City Kids

I love living in the city.

And raising kids in the city is something we feel good about, even though there are drawbacks. Like, we don't have a garden (that's a "yard" to the Americanos). And we live in an apartment. And sometimes it's noisy (but not too much). However, for us, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Neither of us have ever had to travel more than 15 minutes (cycling, or by train, 25 minutes walking) to work. In a city where more and more people are commuting 2 hours or more EACH WAY into town to their job, this is a serious bonus. We don't have a car, which may seem like a drawback. But when you consider that a parking place in our building's underground carpark cost 25,000 euro (that's about $30,000) and that the traffic in Dublin is a total nightmare, being car-free is the biz (not to mention all the carbon emissions we're not spewing out).

But by far, the best thing about living in the city is PARKS.

We go to a park every day that it's not raining (and we have gone when it was raining a couple of times because I was so desperate to get out of the apartment). We are so lucky to have 5 beautiful parks within walking distance, the closest being a 2 minute walk from our building. I love the communal aspect to parks; I love that all kinds of people-kids, parents, teenagers, older people-use the park TOGETHER. I love that Siofra has to wait her turn on the slide, and ask another child if she can join in on the round-about. I love that I've met parents from all over Ireland, Russia, Poland, Nigeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Austrailia, England and Latvia in the little park down the street.

One of the parks near us was recently refurbished, and had two amazing playgrounds installed (thank you Dublin City Council!! Thank you Daithi!). It opened today and we went down to check it out. Siofra had a great time (Paddy slept through most of the action) and there was a great feeling of community and enthusiasm there. I think we'll be seeing a lot of it as the weather improves.

Hooray for parks.