s in Cashel, Ireland, but Google Maps didn’t find it, either. At least Google Maps suggested a few in Ireland, though, including the next closest location, about 12 miles away (but not on our route). As for us, we stopped at a gas station, where the bathrooms were cleaner than you’ll find in most American gas stations, anyway.

I pointed this out to a colleague, though, and he said (paraphrasing): “Your perception is also skewed by the fact that you are on sabbatical. I live in Boston. I did a sabbatical in Minneapolis one year. By every measure, Boston is a better city. And yet, my memories of Minneapolis—working at 80% capacity, spending more time with my family, …” At that point he trailed off and audibly sighed.

So, perhaps I see the world here through rose colored glasses. I am in love with this city, though. And we certainly see differences between the U.S. and Ireland, especially having now traveled a bit in more rural Ireland, too, but they are complex and nuanced and hard to blog about without stereotyping or overgeneralizing.

No, this isn’t really the reason that I haven’t posted more often. I won’t make excuses or promises, but I have a measurable goal that I think is achievable. So, I expect to do better.

It has been a perfect souvenir. I used it in my home office in Blacksburg, usually to drink water, several times a week. And, each time, it reminded me of my trips to Dublin and my friends here.

Since coming here in late June, I’ve come to know that finding an empty pint glass on a Dublin street isn’t exactly a rare occurrence. But most of the abandoned glasses that I’ve seen have been emblazoned with the logos of cheap American beers, and I’ve refused to pick them up. (Don’t get me started on the generally sorry state of craft beer in Ireland—a post for another day.) Becky did find a Heineken glass in our driveway after a soccer game one morning, but I doubt if we’ll haul it back to America.

Since arriving here, I’ve also enjoyed a pint of Guinness on a number of occasions. And, on the occasions when it is served in an actual Guinness pint glass, I’ve admired the design of the new glasses. They have a sculpted harp on one side, and the harp motif is carried into the shape of the lower part of the glass, providing some ridges that make the glass easier to hold. I even thought about buying a set, although I really have more pint glasses in Blacksburg than one man really needs.

I went into the office this morning. Upon making my coffee, I found, to my annoyance, that we were out of sugar. I was annoyed because I bought the last two bags of communal sugar, and the previous bag ran out before I left for the holidays. Yet no one else had stepped up to replace it. So, despite knowing that it would likely be closed, I slipped out of the office door and down the street to the convenience store. The store was, in fact, closed but there, on the sidewalk in front of Centra, I found my souvenir.

First, Becky left her purse on the first train of the day. As we got off at our stop, Noah was throwing a temper tantrum. I was getting the larger luggage and the big kids off the train and, while struggling with the tantruming toddler, she just left it under the edge of her seat. It was a short connection, and she realized it was missing as we boarded the next train five minutes later. But the purse was long gone, on a train that wouldn’t stop again before London. We reported the missing purse to the conductor on our new train, and he called the station to contact the train we had departed. We didn’t hear anything back through the expected channels, but when we tracked down the right number to call later in the afternoon, we found that the purse had gotten to exactly where it was supposed to be, iPhone and all. There have been some logistical problems with getting it shipped back to us—they wanted us to come and get it and have had some IT problems with setting up the shipment—but it is going to happen soon I think. I’m grateful for the strangers, employees or passengers from the train and the staff at the stations, who made this happen.

Second, and more personally, when we arrived at Holyhead station to board our 5:15 p.m. ferry we found that it—a fast ferry prone to cancel in high seas—had been canceled. We were already scheduled to get home at the children’s bedtime, and we didn’t really have a backup plan. The next Irish Ferries ferry was a slow ferry at 2:00 in the morning—not a viable option for a family with small children. There was also a slow Stena Line ferry at 9:30 p.m., but pedestrians were not permitted, only vehicle passengers. As we stood in the terminal, pondering our next move, a man approached us. He asked if we had been planning to take the 5:15 p.m. ferry. He said that he had been, also, and, while he had planned to go as a pedestrian, he had his car and, if he could get a refund on his Irish Ferries ticket, he would be taking the Stena Line. Would we be interested in squeezing into his car to get on the ferry? We worried a bit about if this was some kind of scam, but he seemed sincere. After he got his refund with Irish Ferries, I went with him to the Stena Line desk to make our booking and felt more secure after I paid Stena Line directly for our portion of the fare.

