Day 3: Dublin

So our intention was to have most of yesterday (Saturday) in dublin, touring around on a hop on hop off bus tour. We did something similar in Singapore last year and it helped get acclimated to the time change, get oriented and get to see the city without expending much energy. Brilliant plan when traveling with kids. That is if the airlines cooperate and you land at a decent hour. So we missed yesterday and slept through the morning. By the time we showered and got everyone out the door (ahhh... No more smell of barf trailing behind me!) it was 1:00 pm and we were hungry. I was counting on getting a good breakfast in us all, as that's my standby- 'when all else fails feed them breakfast'. But we missed that and ended up at a cafe 1 block away. We then proceeded to find the nearest bus stop by Christchurch which is only 2 blocks from the hotel. The tour and driver were great and did everything we hoped. A quick overview of the city, oriented ourselves, discovered what was truly walking distance with kids, plus the girls enjoyed sitting upstairs on the double decker bus. Since Scarlett is not a child who can be convinced to try to go pee before leaving somewhere 'just in case' or 'because we are getting on a bus with no bathroom', she of course had to go pee about 20 minutes into the tour. Normally this may be irritating, but she chose the Jameson distillery stop as her time to announce she needed to go. Perfect. We were looking for a good excuse to take a tour anyways. We learned a lot about how irish whiskey is made and enjoyed the old distillery, now turned museum/ tour spot. When the guide asked for volunteers to be whiskey tasters, Audrey's hand shot up, "pick me! Pick me!" and Scarlett immediately followed suit. This of course elicited some giggles from the group, but also helped secure joe a spot at the tasting table. He tasted (and the girls smelled) a scotch whiskey, an American whiskey and a 5 year old Jameson Irish whiskey. Joe even got a certificate as an 'official' Jameson taster. So after 3 trips to Jameson's bathroom and some stiff drinks, we returned to our bus tour. Some of the highlights include Jameson, Christchurch, Guinness, kilmainham prison, st. Patricks cathedral, temple bar.... Hmm... I see why Dublin is so much fun- bars, prisons and churches are among the tourist hot spots. The bus tour ended on O'Connell street where we found dinner at Flannigans. Wait. Stop the presses. Yes, yes, you are correct. We did not stop at the Guinness storehouse today. We have tickets for and intentions to stop there tomorrow morning. But just the timing of things today and when things close versus when people needed to be fed, it just didn't make sense. Rest assured, we did indeed order some guinness with dinner. Joe had an amazing Irish stew with what appeared to be an entire leg of lamb in the bowl (still on the bone of course), I had a portabella mushroom burger, Scarlett insisted on ordering spaghetti with chicken (which she then mostly refused to eat until we secured a tiny spoon and Audrey fed her like a bird) and Audrey got a veggie lasagna. And the Guinness flowed. And with a name like Joe Keeley, the man has a little street credit here even with his American accent. We then walked down O'Connell street to the River Liffey, walked along it until we got to the Ha'Penny pedestrian bridge and crossed over. I do believe Scarlett has some of her grand dd's love of bridges in her bc every time she sees one she gets so excited. And tonight was no different. "ooo! Ooo! I LOVE bridges!!" we crossed over to the temple bar area, which is where we would probably hangout if we were in college and staying at a hostel. But tonight we just walked through, sightseeing on our way back to the hotel. So the girls are in bed and we hope they stay that way until morning. Besides sleeping until noon, we were pretty much right on track today. Joe said he felt like a teenager when we woke him up at noon, but I quickly reminded him he was sleeping until noon still when I met him at 29. And I'm pretty sure he would still sleep that late if life allowed him to. Audrey calls him sleeping beauty. ;) Tomorrow's agenda includes Guinness, the leprechaun museum, hopefully the jail and Christchurch, picking up the car and driving to Kilkenny.

Ireland: Days 1 & 2

Ireland! A long time dream of Joe's has been to go to Ireland. So we decided that we would go for his 40th birthday last summer, but we couldn't find flights using miles. So we watched united's website, and watched and watched until finally seats became available at a time that worked for us. Audrey will miss the first few days of school, but alas, we were going to Ireland! So we left on Friday, the 17th and should have landed in Dublin around 10:30 am Saturday, flying from Denver to Dulles to Dublin. Triple D. As we were preparing to leave the house on Friday we kept getting messages about our flight from Dulles being delayed 8+ hours. The ticketing agent in Denver fiddled around for like 20 minutes with our itinerary (totally killing our ability to walk casually through the airport and thereby making us the last people to board) but she got us out of Dulles on time (instead of having to spend the night there waiting for the delayed flight to take off at 6:30 am- ouch), but routed us through London. Of course there was some kind of weather that screwed up the take off pattern, causing us to sit on the runway for 1 hour. We were unaware that the flight we were supposed to be on out of heathrow to Dublin left 30 minutes after we were scheduled to land in London. And there was no way to make it from point a to point b in that airport in anything less than 50 minutes. So of course we missed the Dublin flight by a solid hour plus, putting us in Dublin around 3:30 pm. By the time we got to our hotel, it was 5:30, for all intents and purposes our day was dead, and all were beat. It took us about 22 hours door to door, which is somewhat ridiculous. Not to mention, literally as the plane came to a stop in London and the seat belt sign went off, Scarlett proceeded to barf all over herself. Thank goodness she was out of her carseat and most of it landed on the pillow and her pants. I managed to get her wiped off and stripped down to her undies and a coat and she seemed fine. A have a few theories why she barfed out of no where, but my best guess is that she had just slept overnight on the plane, getting about 50% of her normal amount of sleep. The she had some oj and Cheerios (at what would normally be 3:00 am for her)right before landing. I suspect it was just too much for her system; for my little lady who is prone to gagging, choking, spitting up, barfing, etc... One might think our first stop upon securing lodging would be a nice hot bath for Goo and a shower for mommy (as I obviously had some mystery puke on me that I couldn't locate), but no. We hit the streets and found the nearest pub, o'shea's, with a dinner menu that looked doable for our varied food needs and ordered up a couple of Guinness. All. Was. Suddenly. Perfect. Best damn beer ever. But the girls didn't agree. (we let them lick the foam and they both thought it was 'disgusting.' ( or 'gi-stusting' as Scarlett said) Joe is the Guinness drinker in our family. I don't mind it, but it's not my beer of choice. Until now. Man they weren't kidding when they say Guinness tastes better in Ireland. It's smooth like butter. Pure as honey. Downright delicious. We plan to have at least 1 every day (probably more like 2 or 3) that we are here. I intend to have one with breakfast tomorrow and joe was just discussing going out to get one before heading to bed. So we managed to get the kids to bed at a decent hour, but they both woke up around 1:30 and were up for 1 hour, hungry. After feeding the beasties, and switching beds, we all were asleep and accidentally slept until noon! Doh! So we killed our morning, but there was no way I was leaving the hotel without showers and baths as that mystery puke was still lingering. Speaking of our hotel, I booked a 2 bdrm apt hotel near Christchurch and Guinness. They upgraded us to a 3 bdrm, but the girls wanted to share a room anyways, so 1 room is untouched. It has worked out well, as joe and I can be up doing stuff in the living area and not on lock down like we usually are when we all are in the same room. So it's our first official full day in Dublin. Let's see what we can accomplish.