IRELAND!!

My dream has finally been realized: I went to Ireland!!  The five of us made a quick trip to Ireland over the weekend.  The kids were so excited that we were flying not driving.  The flight seemed SO quick compared to the trip to America.  I think we waited in the airport longer than we were actually in the air, since our flight was delayed over an hour!!  By the time to our Airbnb, it was after 10!  The funniest thing was that we were meant to pick up the keys at a pub, and Lauren just walked right into the pub.  (Trouble!)  We got the keys and the place was ok.  Not as nice as our place in Scotland, but it was a good location.

We noticed in the taxi that it was Gay Pride weekend in Dublin.

We all slept until nearly 9 on Saturday morning, which was kind of amazing!  We were out the door by around 10:30 and headed to the Guinness store house not too far from our place.  

It was quite a place!  I learned that Arthur Guinness signed at 9000 year lease on the brewery, and that all the water used to brew Guinness comes from the mountains.

The kids enjoyed playing the harp, as well as seeing all the different ad campaigns for Guinness over the years.

 The bar at the top where Brad and I enjoyed a pint of Guinness had quite a beautiful view of the city!!

We went back and relaxed a bit and then headed out to St. Stephen's Green, right in the heart of the city.  It was crowded with lots of people who had been to the parade.  Lauren kept asking "Why are there so many rainbows everywhere?"  

They had a great playground where the kids had a great time playing!  We exited the park onto Grafton St, which is the main street through central Dublin.  There was a street performer finishing up his show.  He was on a uni-cycle juggling knives!

 The kids were very enthralled by him!  We walked down Grafton St in search of the Central Hotel and the Library Pub.  We each had a drink (the kids had cordials which are called squash in London), and Brad and I had a pint.  There were no other kids in the entire place, but it was a quaint little place.  Lauren made friends with a guy who she overheard was talking about NY at the next table over.  She gets very excited when she hears someone mention anything that has to do with the US!  We attempted to go to a pizza and pasta place for dinner, and found out that the pizza crust had eggs in it, so we were off the find something else with no luck.  The kids ended up picking out some food at Tesco, and Brad and I ordered pizza.  It was an early night for all of us!

Sunday, we had to check out at 11 with our luggage, which limited what we could do.  But we did walk down to Trinity college, which is a beautiful campus!!!  

The kids had a great time standing on the "stage" and dancing.  Drew kept calling it his castle!  Then, we were off to get some lunch in the Temple Bar district.  We ended up having mexican at Pablo Picante, which was pretty authentic Mexican food.  The kids enjoyed the nachos and quesadillas.  We then crossed the Hapenny bridge and found a place for an Irish coffee!  YUM!!

We headed to the airport kind of early, which turned out to be not such a great idea because our flight was delayed nearly an hour so by the time it was FINALLY time to board the kids had pretty much had it.  But they were great on the flight!

Lesson learned that next time we need to do a little more research before we get there so we have a better idea of what to do!  Although, my friend Elena who lived in Ireland for a long time gave us all sorts of tips!  It was just not enough time, so I guess that means we will have to go back!