Rynott Family Blog

Two years later....

2013-07-24T15:18:00.000+01:00

Yes, can't believe it's been that long since we left Ireland. It was two years ago that we returned to New York, in the midst of the summer heat -who would have thought we would miss those clouds for some much needed rain. It took quite some time to readjust to our new life back in the United States. We are happy to be back, as with everything, there are advantages as well as challenges that come along with any move. And we have had our share of challenges here. Hurricanes to allow us to spend some quality time over candle-lit dinners and had us stock up on enough food to feed an army. We've also had some reflective moments and hugged our loved ones dearly as we were all shocked by some of the most senseless acts of violence here. Most importantly, we never lose sight of how thankful we are to have our family as well as great friends near and far. We have kept our dear friends close to our hearts, reconnected with old ones and kept an open mind that allowed us to make new ones along the way.

We were blessed to have met such amazing people and made extraordinary friends while in Ireland. Some of our most profound memories include amazing play dates over tea and gorgeous cakes -The Butler's Pantry comes to mind, oh, I miss those pastries! And the great times at Herbert Park, you can always count on running into someone you know there -an unplanned, joyful meeting of sorts.

We were delighted to visit Dublin last year and spend time -albeit short- with our friends. We truly enjoyed going back home -our spiritual home. We hope to have the opportunity to visit again sometime soon. In the mean time, we wanted to share some of our memories, old as well as new. After all, it is our experiences and the people that we surround ourselves with, that makes us who we are.

Until the next time, keep smiling!

Lots of love,

The Rynott Family

Photo album generated with Smilebox

Create your own photo album

Slideshow design personalized with Smilebox

Our holiday wish for our friends and family!

2011-12-22T02:50:00.002+00:00

This free ecard customized with Smilebox

Looking for food

2011-11-07T02:24:00.002+00:00

Jenny and the kids caught mom and baby deer in our backyard looking for some breakfast last week.

Coming soon... updates

2011-11-07T02:16:00.002+00:00

We haven't updated the blog in almost 4 years. Wow! I guess a lot of that is attributable to Facebook. But we're back! And more posts and photos will be forthcoming.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-24T12:42:00.000+00:00

Make a Smilebox greeting

Cliffs of Moher

2008-10-14T20:11:00.004+01:00

This past weekend we traveled to the west coast of Ireland, Galway to be exact. We visited the Cliffs of Moher, which is just stunning. The pictures speak for themself.

Malahide Castle

2008-09-21T19:07:00.003+01:00

In an unusually warm fall day in Dublin, we took the family for our first visit to Malahide Castle. The Castle is one of two left in Dublin. In addition to the Castle itself, there is a huge playground and, much to Alexander's enjoyment, a toy railroad museum.

Alas, it was a great family day.

Aer Lingus May Use US Crews

2008-09-21T19:04:00.002+01:00

An interesting article from this past week in Ireland's Tribune. It says Aer Lingus is seriously studying the possibility of using US-based cabin crew to operate transatlantic routes, in place of the current Irish crews.

Below is a summary from the article, details are in the link.

The airline is locked in negotiations with unions over a major cost-cutting programme and the controversial idea of using US cabin crews could create tensions between the sides. However the airline is hoping some of its transatlantic staff may accept severance terms, allowing the US crew gradually to start staffing some flights to New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Orlando.

A long time...

2008-09-18T19:58:00.012+01:00

Hello everyone! It's been a long time since we've posted on the blog! Since we last posted in June, we've been back to visit friends and family in New York and Chicago. We especially had a great time at the family reunion. We got to spend some wonderful time with mom and dad, our aunts and uncles and dear friends. What a trip!

Just last week we also took a "mini-holiday" (by European standards) and spent a week in the south of Spain with Grandma and Grandpa Rynott. We had a wonderful time; the weather was gorgeous, the hotel facilities were excellent for young children, and Alexander and Daniela especially loved their time in the pool!

Alexander is back in school now, we had his 3rd birthday party just before we left for Spain.

The birthday boy:

How dare we eat Lightning McQueen:

Daniela and Jenny have a full week with music classes, a book class and their American Women's Association with "Coffee & Kids" each week. Whew.

Our Princess in Spain:

And in less than 2 weeks' time, Grandpa Roberto (Jenny's dad) will make the trek from Honduras to Ireland (probably be the 3rd Honduran to land here). It will be a busy Fall here (just hope the weather holds up).

