Once we landed in Dublin, we got into the "queue" to get through customs. It took a long while to get through the line. We were deemed acceptable to enter the country. We picked up our rental SUV, which was a Ford Kuga. How do you pronounce "Kuga" anyway? KOO-guh? Koo-GAH? It was a hybrid, so we were electric in town and gas-powered other times. The sad part is that the radio/back-up camera/phone charger/screen and console was somehow rendered completely blank and useless. A backup camera would have been really, really nice. We couldn't play anything over the speakers. It was a really good thing I purchased an external battery charger so we wouldn't bleed Ryan's phone dry when using Google Maps. Google Maps is a MUST.
Driving away from the Dublin airport is a trial by fire. You drive on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, with narrow roads and tons of traffic-- straight into your first roundabout going the wrong way. The fact that there isn't a monument to bad driving right there at that intersection is a miracle.
We drove right to our Airbnb to drop off the car. We were super tired from a mostly sleepless night, but the rush of being in Ireland and wanting to make the most out of our trip had us traipsing the streets of Dublin to St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Now we head into a picture dump of gothic architecture because I am in love.
The kids did some brass rubbings.
Our tour guide told us a story about Jonathon Swift, author of Guilliver's Travels. He preached sermons at St. Patrick's Cathedral, going on for 4 hours. He had a mobile pulpit, and if he saw someone snoozing during his sermon he would have someone wheel him over so he could shout down at the sleeping parishioner to wake up. Maddie liked his death mask.
This was a Fitzgibbon. Not a relation, but he did have the same surname as I did once upon a time.
Also, I embraced the fanny pack. I kinda like it.
We walked by Temple Bar on our way back to our condo for the night. I had to take a picture even though we had no intention to drink.
This was a Georgian house. It has all of the moldings and fancy things.
Our apartment was on the top floor. 5 flights of thigh-burning stairs up! (Only 4 if you came in through the front door.) Speaking of-- floors are numbered differently. A floor at the street level is the "ground floor" and the one up from that is the first floor. That's a little different than the US.
Elizabeth got bounced back and forth between hide-a-beds and a twin bed in a bedroom shared with the twins on this trip. She started out on a hide-a-bed.
Elizabeth's view of the kitchen.
I want to talk about the electricity situation in Ireland. Every single outlet has an on/off switch. And each appliance gets switched off when not in use. But it is a guess which switch goes with which appliance. In this place, we could not figure out two things: Which switch would turn on the dishwasher, and how to turn on the hot water heater. We had no hot water. Annie and Maddie opted for super quick, icy showers, but the rest of us opted for a wet washcloth "bathing." Every single place we stayed in had complicated showers involving string pull switches from the ceiling, power buttons, sometimes no shower doors or curtains, or other odd things.
We slept pretty well, and then it was off for more sightseeing!
The view from our apartment.
The Ha'Penny Bridge over the river Liffey.
We walked to Trinity College to check out the Book of Kells and the Long Room library. We couldn't take pictures of the actual Book of Kells, but there were plenty of displays to check out before seeing the actual book. The amount of work into each picture and line of text is astounding. Many of the capital letters in the text are illustrated beautifully. The lines of text are so, so even- something well out of my capabilities.
Then to the Long Room library. It was pretty amazing.
Trinity College is in the process of boxing up all of the books and statues to get ready for a 3 year long renovation beginning in October. It was still spectacular.
I found a tweed "Grandpa hat" in the gift shop. I couldn't convince Ryan to buy it, but at least we got a picture.
Then we were off to Dublin Castle. We took the guided tour, so we could see the medieval parts and the chapel. More gothic revival style... I would love to go to church here. The organ pipes are even painted.
Of course, I may not ever pay attention in church if my eyes are constantly taking in the decor.
Then we were let loose to enjoy the self-guided portions of the castle.
You can see the Lady Justice statue above Annie's head. There are a couple of interesting, non-traditional features about this statue. One: She faces towards the castle, not the community. Two: She is not blindfolded. Three: The scales she holds will tip literally towards the tax office when it rains. Our tour guide told us the saying about this particular Lady Justice: "The Statue of Justice, well mark her station, her face to the castle, her [hind end] to the nation!"
We picked up sandwiches for lunch at a SPAR corner store, and then stumbled across this little Turkish bakery and grocery store. They had really yummy pastries that were way better than our premade sandwiches.
Then it was time to leave Dublin. We got back to the place we had stayed the night as we had permission to leave the car there even though we had checked out officially. I think door knobs in the middle of doors are hilarious. But not out of the ordinary there.
Our street was quite busy. We wandered down to see what all of the fuss was about and lo and behold, they were filming a movie. Word on the street was that Anthony Hopkins had been spotted the day before and they were filming a movie about Sigmund Freud in his later years. I don't know that we will ever watch the movie, but hey, we were there!!
One of the old vehicles being used for props didn't actually work after being unloaded from a trailer on our alley way. To get out of our parking space, Ryan had to help push it out of the alley and into the street so we could get out.
I left all of the driving to Ryan. He was a trooper and we took the car back to the rental place unscratched. I played the part of navigator on this trip, which is a less difficult job but also pretty demanding. We even sprung for the way more expensive automatic transmission. Ryan made do with a standard on our last trip, but the automatic was so much better.
One more thing about Dublin. The smell of cigarettes, cigars, and vaping pens is EVERYWHERE. I have never seen so many vaping devices. They were all shapes, sizes, and colors. And I am not sure what was in all of them-- some smelled a bit funky. I'm so glad the good ol' US did the whole campaign on the health effects of all that because it seems so much less prevalent, at least where we live.
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