Looking at the map the other day trying to find coworker Derek’s new house UCD (University College Dublin) stood out as something worthy of exploration. When we made it home from Brighton Michelle was looking online for arcades in the area that might have coin dozers machines like we played in Brighton. We figured we could kill two missions at once and walk to UCD to explore, then on the way home walk by LeisurePlex in Stillorgan Village to see what they have – and – walk the kids while we were at it to burn off kid energon.
UCD is close to the Milltown LUAS stop which is also close to a kids play area with a zip line. The play area was our first stop from the LUAS. Well the girls went there first. Maddex and I stopped under a bridge for some metal fishing. We caught some rocks and a long railway spike; nothing exicting worth writting home about. After fishing we met the girls in the park to play for a bit.
Walking UCD
Colin, the boss, coach’s for UCD. I pinged him before going this morning asking what the not to miss things were and he sent me a picture highlighting the pool, UCD bowl, and some duck ponds. From the park it was about a 40 minute walk to the campus. First off upon enterting UCd we walked by some large grassy fields. The kids used the feild to play and did cart wheels for a bit. After watching the kids Michelle wanted to get in on it too. She would not let me film the first try, but I managed to get some footage of her next try. We hit all of Colin’s UCD attractions on our walk around Campus. The pool is huge with massive gluelam beams holding up the roof. Made me miss our house in Olalla with its huge gluelam holding up the ceiling.
UCD bowl is smaller then I imagined it would, but still an impressive football field. While walking around the square pond there were two swans with kids in tow who swam right next to us. It felt like they wanted the nip at us how close and aggressively they are following. I told the kids to stay away from them and keep walking. Khaleesi got a bit close to one then noticed and jumped away telling the swan to get away.
Stillorgan then Home
From USD the LeisurePlex was a 3k, almost hour long walk. Before hitting the plex we stopped into McDonald’s and feed the kids happy meals. Mom went to Tesco and bought us some fruit for lunch while I ordered. We’re recovering from holiday season cutting way back on calories; no fries for us. The kids are not eating all of their food at McDonald’s warping my brain into conflict mode.
My inner voice is screaming “CANNOT WASTE FOOD!! MUST EAT LEFTOVERS” – then I look at my belly and think don’t eat it. Followed by money does not grow on trees don’t throw away money throwing away food. Such a viscous internal battle. There were two cheese burger halves left. I took the buns off and ate the meat; about 200 calories maybe; not a horrible compromise.
After lunch we crossed the street and checked out the LeisurePlex. They have coin dozers, but they are not penny dozers. They are 20c – 1euro each which is pretty steep for the Millfam to pay to play. The kids have been good and deserved a reward, so I bought some change and let everyone play one Video game, while momma played the coin dozers and won a few prizes for Maddex and Roxi. We’ll keep looking for some more dozers that cost less. Looking for 2c or 5c games so we can play longer for less. Before heading home we stopped by Nimble Fingers toy store and looked around, and Lidl for some cookies.
End of the walk we came home with about 20,000 steps on our trackers, plus 1.60 euro, a Sheep, and a few trinkets for our found on the street bucket richer.
The Rest of the pictures
