First Day in Dublin

Preface: Jess and Emily are traveling to Dublin because Em's little sister Elizabeth is doing an internship here this summer. Daddy didn't want her to fly over alone, so he tagged along, thus Emily and Jess did as well! What an excellent excuse for a vacation. Mama would have come, but she already had a girl trip planned to Hawaii so she is currently in Honolulu across the globe. Ann and Ryan leave next week for their European honeymoon so we will just miss them but Lizzie will see them I'm sure.

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Jess and I got lucky and had no visitor on our row of seats on the plane. So, maybe I got .5 more seconds of sleep than a normal passenger without the bit of extra space. ;) I would say I got MAYBE 2 hours of sleep total. Jess said he thinks he got "five minutes" and Daddy said he got maybe 30-45. Those of you who know me well know that I sleep easily and love naps. :)

We got to our hotel around 8 or 9ish this morning... we got to check right in so that was great. We freshened up a bit then got on a bus and went closer to the city center. We didn't know when exactly to get off so we got off when the whole bus was pretty much emptying. It was quite chilly outside compared to hot Texas right now. We went to the Dublin Tourism center, which is in a beautiful looking old churchish building. Then we looked in one of my travel guides and went to a lovely little lunch place called Leon's Cafe around the corner. It was french. I had Ham and Cheese on a croissant. It was snug in there for the long-legged Meltons but the atmosphere was so cute. Chandeliers and breezy music in a tiny little space. The toilet was one of those kinds you see in British Children's books with the chain hanging from up top. So fun for me to flush! After we ate we went over to Trinity College and looked at the Book of Kells. This was interesting to see the calligraphy of monks 1 million bajillion years ago. Not that many years, but REALLY OLD pages/books. The Illumintations are what my artminded self enjoyed the most. Then there was the "long room" upstairs which was just like freakin' Hogwarts Library! It was SOOO cool but you couldn't take pictures in there. We saw some old Edgar Allen Poe, Sherlock Holmes, and other books from the university that are in their OLD old collection. Seriously, there were two stories of books open in this humongous beautiful arched ceiling with ladders and little sections, just like Hogwarts. ;)

Random: At some point in our walking, we ran into the Molly Malone statue, so I got a picture with her. Splendid.

After Trinity we walked around a bit and then hopped back on a bus [we sat on the top deck this time] and then came back to the hotel, took showers and a nap. We made ourselves wake up and that is where we are now. Our bodies are all out of whack but it's ok, still exciting to be here. We're about to go get a taxi and go down to where Elizabeth is going to be settled until August... wherever that may be. I will update again soon.

xoxo
em