More about Dublin

It's hard to consolidate our other impressions of Dublin, but I thought I'd give it a shot this morning :-):

1. They drive on the wrong side of the road. This just messes with your head!! We are VERY thankful that we do not live somewhere where we have to learn how to do this! Here in Europe, they often use roundabouts instead of left (or right) turns. You just enter the roundabout at the intersection and then exit to the right when you get to your turn. Well, they also have roundabouts in Dublin, but you have to go the wrong direction!! It was crazy just to watch, much less do :-). At many intersections, they have helpful note for pedestrians to remind you which way to look for oncoming traffic :-). I guess they are well aware that they are in the minority in the world in driving how they do!

2. We stayed at a WONDERFUL place that we highly recommend to anyone visiting Dublin! It is called Number 31 in the Stephen's Green area, and run by a very nice man named Noel Comer. It was very close to the downtown area, so it was a bit pricey. But included in the cost is a full, delicious homecooked breakfast every morning! Even Thursday morning when I moved our bags from the 1st hotel to this one, they met me at the door and said "Have you had breakfast yet?" and proceeded to bring out all kinds of yummies - even tho we hadn't stayed there the previous night! They had a huge assortment of fresh fruit, including (my favorite!) fresh berries - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries - YUM!, as well as delicious vanilla pears made with real vanilla beans. They also had fresh sqeezed orange juice, homemade breads, and homemade granolas to pick from. Then they took your order for a huge egg breakfast of eggs Benedict, cheese omelet, mushroom frittata, scrambled eggs w/ smoked salmon or "the full Irish" of fried eggs and meat. It was amazing! We really didn't eat lunch much in Dublin b/c breakfast lasted us all day :-). The staff was extremely helpful, whether it was with electronics converters (yes, the plugs in Dublin are yet again different than Spanish plugs), what to see in Dublin, or just interacting with and entertaining Katie (she was the only child we saw there). One of the ladies, Ann, brought Katie some paper the 1st morning when she was getting restless before I was done eating. She asked Katie to draw her a picture which she then put on her wall in the office! It was so kind. They also gave us bread for the ducks in the nearby park. They were wonderful! No pics of the breakfasts unfortunately :-), but here's one of our beautiful room.

3. The 1st day, Katie & I went to see one historical thing (i.e. "boring" for the 4 year old set :-)), then we got a small picnic lunch and took the duck bread to the park to feed the ducks. It was so much fun! Europeans spend much more time outside than those of us in Dallas do (perhaps it has something to do with the temperatures?!?), and it is so fun to experience the parks with the cross section of people we found there eating lunch too. We saw some tourists and some business people on their lunch breaks, and heard English, French, Spanish and who knows what else :-). I think that people here just walk more and their leisure activity with their kids seems to be going to parks. The ducks were hilarious - it was actually more sea gulls than ducks and they were quite vocal with their desires for the bread :-). We loved watching them and laughed and laughed at them fussing at each other. That's some of the best part of being a parent - getting an excuse to do "kid things" again! :-)

4. The flowers here are beautiful - something has been blooming here since we got here in February! I think we're actually experiencing a true spring - where it's not just a 1 time event where a few things bloom, but where there are waves and waves of different trees and flowers that bloom. It is wonderful! This pic is also from our picnic in the park in Dublin.

Well, it's probably time to get the day moving around here :-). My parents are visiting and we took them out to our favorite restaurant last night. It was wonderful, but we didn't start dinner until 9:30 and didn't get home until after midnight! Then today it's very rainy, so we are all moving slowly :-). I think we're off to see the Prado in a little while though - our 1st visit! Should be fun and a great activity for a rainy day!

More on the sights of Dublin later :-)
Becca