Dublin

Our last day in Ireland. We had to get up early…7:30…and head to Dublin to drop off the rental car and get to the hotel. We said goodbye to our hosts and our house. What a great time we had at that house. Sitting by the fire every night writing my blog. Now I’m in a Holiday Inn Express. Little different.

We spent the afternoon in Dublin. Taking in all the sights. What a city!

So many people! Dublin is busy on Saturdays, but was especially so today. County Cork and County Clare were having the championship hurley game today. Hurley is Ireland’s sport. Kind of like baseball is what they are telling me. I haven’t actually watched any yet, but I did see a hurley stick and ball in the store. Everyone was coming to Dublin to watch the game and celebrate. Red and white versus blue and yellow. The colours were everywhere! So exciting! Made me wish I cared so that I could party too!

We walked down Henry street that is a shopping street. No cars allowed. We saw a brass band playing on the street. They were amazing. Dancing and playing at the same time.

Debbie bought a CD from a guy playing on the street. Bolivian music…go figure…in Ireland. Next trip is Bolivia and she will buy Irish music there.

Cheryl leaned up against the post because she’s wild and crazy like that. Tried to keep her reigned in a little this trip. We told her to stand by the post and behave.

After Henry street we passed the Ha Penny bridge. (Half Penny – cause that’s what it used to cost to get across it) We were to lazy to walk over it so we just took pictures. It was cute.


We headed for Trinity College (it is a university) to have a look at it. It was founded in 1592 and is Ireland’s oldest university. What a big and beautiful place!

Saw this guy in front of it. I cut off the horses heads, but I’ll be happy with that since there were cars and people everywhere and I was lucky to get a picture with nothing else in it!

We went to Grafton Street after that…a must see in Ireland. Entertainers everywhere! So alive! I took a video so we could “hear” our pictures. It was so loud and had so much going on. We ate dinner near Grafton Street. Great Irish restaurant – had to go in the alley to find it.

Irish cooking. Delicious. I had Irish stew. I wanted to have that before I left Ireland. Lamb and veggies in the stew served with Irish soda bread.

It was so good and very filling. Still had room for dessert though;) Sticky toffee pudding – which is actually a cake. I heard this was Kate Middleton’s favourite food and I have been wanting to try it. Even went so far as to get the recipe. BUT we know how well I do with recipes. So, when I saw it on the menu I knew I had to have it. It was amazing.

We headed back to our hotel after that. We took the bus. No idea what we were doing. Took the bus to the end of the route, realized we had missed our stop and had to plead with the driver to drop us off on his way back into the city. He was from Toronto so we bonded and he was more than happy to help us out.

We walked by these beautiful swans near our hotel. I had to stop and take a picture. Why not!

We drove over 2,000 kms, took about 1,000 pictures, got lost at least 50 times, had lots of laughs, ate all different kinds of Irish food, saw everything from castles to animals hogging the road to prison cells and filled every day as full as we could! What a great trip!

I do have to thank these 2 very special ladies for sharing this trip with me. This has been a dream of mine for a lot of years and it was so exciting to share this adventure with them. They are a ton of fun and even though I did pick on them a little bit I love them dearly. It was better than I ever imagined it could be! Thank you both so much!!!

Thanks to all of you who read my blog. Hope you enjoyed the stories as much as we did. Next blog won’t be anywhere near as exciting and those organizing blogs just don’t happen as frequently;)