And, it worked out fine. He is a composer from England who, judging by his website, is quite successful. All five of us piled into his little Volkswagen Beetle with him and rode onto the ferry. Our exhausted children resisted sleep for the entire ferry ride, watching Curious George over and over again in the play room on the ferry, and, when we got to Dublin, we piled back into his car, and he drove us off the ferry. There, he dropped us off and continued his journey to Belfast, refusing my offer of money. We called a Taxi to take us the remaining five minutes to home, and put the kids in bed at about 2 a.m.

I have this stranger’s name and email address, and we’re trying to come up with an appropriate gesture of thanks, perhaps a charitable donation in his honor… But, in any case, we are tremendously grateful for the kindness of strangers, seen and unseen, who helped us on our way.

Joel on becoming a professional musician, about 7.5 minutes in:

[T]hen I realized that girl I always had a crush on was actually looking at me. She never looked at me twice, all those years at school. We’re playing at the Holy Family Church, a church dance. I was about 15, 16. Virginia was looking at me. You know “Come out Virginia…”? That Virginia. And I said, “My God, she’s looking at me.” And the band sounded great, I loved what I was doing, the crowd went “Yay!” when we finished every song, and, at the end of the night, the priest gave us each $15, which in 1965 was $1500. That was it. The door locked behind me. This is what I’m going to do.

Exactly like becoming a professor. ;-P

Since the kids usually go to bed at 7, we decided it was a bit too late for them, but I headed out to see the opening myself. I was glad we didn’t bring them, though, because it was after 8:30 before the bridge opened, and probably after 9 by the time it closed. I got there early, thinking there might be a lot of people out to watch, but there were hardly any, except for a small crowd that drifted out of the offices and pubs nearby just as the opening started. It was quite a spectacle to a see a 120 m, cable stayed bridge rotate in place, though, so I was glad that I went.

Almost all of those who did come to watch the opening, though, had disappeared by the time they started to close the bridge. So I moved over to stand in the middle of the (blocked) road. And, as the bridge started to close, I suddenly decided that I ought to make a time lapse of the bridge closing.

Here it is. It has numerous technical problems, owing to this being the first time that I’ve made such a video and my lack of prior planning. And there are much better videos on YouTube—in the daytime, even! But I still thought that it turned out pretty cool.

Restaurants are a bit trickier. They all seem to basically welcome children, even the pubs (at least in the daytime). Children’s menus are somewhat rare, though. I think the philosophy is that children should “eat regular food”, and I’m comfortable with that. But the portions can be tricky. Since we have three children, though, we usually can order a main or two with some sides and divvy things up appropriately. It works out.

But hotels in Ireland, and Europe generally, aren’t family friendly at all. Most hotel rooms in Europe are marketed as a “single” or a “double.” A single often has one twin bed. A double has either two twin beds or one double bed. Obviously, neither is viable for a family of five.

(If you aren’t familiar with American hotels, the most common room types are rooms with one king bed or two double beds. A room with two double beds is perfectly adequate for our family.)

We haven’t really sorted this, yet, either. Jury’s Inn, a chain (mostly) in Ireland and the UK, does have something called a “family room.” It consists of a double bed and a pull-out couch that can supposedly sleep two children up to 12 years. We got one of these in Belfast, though, and the pull-out couch was scarcely twin-sized. It worked for our 4 and 5 year old children, but barely.

With more travels coming up, though, I guess we’ll keep trying. What do families here do? I’m really not sure.