Dublin

We left Newark airport at ~9 PM on Wednesday for the direct flight to Dublin. That's a red eye, landing at ~9 AM Irish time. The flight was about 6 hours, with a 5 hour time loss. I slept most of the flight, as did Keely. James didn't really sleep at all, and Quinn slept about 2 hours. The plan when we got to Dublin was to stay up until a normal bedtime and then we'd be fully adjusted the next day. This plan worked pretty well, except for by dinnertime the kids were pooped. Keely slept on the bench in the Irish pub through dinner. Quinn was a bit 'fussy' (not sure that is the right word for a 9 year old) by dinner and we were all tired. We did make it until 11 PM before going to sleep though, but then slept until 9:30 AM. And we would have kept sleeping if Nana and Papa hadn't knocked on our door :)

Back to the beginning...we landed in Dublin, got some Euros and took the AirCoach downtown. Papa thought this was a helicopter :) but it was just a Coach bus. We only had to walk around the block to our hotel and were able to get a room to throw all of our stuff in while we started exploring the city. After a bit of freshening up, we walked down by Trinity College over to the Grafton Street area. There are tons of shops, restaurants and entertainers on this pedestrian street and the surrounding areas. It was very busy, being a Thursday and there seemed to be a lot of people going to and from work and meetings. We stopped for lunch in a little cafe, and were immediately confronted with two realities of Ireland - the high cost of food, and the lack of root beer for the kids :) Quinn quickly became a 'Coca Cola' kid and Keely tried Black Currant Juice, but later switched to Fanta or Club Orange (orange soda).

After lunch, we walked out to St. Patrick's cathedral...an old, Anglican church. The cost was pretty inexpensive (15Eu for a family, or about $20 USD) and it was very interesting with lots to see. One of our favorites in this church was the Door of Reconciliation, which two warring families used to reconcile many years ago. That night, we ate dinner at John Gogarty's, an Irish pub. This was probably my least favorite dinner, because I tried Irish coddle (sausage soup with veggies). We also began our sampling of brown bread - everywhere in Ireland, they serve brown bread with dinner and it's always different. My faves were not in Dublin, but in Glengariff and either Bunratty or Ballynahinch (castle). Like I said, the kids were pretty tired by this point. We then crashed at the hotel, after the kids had some ice cream from the hotel bar for dessert.

Oh, to mention the hotel - O'Callaghan Davenport is where we spent these first two nights. This was a nice hotel, pretty centrally located with nice size rooms. They even had American plugs, but upon using them I thought I fried my iPhone battery. For the remainder of the trip, it wouldn't hold the charge and the battery kept dying out way too quickly. I was fearful but thankfully when charged on the plane ride home, it's back to normal. I just think the voltage is different. Another note - the kids' DSi game systems would not charge the entire trip, even using an adapter. A quirk of traveling abroad, I suppose.

Our second day in Ireland, and last day in Dublin was also Nana and Papa's 39th anniversary. After breakfast at the Kilkenny (kind of like Nordstrom with a department store and a cafe), we headed down to the River Liffey (river that bisects the city) and checked on the boat tours. We booked a trip later in the afternoon and that left us time to head to the Guinness storehouse. We took Dublin's new light rail system, the Laos to Opideal Sans Seamus stop (St. James' Hospital in Gaelic). I liked learning a bit of a new language and tried to use it when I could read the words somewhat authentically :) Guinness was fun for all...they have 8 floors to tour starting with the 4 ingredients and moving up each level to another step of the brewing process. There is a floor where you taste the roasted beans (tasted almost burnt, like coffee beans) and then you get your sample of the beer (probably 1/4 or 1/8 pint). Finally, you get up to the 8th floor which they call their Gravity Bar, with 360 degree views of Dublin and surrounding areas. It's pretty crowded up there but if you're lucky to get a seat by a window, it's a nice view. We all got our included 'free' pint and the kids got a 'free' soda. Of note, I drank my whole pint by myself and James got the 'perfect pint' identified by a shamrock in the foam, only achieved when the beer is poured, settled and topped off perfectly. He was the only one in our group to get one, fitting since (a) he loves Guinness and (b) he finished not only his, but part of Annie's and Nana's pints. After Guinness, we headed back to the River for our cruise. This was an hour long trip, and very interesting to learn some of the history of not only Dublin but Ireland as well. The tour inspired us to walk down the river front past the State buildings to see the Famine statues. This is a huge part of Ireland's history and I was unaware of the details of this 'Irish Holocaust' as some call it. I was so intrigued that later on in the trip I bought a copy of 'Famine in Galway', a historical narrative of the time between 1845 and 1850 when so many Irish died, or left the country trying not to die, for really no reason at all. For dinner that night, we tried another pub called O'Donohue's. Better food, great waitress, and a lot of drinks were poured. Another notable from Dublin...Papa and his first hangover, err I mean stomach virus :) It seems Dublin brought him to his knees and the combinations of drinks between noon and midnight ended his 'iron stomach' reign. He was so ill that we had to leave him in Dublin on Saturday morning while we went on ahead. He joined us at about 1 PM and was ill for the remainder of the day, really not returning to his usual self until Sunday morning and thus missing our first day touring the countryside and the entire time in Kinsale. I think he learned his lesson :)



On Saturday morning we met our driver Gene O'Sullivan, who would be our tour guide for the next 7 days. More on him, and our trip to Kinsale by way of the Irish National Stud Farm and the Rock of Cashel, in the next installment...