Portrait of the Sadie as a Young Dubliner

Alright, so we went to Dublin last weekend (actually, by the time most of you read this it will probably be more like two weekends ago. I'm slow). My friend Jeni, who I've known since I was about three, lives there, so we didn't have to pay for a hotel, and the flight is both short and cheap. She lives in a suburb called Dun Laoghaire, which is pronounced "dun leery," which, Irish, what?

One weird thing happened as we were entering the country. I had to say why we were going there, and where I was staying, and they asked about Jeni and how I knew her. I gave them her birthday and they pulled up her picture on a screen and were like, "is this her?" Which was weird to me but they let us in.

The first thing we did (after dropping off bags and such) was to go to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. I am really into old books and book arts and stuff, so this was a real treat for me. It was really cool to see, and we also got to see the "long room" in the library which smelled amazing. It actually reminded me of a perfume I have that is supposed to smell like books. And of course, I bought a coloring book at the gift shop. Hunter took a few pictures outside:

The obligatory shot of Sadie in the carrier. She's getting pretty big, so there may not be too many more of these.

It had been a long day for Sadie and after one minor meltdown, we met up with Jeni and got a quick dinner before heading home. I had my traditional first-day-of-trip-not-quite-migraine, but luckily you can just buy pain reliever at the grocery store LIKE A NORMAL COUNTRY so it was gone by morning. And the best part was that Sadie actually slept in her little travel tent. I'd had her practice with it in the week leading up to the trip and I was really happy that she slept in it with no problem. It likely didn't hurt that she was super tired by the end of the day, either!

Saturday morning Sadie woke up ridiculously early, as is her wont. The first thing we saw was Leinster House, which was starting a tour just as we got there. The tour guide spoke extremely fast, which I guess is an Irish thing, but I did gather that Irish people love JFK, and this tour guide at least used the phrase "alleged assassin" to describe Oswald, so yeah.

Next stop was St. Stephen's Green, a park, where Sadie tossed bread to some pretty aggressive seagulls that edged out every duck in sight.

She also played a bit at a playground but I was to busy preventing her from running into things to get any pictures.

We had planned to go to St. Patrick's Cathedral, but they had a graduation on that day so we had to save that. Our next stop was the Guinness Storehouse. There were aspects of it that I liked, but it was the end of the day and Sadie was getting so heavy that it was difficult to really enjoy. It's also mega-touristy, but that's no surprise. They did let us jump a large portion of the queue because we had Sadie, so at least we didn't have to wait very long. Inside, they had a large fish riding a bicycle which Sadie was obsessed with. Seriously, she kept wanting to go back and look at it. I was really hoping the gift shop would have something with the fish on it I could get for her, but they just had one adult t-shirt and I ended up not wanting to stand in the line anyway.

After this, we went and had a few drinks at a pub. By this time, Sadie was pretty fond of Jeni. Jeni and her boyfriend, Kev, offered to take Sadie home so Hunter and I could go out for a meal ourselves. I was a bit worried about how Sadie would handle it, but she did fine! She didn't even cry, which amazed me, and Hunter and I got to eat by ourselves and go to a real bar, which was pretty cool.

Sunday morning we went to the Dun Laoghaire market, where we ate some crepes and Sadie ran around. When she started getting tired, I walked her around in the carrier and we went to a pub to watch the rugby world cup, which Ireland was competing in. Of course, when Sadie woke up, she just wanted to run around everywhere. Sadie is truly the best and handles our travels better than I ever could hope, but she really hates ever sitting still, which can be really tiring.

We were able to go to St. Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday afternoon. I actually had forgotten the carrier and wasn't sure how Sadie would handle that, or how Hunter and I would handle that, but it wasn't so bad. She just kept wanting to look at all the shiny things in the gift shop.

Our next stop was Christ Church, but it was no longer on summer hours so it had closed like, 15 minutes before we got there. We did get some outdoors pictures though.

 On our way to a pub for dinner, we stopped at Dublin Castle and Sadie ran around in a courtyard a bit. She just never quits!

So apparently a thing in Ireland is that on Sundays, the pubs have a carvery where you get some meat and potatoes and veg; the food is all very much what I think of British Isles food as being. I went through and I didn't even get everything they offered and it was enough for Hunter and Sadie and me. We also got some raw oysters, because they are supposed to go really well with Guinness. And once again, Sadie had basically had it at that point, so we went home and just chilled a bit before going to bed.

It was a fun trip but I didn't realize til the end that I didn't actually get any pictures of Jeni and me together! Maybe I can photoshop one. Dublin was really fun, and definitely somewhere I would go back to since there are so many things we didn't see. Every trip with Sadie is an adventure and I am so thankful she is a good traveller.