Meanwhile, Brian's been busy with work - but not too much travel since early August. He's been to Ecuador, Hawaii and Spain on business recently.

Holiday in Spain

2008-09-18T19:58:00.011+01:00

We're just back from a week's holiday in the south of Spain, Costa del Sol to be specific. It's amazing that such tropical beauty is within a 2.5 hour flight from Dublin.

We book an all-inclusive holiday via Falcon Holidays, a large Irish travel operator owned by the UK's First Choice Holiday. First Choice, in turn, is owned by TUI, a large German travel conglomerate.

Our ride to Malaga, Spain:

We spent a full week at the Holiday Village Hotel complex - and it really is a complex. When complete (it first opened in 2004), it will feature 12 full hotel builings that will offer more than 10,000 hotel rooms, apartments and timeshare condos. Simply amazing!

The hotel features 8 pools, some with water slides, plus plenty of restaurants, bars, lounge areas, play areas for the kids, amongst others. Indoors, it has a full spa and gym - including indoor pool - a convenience store, laundromat, doctor's office, casino, game room, movie theatre. You name it. It was a pretty impressive complex.

You wouldn't need to leave the complex. But we did. We took the kids to the local acquarium, the extremely impressive Fuengirola Zoo, and, of course, the ocean and downtown Benalmadena to walk around.

With all the hotels and flights, the area is naturally popular with tourists from across Europe, but especially the UK and Ireland. In many cases, save for the weather, it felt like we hadn't left Ireland. You could pick-up a copy of the daily Irish newspaper, get a full Irish breakfast and visit one of many Irish pubs, with ease. Which in some ways is really too bad (especially the Irish breakfast), but it facilitates a lot of traffic between the countries.

Unfortunately, during the week we were there two airlines shut down; XL Leisure Group (the UK's 3rd largest tour operator) and Futura (a Spanish and Irish charter airline). This left thousands of tourists stranded. And many without a job. Thankfully we weren't impacted.

However, the airport was a total mess. It took us over an hour just to check-in. Thankfully the rest of the travel experience wasn't nearly as difficult. In an ode to US-style marketing, Marriott had their timeshare reps working the halls to induce people to come back and check their new hotel in Mallorca out. Go figure.

And now we're back to reality. It's been primarily rain since we came back. Surprise, I know. But it's always good to be home. And there was at least sunshine today, so you never know what might surprise you.

Good night.

New ways to keep in touch

2008-06-07T22:06:00.003+01:00

Just a quick admin note. As you can see, there is a new box to the right, "Subscribe via E-mail." If you insert your e-mail address, it will notify you automatically when there are new posts on the blog, as well as some of the blog posts content. We also have an Atom feed, so if you have a reader you can sign-up here.

Aer Lingus Cut, Pledge to 'Break Even' at best in '08

2008-06-07T21:24:00.001+01:00

Aer Lingus sounded more like a US airline on Friday, when the airline said it would at best break-even in 2008 (ok, so not that part given the US industry losses) and planned to trim capacity and drop routes. The first to be axed is Los Angeles. This is a big cut for Aer Lingus, which serves just 7 US destinations, and has also recently cut Dubai. Aer Lingus also plans to trim long-haul capacity 15% from this winter. Though no details were announced, my guess is most of this will come from the Shannon - Chicago, Boston and New York flying, which is seasonal and lower-yield. One positive for Aer Lingus in the US: Orlando. The route is performing so well, they're planning to add an additional frequency.

New books we're reading

2008-06-07T19:20:00.000+01:00

Two new books we're reading on those business trips. The first is an absolute non-fiction thriller, The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB, the story of the CIA during from the 1980s (1985 is referred to as the 'Year of the Spy') and the fall of the Soviet Union.

Next up is Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul, a book by the Latin American editor at The Economist. This book argues that rather than failing the test, Latin America’s efforts to build fairer and more prosperous societies make it one of the world’s most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy. In many countries—including Brazil, Chile and Mexico—democratic leaders are laying the foundations for faster economic growth and more inclusive politics, as well as tackling deep-rooted problems of poverty, inequality, and social injustice. They face a new challenge from Hugo Chávez’s oil-fuelled populism, and much is at stake. Failure will increase the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants to the United States and Europe, jeopardize stability in a region rich in oil and other strategic commodities, and threaten some of the world's most majestic natural environments.

