2nd Week in Ireland

We’re starting to like Ireland, and we only have 10 days left here! This week I went with the kids to the Dublin Zoo. I met up with our landlord (Kate), her 3 kids and also her friend and 2 children. We had a great time. I got to socialize with other women and the kids enjoyed playing with the other kids. I’m starting to pick up on more of the Irish language like “lovely” and “grand” and “mind”(as in "mind your head", or "mind your step" etc.) I even heard Alana say “lovely” the other day (she’s learning new vocabulary too). Even though the people here speak English, some of them have a very hard accent and you have to really listen to understand.

Brett and the kids on a bridge in downtown Dublin

We went to downtown Dublin on Friday night to get a feel for the big city. I’m glad we’re not living there. The big city is fun for a little while but I don’t think I would enjoy the big city lifestyle. Everything is so close together and people are everywhere. The downtown area is built around a big river (River Liffey) the water is very dirty but it’s fun to walk across the bridges. We walked around Trinity College then down Grafton Street, it’s a big pedestrian only street with stores on both sides, then we walked around St. Stevens Green, a giant 27acre park with grass and lakes and walking paths. The girls enjoyed feeding the ducks, Allden enjoyed watching them too. Then we found a TGI Friday’s and ordered desserts in celebration of Lisa's B-Day.

On Saturday we drove south of Dublin and went to the Powerscourt waterfall, the highest waterfall in the British Isles. We had a nice picnic lunch here with the waterfall in the background. We walked around and then the girls played at the amazing playground. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Then we drove on to Glendalough and through National Forest. It is beautiful! Our pictures don’t do justice for how green and pretty it is here. There was a beautiful lake in between the mountains. (We are teaching Alana how to take pictures she took a couple of us and they turned out pretty good.) We walked around the park and then had an ice cream cone.

Sunday morning we found our church and enjoyed our meetings. The people were very friendly and welcoming. Then we drove north of Dublin to Skerry and found the Ardgillan Demesne (park and castle) We had a picnic lunch overlooking the ocean then walked back and saw the amazing castle built in 1738 it’s on 194 acres and is one of the prettiest parks I’ve ever seen. We enjoyed the scenery and the kids enjoyed the cool playground. They have way better playgrounds here than we have at home.