Dublin Day 11-12

Reagan started the day off tired so the best brother in the whole world, Geoffrey, carried her yet again. She said this was her favorite way of being carried.

Below is a shot of Geoffrey carrying Reagan in London. My favorite though was in the National Gallery where I couldn't take a photo. Geoffrey had put her on his shoulders and she had fallen asleep. Her head was draped on his head and her hair had fallen over Geoffrey's face so he couldn't see. Both older kids were a huge help on this trip. Lilly was also very helpful.
I chose our Dublin bed and breakfast based on proximity to the train station. It wasn't terrible but it won't win any prizes. Our rooms were up several flights of stairs and the hallway smelled of smoke. Thankfully the rooms were clean and we had plenty of room. The view out our window was not exactly picturesque. But we didn't have to go very far to hear some drunken Irishmen singing at the hotel nearby. I will say that the traditional Irish breakfast with eggs, sausage, toast, baked beans and ham was good.

Our first visit of the day was to The Book of Kells. The museum and the book were fabulous. Because we had watched a movie about The Book of Kells before we left the kids were fascinated by the exhibit.

Next we toured Christchurch Cathedral.

We tried to get through this alleyway but it was mobbed with teenage girls chanting outside of this theatre. The guy in the window is Jedward, or rather 1/2 of Jedward, a musical twins duo named John and Edward--hence, Jedward. They were on a show that seems similar to American Idol. We went around the mob after checking out what was happening.

We saw a few more street performers in Dublin.

This is The Spire of Dublin, or The Monument of Light.

It had been a long vacation so most of today was spent slowly strolling the streets, checking out the people and the sights, and doing a little bit of last minute shopping.

We also got to spend a few minutes looking for Reagan who got lost again. She was holding Rachael's hand, we all stopped to look at an old church so Rachael let go for a second and Reagan just wandered off. Again, I realized it fairly soon, I was constantly counting heads on this trip, it was really hard to keep track of eight people. I asked some folks sitting outside a pub if they'd seen her and they said they had just seen a little Blondie walking back and forth. Mike found her a half a block away trying to convince someone to help her cross the street. I guess she knew she couldn't cross the street by herself. So we had ANOTHER talk about staying with the group, staying where you are if you do get lost, and this time added a punishment to help her remember. For the rest of the trip she had to hold a grown ups hand AT ALL TIMES and she didn't get to pick which grown up. Why was she NOT traumatized by this? Why do I have such slippery kids?! I happen to know that not all kids wander like mine do.

That evening we enjoyed a very nice dinner with Kimberly and Drew Taylor, some friends of ours that used to live in the Boston area. It was great to spend some time visiting with them.

The last full day of our trip was Easter Sunday. In Dublin, this day marks the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising with the aim of ending British rule. We had decided to skip the parade and make our way over to St. Patrick's Cathedral for Easter Sunday. This proved to be a bit difficult because we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of the parade.

But after several blocks of detours we found our way over to the Cathedral where we could hear the bells ringing.

Although very different than our church services, this Easter Festival Eucharist service was lovely. The choir treated us to Schubert, Handel and many other beautiful hymns. I especially enjoyed the Easter Anthems.

Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over him.

For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin: but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

After the service we were able to take some time and quietly walk around.

We decided that an appropriate Sunday activity would be to go to the park so we took a leisurely stroll over to Phoenix Park. It was a long walk and certainly looked a lot closer on the map. Once we got to the park we took a break, ate what was left of our snacks, and watched some cricket.

We had heard that there was a food market happening at the park, we just didn't know where in the park. This is a very large park. Twice the size of Central Park. I was ready to skip the food market and head back to town but Mike was determined to make it to the market. So on we went. Now the story that I will tell my grandkids is that Mike walked us soooo long and sooo far that we ran into deer herds in the park.

Actually, these deer are tagged and live in the park. They must be fairly used to people since they didn't run when we approached them.

I will say that it was almost worth the walk. Of course, our walk didn't end there, we continued to traverse the whole length of the park and when we got to the market at 5 pm it had just closed. Clearly it was time to go home to Boston.

After dinner at an Italian restaurant we took the train over to our friends, The Taylors where after a short little Easter Egg hunt for the kids, we crashed on extra mattresses and couches and got a few hours of sleep. By 4 am we were at the airport and headed to Paris where we switched planes and headed back home.

So, was it worth it?
Absolutely!
Would I do it again?
Well, not tomorrow or the next day, but give me a few years and I'm sure the answer will be, Yes!