A Week in Ireland with the Locals

This is part the story behind

A Time for Travel
~
The Christmas Project

kids’ time travel book By Janice Czaplewski

A Week in Ireland with the Locals
Introduction
About Me ********
After almost half a century, I am planning a trip to Ireland to finally meet my pen pal, Florence. Join me on my journey to the beautiful country that she calls home.

Back when I was a Freshman in high school, the class had an opportunity to purchase a pen pal. It cost a quarter and we could choose the age, gender and country for our pen pal. I signed up for a boy named John from Australia and wrote to him for several years, but then we quit writing.
I also chose a 14 year old girl from Ireland named Florence. That was 48 years ago! We have stayed connected through boyfriends then husbands, then having children then our parents passing away. Now that we both are old and gray (at least I am) and have grandchildren we are finally going to meet each other for the very first time. Maybe I should change the title of this to “Old Lady Writes Travelogue”.

I doubt that 48 years is a record, but it has to be right up there. Florence and I lost track of each other a couple of times over the years, but always managed to reconnect. Sometimes it was a matter of finding an old address in a file somewhere and sending a letting, hoping against hope that it would arrive. The last time, I had moved after my husband passed away and couldn’t find her address. I did have an old email address for her daughter, Alison, who lives in England, and thought I’d take a chance to see if it was still valid. It was! And even better, Florence how has an email address, too.

Although we have just gotten into emailing in the last year, we exchanged Christmas presents and letters with “snail mail” up until then. We have often discussed how great it would be if one day we could meet. Finally last fall I decided to accept her invitation to visit Ireland. I was planning my retirement for January, so the timing was perfect. My trip is scheduled for spring , so we are -82 days and counting.

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