Growing up I always loved that my mom was from Belfast. I am not one to love attention, but I loved that I could say that. We've heard stories of her home and life growing up and of places she went. All the time they were only stories but we all hoped one day we would be able to see it. When I was a preteen I wished that I could be sent to Ireland to go to school, mainly because I wanted to come back with a cool accent. That did not happen.
Around Thanksgiving or Christmas Paul started to talk about taking a family trip to Ireland. Mom and Dad were in, so I had to go. It possibly is their last time going, or at least last time doing a big trip going all over. I was very lucky and fortunate to be able to go, and it was so worth it. It was just me from my family. Paul and his whole family, Mom, Dad and Scott and his kids went.
I was very nervous for the flights, but they weren't that bad. We left 12 hours before Scott but they got to Dublin about 30 minutes before us.
All of us in Idaho, hyped up and ready to go.
Second flight. We flew from Idaho to Portland, had a long layover then went to Iceland then Dublin. We left the house at 7:15 am August 2nd, Idaho time and got to Dublin August 3 at 4:15 am Idaho time. A long day of travel.
Waiting in the Portland airport for the airline to open up being able to check our bags. We had a lot of luggage.
This is a thing here I guess? A coworker said it was popular, so I sent a free foot pic.
I loved being able to watch where we were. Also being able to see who was in day and who was in night.
We had a little layover in Iceland, very random, but their woman's bathrooms were amazing. A little room each stall.
This was a cool troll in the gift shop.
Once we got to Dublin we got out bags and dropped them off at the hotel and walked around until we could check in. Poor hotel said they could hold our bags and it ended up being 13 bag and about the same in backpacks too.
We just randomly walked around. We got tickets to tour Dublin Castel but had to wait a little for our tour to start. We went to Trinity College, just for a few minutes because there wasn't much to see.
The streets are so cool to look at. All the buildings are side by side, no space. Different colors and so much to see. We did stop at McDonald's and I got spicy nuggs (delish) and a strawberry lemonade slush (amazing)
A weird building next to the gates to Dublin Castle.
There was a chapel while we were walking around that had a really cool statue. It looks like a homeless man but if you get closer you can see the marks on his feet and realize it Jesus. My parents loved this one and had to make sure we found it and saw it again.
Dublin Castel. The round tower is the only part of the original that is still standing. It was a mix of Viking and Medieval building. The chapel next to it was built in 1807 and the person who had it built at that time spared no expense and did high end for everything. The tour was really cool to see and our guide was pretty funny.
This is part of the old Dublin Castle. This was part of the water that was around it. The wall is what used to be the outer wall. Now on the outside of it is lots of buildings.
This is the ruminants of one of the circle towers. It used to house all the gunpowder for the castle but had to change when some fires started. A whole tower full of gunpowder would have made for one big boom had it caught on fire. I don't fully remember what happened to the tower but you can see the medieval building ways and the Viking building ways in the left overs.
This was the chape.
The king or ruler of the Castle was a big man and made this oversized seat.
There used to be a lot of balls and dinners held here. Since the start of it, it had be added onto and changed. Here was held things like the show Bridgeton, where girls would come starting much younger that we would think is okay now, to find their husband. To be risqué, women would flash their ankles to their suiters to tempt them. Oh have times have changed.
That night we made it back to the hotel. After we went to a store and got some dinner and water and went to sleep. I laid down and was trying to add pictures to a Google doc we had started but kept falling asleep as I did it. I crashed at 12:50 pm Aug 3 our time(7:50pm Dublin). I had been awake since 6:15 am Aug 2nd. The longest I had stayed awake in a long time. I slept so well, woke up really refreshed, looked at my clock and it was 11pm in Dublin. I didn't sleep as long as I thought. Thankfully I was able to go back to sleep.
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