On the bus to downtown. I look like some sort of weirdo hipster.
The general post office. This is where the revolution began in 1916. While the general public wasn't necessarily in favor of what happened during the uprising, they were pretty pissed off about the treatment of the rebels afterward. They didn't actually succeed in breaking apart from the British Empire then, but it sowed the seeds.
Lorne and squinty Will in front of the River Liffey, which flows through the center of Dublin.
We went to Trinity College to look at the Book of Kells. I'll just refer you to that there link, because I kept getting (and continue to get) the dates all screwed up. But anyway, it's super old. After you leave the room where they store the book, they kick you out into this super old library. While we were there they had an exhibition of old medical instruments/the history of medical teaching. Will and I waited for everyone else in the old library and spent a good deal of time talking about a drawing of the muscles of the face, and what muscles are, and how they help you move your mouth and eyes and everything, and how yes, that guy had a weird eye in the picture. (No pictures allowed in library or book area.)
Then we watched a cricket game for a bit. I attempted to talk to Will about the differences between cricket and baseball, but as I know very little about cricket, I said a lot of very insightful things like, "The guy doesn't stand still to pitch the ball like a pitcher in baseball, he runs at the batter." ("The guy" is actually called "the bowler." A nice Irish man sitting next to us told me that, after saying, "So, you're not familiar with cricket, are you?")
We walked around for awhile, then looked at the outside of the castle. We decided not to go in, as a tour wasn't leaving for another 45 minutes and you have to go on a tour to look around.
We walked down to Christchurch Cathedral instead. I didn't get to look around a whole lot; Evie was super fussy so I took her to the bathroom in the crypt and fed her.
After we walked through Temple Bar and had a couple snacks from the farmer's market there (including some amazing millionaire's shortbread), we went to Porterhouse Brewing to taste some Irish craft beer and have some more snacks.
We shared three tasting flights between us (the adults, anyway) and tasted all their beers. The three dark beers were clearly the best (in my opinion). They just do dark beer right in Ireland.
Will ate some ice cream. He also kind of had a meltdown. No nap, lots of walking, very tired. Then we went back to the hotel.
Lorne and I went out on a date though. We took a long, meandering walk through downtown, had a drink at The Duke (where Oscar Wilde used to hang out, back in the day), then finally ended up at The Farm, a farm-to-table place that was absolutely amazing. We totally lucked out for just randomly wandering into a restaurant when we were tired of walking in the rain. Then we had another beer, then took the bus back to the hotel. Lovely first day in Dublin.
On Sunday, we forgot the camera in the hotel room again. Idiots.
This dude was blowing giant bubbles on the main shopping street. Will was enthralled.
Then he totally knocked down his bucket of bubbles. We felt so bad. We had Will give him, like, 7 euros. Then he thanked him for the bubbles, then we all sheepishly walked away.
We walked to Guinness. Woo! Guinness! It really does taste better in Ireland. Science says so.
Will enjoyed playing in the barley. I swear, I'm not already drunk in this picture.
Silly Will.
I don't think they had this when I went in 2002 - you can go learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. Here is Lorney, pouring his pint.
My pint and Lorney's pint, settling.
250+ years of Guinness.
This magical pen kept Evie happy for quite awhile.
Will and Lorne at the Sky Bar. You can see pretty much all of Dublin from here.
After Guinness, we walked further west to the old Kilmainham Gaol. Will and Evie promptly passed out in the stroller. We had questioned whether we wanted to bring the beast of a stroller, but I'm pretty glad that we did.
Or we would have spent a lot more time in Ireland doing what Lorne's doing in that picture there.
The jail is one of the first to have this design, which is now pretty common. They remodeled it sometime in the 1800s when prisoner reform was a big thing. The jail was decommissioned in 1924, after the Irish Republic became its own nation. Most figures in Irish independence were jailed here at some point.
After the jail we took the bus back downtown and ate dinner. The chef (and perhaps owner) sensed our son's impending hunger meltdown and headed it off at the pass with a bowl of marshmallows and a glass of milk. This was one of Will's favorite parts of our trip.
"I'm just kind of hugging the bowl, but not really, because I don't want them to spill."
We picked up some souvenirs on the way out (though no one bought one of the Obama or O'Bama t-shirts) and headed back to the hotel.
On Monday, we went to the airport and flew home. Again, the kids were pretty awesome, except for a brief Will meltdown over Angry Birds somewhere over the Atlantic. He was so loud that the flight attendant came up and talked to Will for a little bit and calmed him down. That was nice. Super, super, ridiculously embarrassing. But nice. Anyway, here are some pictures from our five hour layover in Chicago.
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