Big week for Ireland

2008-06-07T19:09:00.001+01:00

This week Irish voters will head to the polls to vote on ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, a system of charters which provisionally grants the EU greater rights over the State, plus other reforms primarily centered on human rights. But the lack of clarity just what the entire Treaty is, what's in it and not, and how much control Ireland would have in veto power, has made voters skittish. This has national politicians in an all-out PR campaign, either pro or con.

This article from this weekend's Irish Times describes the campaign intensity appropriately.

The voting is on the back of a report by the US State Department that was critical of Irish efforts to curb human trafficking. An article (subscription required) in this weekend's Times outlines how Ireland has fallen to the 'second' of three tiers for trafficking and monitoring.

Aviation Links

2008-06-07T19:05:00.001+01:00

I've added some links to airline news sites to the right of the blog, below our other links. One of my favorite airline blogs to read is PlaneBuzz, whose editor also publishes PlaneBusiness.com, one of the most irreverent weekly airline news publications. It's US-centric, but she often has the scoop well in advance of anything breaking the news and her writing style make it all worthwhile.

Mt. Ararat in Armenia

2008-06-07T18:43:00.001+01:00

Last week I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Yerevan, Armenia. Armenia is just west of Turkey, north of Iran, south of Georgia and east of Azerbaijan. It's part of former 'CIS', Commonwealth of Independent States, and is in a political hotbed. It has no formal relations with Azerbaijan, in part due to a dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory.

In my American mindset, I had a rather gloom perspective as to what to expect from a former Soviet satelite state. But to say I was impressed in an understatement. The country, while underdeveloped, is undergoing major reforms and investment. Cranes line the sky of Yerevan; industry is booming.

One of the most interesting parts of Armenia is Mt. Ararat, which rests between Turkey, Armenia and Iran. Besides its enormity, it is believed Ararat is the rest place of Noah's Ark, in the massive ice caps of the mountain. The link above has additional information.

Getting to Armenia is easier than one might think. First, there is a huge Armenian diaspora in the Los Angeles area (approx. 2/3 of the entire population of Armenia are in Los Angeles) and Buenos Aires (Argentina-Armenian investors own the airport). Air France, bmi, Lufthansa and Austrian all serve Yerevan. I cannot speak for Lufthansa or Austrian, but Air France and bmi both use an A-320 on the route, thrice weekly. bmi's service, which has a traditional business class, is far superior to Air France, which uses the all-economy A-320s with business class only separated by blocking the middle seat. Flights are around 6 hours from continental Europe.

Trip to Mexico

2008-06-07T18:34:00.001+01:00

Two weeks ago I went to Mexico for the week on business. I was in Mexico City, Tijuana and Monterrey. I flew Air France to Mexico City, via Paris, and Aeromexico back to Paris, taking Air France's Irish-based, but wholly-owned subsidiary, CityJet, between Dublin and Paris in both directions.

What left an impression on me was Tijuana, an uremarkable border town just south of San Diego. The city is rife with crime driven by powerful gang syndicates. While I was there, there was a large protest in the city-center about 'express kidnappings' of doctor's. An article (subscription required) from the June 2 edition of The Wall St. Journal addresses the issue of crime and the power of gangs in looking at the city's newest mayor.

As the article itself states, "...the past year and a half, about 450 Mexican lawmen have been killed by the country's drug gangs, including a growing list of police chiefs. Weeks ago, hit men killed the head of Mexico's elite Federal Police."

Let's hope the new mayor can address some of this crime. For its part, President Bush has proposed $500 million in U.S. drug aid for Mexico. But with Congress looking to trim 20% of that amount and add stipulations around human rights, that money - whatever's left of it - may not arrive in time.

Breathtaking Powerscourt

2008-05-31T20:41:00.000+01:00

Today we went to Powerscourt Estate, near Enniskerry, County Wicklow, Ireland (about a 45 min. drive from Dublin). It is a large country estate which is noted for its house and landscaped gardens, today occupying 47 acres. The house, originally a 13th century castle, was extensively altered during the 18th century by German architect Richard Cassels, starting in 1731 and finishing in 1741. A fire in 1974 left the house lying as a shell until it was renovated in 1996.
The estate is today owned and maintained by the Slazenger family. It is a popular tourist attraction, and includes a golf course, an Avoca Handweavers restaurant, and a Ritz-Carlton hotel.

