Our last day in Ireland - boo hoo!!

And, YES!  It began on a double-decker bus again.  It was raining when our day started, but we were able to get a seat up top under the cover, so Nick was happy.  And well protected from the rain in his red rain coat!

Posing for the camera...

We started our day at Dublin Castle.  Here is the entry gate.

Unfortunately, the Castle itself was closed for the day.  The only tours they were doing were of some of the outer buildings, so we just decided to check things out on our own.  A Nick picture of us in the guard thing-y.

The boys...

The Castle courtyard.

The Castle church.

Annnnd, the Castle gardens...

Even though we had bus passes, we were relatively close to our next stop & it wasn't raining anymore, so we just walked over to St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Inside the cathedral...

Cool helmet things over the choir seats.

On our walk to the next stop, we saw St. Nicholas Place - so I took a picture.

Our next stop - whoo hoo!!!

Our first stop was lunch.  And a pint.  Happy Mommy.

Yum... cascades of beauty...

The brewery has changed so much since my first visit some 15-odd years ago!!  It's very high-tech now, with a ton of stuff to see and do.  Nick was entertained and so were we.  At the end of the tour, you head up to the Gravity Bar to have your free pint.  It has a 360 degree view of all of Dublin.  Here are Nick & me at our window spot (which you have to keep a keen eye out for!!)

The Dublin sky line.  The Gravity Bar is the tallest building in Dublin.  You can see the spire way in the distance.

Another Nick picture.  He's becoming quite the photographer!!

Mommy & Nick in front of St. James's Gate.

For whatever reason, Nick wanted golf balls from the Guinness store.  Weird kid!!

Our next stop was one of the oldest pubs in Dublin, which, of course, since I waited too long to do this post, I can't remember the name.  I DO remember that they had these cool snugs that you could go in.  You close the door to the rest of the bar and you had your own little space.  These were made to accommodate women in pubs.  Apparently as recently as the 1970's, women weren't allowed inside.  So, in order to go in, they'd scoot women through the main bar and back into the snugs.  Closed the door and no one was the wiser.

You even have your own window to the bar so you could order your drinks.

Here's a little video that gives a good view of everything.

After the pub, we headed back to the hotel area.  We'd promised Nick that he could go to this arcade place that was across the street from our hotel.  He was very excited because he won a Cars 2 lunch box.  And it was full of loot too!

For our last dinner, we walked over to a pub and had some yummy pub grub.  Here are Nick & Daddy at the bar ordering drinks.

It was a great trip - can't wait to go back!!!!

Dublin Day 2

Day two in Dublin began with hopping on the double-decker tour bus.  I'm sure Nick thinks there is no other way to get around Dublin but on a double-decker bus.  In the middle of our road, there is a very tall spire monument thing.  You can see it from all over Dublin (it will be pointed out in the day 3 post, so stay tuned!)

Loved all the ivy and colored doors on the buildings throughout Dublin's streets.

Mommy & Nick on the bus.  On the top, of course.

St. Patrick's Cathedral - the largest church in Ireland.

If you click on the photo, it will enlarge.  And you'll see it's a Guinness delivery truck - yum!!

In keeping with doing some Nick oriented things early in the day so that we can do more adult oriented things later in the day, we headed over to Phoenix Park and the Dublin Zoo (actually, I love zoos, so this wasn't a HUGE sacrifice on my part!)

The tiger taking a cat nap.

A ginormous gorilla.  He was a little miffed as it started to rain.

The penguin exhibit was pretty cool.  You could get really close - I mean really close.  If you wanted to, you could reach in and grab one.  You can see Nick's stroller and foot on the left side of the picture below, just on the other side of the plexi-glass.  One bad thing about being so close - they smelled.  Bad.  Whew!!

It was hard not to reach over and give them a little pat.

Time for Nick hamming up for the camera.  "Look, I'm a penguin!!"

And, climbing on them of course...

Giraffes hanging out in the drizzle.

More animals to crawl on...

Baby rhino - so cute!

Baby elephant - also cute!

So we stopped at the snack shack to a) get a snack and b) escape the rain a bit.  I guess the peacock didn't like the rain either and came in as well.

The peacock was clearly not afraid of people.  The girl working the shack was SO nice.  She gave us a pastry to feed the peacock.  We chatted for a while - she was very excited that we were from LA.  As we were leaving, she pulled out a box & filled it with pastries & cookies - gave it to us for free!  So nice!!

After the zoo, we headed to our adult-oriented event for the day - the Jameson Distillery!!  We had about 20 minutes to wait for the next tour to begin, so we hung out at the little bar area they have there and (surprise) had a drink.

Nick looks like he'd had a few drinks in this picture.  But, nope, just apple juice.

My Irish Coffee - with Jameson, of course.  Yum.

The boys and Kevin's whiskey flight.

Into the tour we went.  Nick was good - he wasn't the only kid either, there was a baby that made a lot more noise than he did.

In the beginning of the tour, we watched a quick history video in a small theater.  After the video, the tour guide asked for volunteers for a tasting afterwards.  Both Kevin & I raised our hands, but the tour guide liked it when women volunteered, so I was selected - sorry Kev!!

Here is my whiskey tasting at the end of the tour.  The far left is scotch whiskey, middle is Jameson and far right is Kentucky bourbon (Jack Daniels).  I tried all of them and liked Jameson the best.  I gave my leftover bourbon to Kevin - so he didn't miss out after all.

A very fun day in rainy Dublin!!

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.