Sunday, August 5, 2007

Today the weather was starting to get a bit dicey, with clouds and drizzle. We had a nice Irish breakfast at the hotel, and I was surprised to find that I liked Irish black and white pudding. I knew that it had something gross in it (turns out it’s pig’s blood) but I put that out of my mind just fine at breakfast.

Then we walked to Merrion Square to catch the hop-on, hop-off bus tour. The girls were thrilled to actually be on a double-decker, although the rain made it a bit hard to enjoy the open top! Our first stop was Dublinia, which is a heritage center that explains life during the Viking times and the Viking’s importance to Dublin. Turns out they did more than just pillage, they actually stayed and created the city and intermarried with the locals.  The museum was okay, and I was excited that I got to use my Heritage Island touring guide for the first time and get one free admission, which basically paid for the book (we had to order it ahead of time, and it costs 6 euros).

After Dublinia it was raining pretty hard so Mark had no interest in standing in the line to see Christ Church Cathedral, so we just headed off to Temple Bar for lunch at Botticelli, which is very nice. Any place with pasta is good for the girls. We walked around Temple Bar a bit and saw the Ha’penny Bridge. After lunch, we hopped back on the bus and stayed on it for a while to get the lay of the land. We went through Phoenix Park and saw the herd of red deer there and also saw where the zoo was. Then we went by the Guinness brewery and picked up the drunken people there.

We got off at the National History Museum where I was very interested in the old furniture and clothes they had. The girls were excited to see the Viking ship that was supposed to be in the museum but it unfortunately had not yet arrived. The museum closed so we got back on our tour bus and back to O’Connell Street and then to a restaurant near Trinity College called Cafe en Seine which was pretty fancy but (just like every other place in Ireland) children were welcome. And back to our hotel, where we got the kids off to bed and this time got to sleep until 5:00 when we got the knock on the door. This time Mark went back into the girls’ room with Genevieve and Charlotte stayed with me in our room.

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