To say it is breathtaking, especially on a beautiful (and rare) Irish day like today, is an understatement.

What we're reading about Ireland

2008-05-31T20:16:00.000+01:00

A book of interest Brian picked up on the resurgence of the Irish economy is called The Pope's Children: The Irish Economic Triumph and the Rise of Ireland's New Elite. In his book author David McWilliams describes the effects that the Celtic Tiger and the property boom have had on the Republic of Ireland, resulting in the rise of a new bourgeoise. The book's title reflects McWilliams' belief that the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in the autumn of 1979 was a watershed in the country's history. The children born during that period (who are now between the ages of 25 and 35) are "The Pope's Children" – the first generation since the Great Famine of the mid-19th century to experience an increase in the size of the population. (The rise in birth rates in Ireland began in the early 1970s and peaked in June 1980, exactly nine months after the pope's visit.) According to McWilliams, these 620,000 people became the country's key generation. They are the dynamo of Ireland's economy, politics and culture, and they will shape its face in the 21st century.

About Ireland...

2008-05-26T20:50:00.000+01:00

Ireland has a rich history, dating back thousands of years. The island is about the size of West Virginia, with a population of nearly six million people, with 1.2 million living in or around the capital city of Dublin, located on the East Coast of Ireland. Dublin is a diverse, young, vibrant and cosmopolitan city.

For many years, Ireland was a conservative and poor country, strongly under the influence of the Catholic Church. Ireland joined the European Economic Comunity (ECC) in 1973, which brought prosperity and much influence from the rest of Europe. After going through a recession in the 1980's, Ireland had an unprecedented economic boom in the 1990's. With the economic outlook continuing to be positive, it is not uncommon to see building cranes all around, a proliferation of shops, restaurants and malls, along with a sharp drop in unemployment.

Ireland is politically divided into two parts: The Republic of Ireland, of which Dublin is the capital, and Northern Ireland, with Belfast as its capital. The Republic of Ireland achieved independence from Britain in 1922 after revolution and civil war, which resulted in the drawing of the border. Nearly four million people reside in the Republic of Ireland, 40% of whom are under the age of 25. Northern Ireland, with about 1 million residents, is administered as part of the United Kingdom.

The weather...
A common weather forecast tends to be... "periods of light rain with bright spells througout the day"... Tip: an umbrella comes quite handy! The dominant influence on Ireland's climate is the Atlantic Ocean. Consequently, temperatures below freezing are rare in winter and those above 70 degrees are rare in summer. The damp chilly air combined with frequent lashing wind makes it feel cold even though the temperatures may be in the 50's.

Overall, Ireland is a beautiful island, particularly the country side, with a very relaxed outlook on life -things tend to happen on "island time". A big adjustment for those of us coming from a fast paced environment. That being said, quality of life is a priority here and holidays are enjoyed at a maximum. Accessibility to continental Europe is a great benefit and travel is a way of enjoying the holidays.

Please visit soon!

Arriving in Dublin too early

2008-05-25T16:07:00.000+01:00

This is the first blog post. What to write? What comes to mind first is the flight to Dublin. We left Newark, New Jersey, about 9:30p, with a scheduled arrival at 9:00am on March 1, 2008. Our new life in Ireland was about to begin. The four of us consumed row 1 of our Boeing 757; Alexander and Daniela looked small in the oversized Business Class seats. Due to some strong tail winds, we arrived Dublin in about 6 hours, too short for much rest on an overnight flight.

And so it began. We came with 16 bags (you don't travel lightly with 2 small kids) and called home a very elegant 2 bedroom apartment in an Elizabethan-inspired corporate housing oasis, that until the mid-1990s was the British Embassy.

And fast-forward to today. We're settled in a house we're renting in Ballsbridge, which is in central Dublin. For Brian it means a 20 minute walk to the office, while the kids and I are close to parks, shops and other places of interest (such as the Doctor's office). Walking is a nice perk if you're uncomfortable driving on the other side of the road (thankfully, this now comes naturally - the scrape of the side of the car was from a "transition" period). Actually, we now think driving on the right side of the road would be difficult to adapt to.

The post will focus on our life in Dublin, getting used to the Irish quirks, and pointers for those making the crossing (which seem to be many given how many American's we've met and the number of multinational corporations here).