Dublin!!

We hit the road after our lunch near the farmhouse in Killarney National Park.  As per usual, Nick fell asleep fairly quickly.  The roads in Ireland have improved so much since the last time I was there.  Made the trip to Dublin really quick using the M-highways.  Once again, we lucked out with our navigation and found our way to the hotel without issue.  We stayed at the Gresham Hotel.  It was generally nice. The rooms were big although we had issues with our A/C.  We couldn't get it to cool down which means we had to leave our window open.  But since we were in large city, the noise was an issue.  Oh well, it had a great lobby bar, good breakfast and had easy access to pretty much everything.  

My friend Maggie, who is also Nick's god mother, decided to spend a few days in Dublin while we were there.  She brought two friends, Sharon and Laura.  So after we checked into the hotel and got settled, we met up with them at the hotel.  We all headed out for dinner at a pub down the street.  We didn't stay out too late as it was relatively late already.  Here is Nick in his typical form at the bars.  Mommy's phone, ear buds and a drink.

Since Maggie and "The Twins" got there the day before we did, they organized a tour out to Powerscout Estate for all of us.  (For some reason, Nick started calling Sharon and Laura the Twins.  They aren't related and don't really even look like each other.  But it was funny.)  Nick was very excited to ride in the double-decker bus.  Here he is sitting with Maggie in the bus.

A picture of the two of us, finally!

The drive out to Powerscourt took us through all sorts of cool places.  Here is a nice statue along the waterfront of Dublin.

You know, just a ruin in the middle of town.  Typical.

A picture of the Girls and Nick on the beach in Bray.  Laura on the left, then Sharon, Maggie and me.

Nick wanted to climb everything, of course.  I can't imagine it was comfortable.

A view of the countryside outside Powerscourt.

The gardens at Powerscourt.

Nick loved being able to run all over.

The terrace that overlooks the garden, along with a fountain.  You can see Nick in the bottom left corner.  I'm at the top of the stairs in the top left corner.

A view back up toward the mansion.  Kevin not paying attention to the photographer.

Nick doing his typical climb atop any animal he can.

More gardens.

The pond and fountain.

Nick in front of the fountain.

Nick took this picture of Maggie and the Twins

A view back up all of the stairs from the pond.  You can see the sky starting to look a bit nasty.  It did start to rain, but thankfully after we'd finished the majority of our garden tour.

Nick running down the path to the far side of the pond.

A view from the far side of the pond back to the mansion.

To one side of the gardens, they have an Japanese garden.  The colors were lovely.

Nick surveying the Japanese garden from above.

He wanted to take a picture, so I'm making sure he doesn't drop the camera.

The picture that Nick took.  "Mommy, look at my picture.  The trees are so beautiful."

Also on the grounds was a cool tower.

I climbed up to the top of the tower.  Nick climbed up too, but a little later.  He was busy playing with the canons.

Me at the top of the tower.

Nick and his canon.

Fire away!

After playing with the canons and running about, we headed into the mansion where they had a cafe.  We had some lunch while it rained outside.  They had some stores in there as well, so we perused the stores a bit before we hopped back on the bus to head back to Dublin.

Once we got back to Dublin, Kevin had to go turn in our car (we'd arrived too late to return it the day before).  So Maggie, the Twins, Nick and I stopped in our lobby bar for a little drink before we got ready for dinner later.  Nick took a TON of pictures while we were there, but none of them were particularly flattering.  Nick doesn't quite understand that getting reallllllly close to your subject isn't the most attractive view.  I was able to get a good one of  Maggie, Nick and Sharon, though.

Later that evening, we all headed out to dinner.  Maggie, Sharon & Laura were leaving the next day.  Here are Sharon and Laura playing checkers with Nick.  He was very good at dinner - loved his meatballs.

It was a great first day in Dublin, even though the majority of it was spent outside of Dublin.  It was too bad that the ladies were leaving the next day, but we still had a great time with them while they were there.