Our First Day in Dublin

FIRST! Thanks for all of the wonderful birthday wishes! You guys are awesome!
Ireland was such a treat, I CANNOT wait to go back. Forget every other country in Europe, just take me to Ireland ;)

We really did have a fantastic time. Like I said yesterday, it was more than I could have asked for. We both are still exhausted. I forgot how much traveling takes it out of you. I woke up at 8:00 this morning, which is unusual for me and am still struggling. But hey don't get me wrong, every bit of exhaustion is worth it just to have been able visit Ireland.

Today I'm just blogging about our first day in Dublin, as you can tell by the title of my post. I'll just summarize it for you guys or else you'd be stuck reading my blog all day. By the way, thanks for reading my blog and commenting, it truly does make my entire day that people actually find our little lives interesting enough to read! So, thanks friends!

Friday morning we woke up at 4:00 a.m. and were out the door at 5:11 a.m. Pretty good timing!
We drove to the airport and were on the plane by 6:30. I think we took off around 6:45 if I can remember.

Thank goodness everything went well at the airport. We had heard horror stories about Ryan Air, but we found it to be a breeze! Our plane took off, and we were on our way to Dublin. Thankfully the flight was super short and we arrived around 8:30.

From the airport we took a cab to our hotel, Jury's Inn, which is right across the street from Christ Church. (Thank you Rick Steve's.) Check in wasn't until 12:00, so they locked our bags up for us and out we went to get a feel for the city. First, of course, we stopped to take pictures of Christ Church since that was the first thing we saw. Here is a photo of the lovely church.

We walked around the Temple Bar area which we heard about from our friend Sarah. It was great, we loved seeing all of the old pubs and the buildings. After walking around for a bit we realized we both were starving, so we stopped and asked for a good breakfast restaurant. A woman recommended Queen of Tarts, and OH my gosh was it amazing!

I found this picture on the internet. I completely forgot to take a photo of this restaurant.

We had scrambled eggs, potato cakes, toast and cappuccino's! YUM. That definitely hit the spot.

After breakfast we headed to the Dublin Castle.
Here are a few of the castle.

From what we could tell it is still being used for office buildings. There were many people in and out of the castle. Of course we stopped and grabbed a couple of post cards, because they have been a bit of a collector's item for us. So now we have a postcard from all the countries that we have visited thus far.

Next we walked to Trinity College. I did not realize what a beautiful college this was until we were actually on the school grounds. It was unbelievable. Here are some pictures of the college.

From Trinity we walked along the nearby streets, visiting several of the shops.

I had to take a picture of this shop.

They sell door knobs and door knockers. Isn't that AWESOME? They even sell t-shirts that say Knobs and Knockers on them. How funny. I could kick myself for not buying one.

We walked down Grafton Street all the way to the St. Stephen's Green. Okay, this park is unbelievable! I want to move to Dublin just so I can jog through this park every morning. It was so peaceful and everything was just so green and beautiful.

We made our way to St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Another beautiful piece of architecture.

After seeing the St. Patrick's Cathedral we made our way back to Christ Church.

There is a Viking exhibit inside of the church, and Jon was really eager to see it.

Here are some more pictures of Christ Church.

A few from inside Christ Church.

The Viking exhibit was actually very interesting, and we really did learn a lot. The few pictures above are from the tower. There were 96 steps to the top of the tower; the view was awesome.
At that point we decided to finally check into our hotel, freshen up, put on some warmer clothes and head back out. It was a little colder than we had anticipated!

After checking in we found a restaurant practically next door to our hotel. It was way past lunch time and we were famished. We had an awesome lunch with a couple pints of an Irish blonde beer, which was perfect and not too heavy for lunchtime.

Next, we walked through the Temple Bar area to O'Connell bridge.

On O'Connell Bridge.

By that time it had started to rain and walking in the rain just didn't sound exciting to Jon and me, so we went back to The Temple Bar and had a couple pints of Guinness.


After several hours and several pints of Guinness we both realized how beat we actually were and decided to head back to the hotel for dinner. We were running on fumes after dinner and just called it an evening. We both wanted to get a good nights sleep because Saturday was going to be another long day!

Stay tuned, there's more to come on our Ireland adventure tomorrow! (With even more pictures. I took over 400, wow!)

We're Back!

................... and sadly very bummed about being back. Ireland was more than I could have asked for in a weekend adventure. I've never felt so at home anywhere in my life. The people were amazing and we had such a fabulous time. Even after the exhaustion from traveling and walking three days non-stop, I am extremely sad to be back in D-land.

But all of that aside, here were are back safe and sound. I am glad to be back to blogging! I can't wait to catch up with all of my blog friends and see what ya'll have been up to!!

I will post about our trip to Dublin tomorrow.

For now, I am going to crash on the couch from sheer exhaustion ;)

Until then,

Catchya on the Flip Side

Jon and I are going to make like a baby and head out!

We are off tomorrow morning bright and early for good ole' Ireland. We're setting the alarm for 4:00 a.m. and have to be at the airport by 6:00 a.m.

Jonny already purchased the tickets for the Guinness Storehouse so that we don't have to wait in line! I am so excited to be so cliche' and drink a Guinness in Ireland. I can't wait!

I have almost got the bags completely packed. Everything is in, except for what we need to use for tomorrow morning to get ready. In a little over 12 hours we'll be on our way!!!

Something very exciting!! I got birthday packages in the mail yesterday!

I want to THANK my wonderful friend Valerie. I receieved this awesome plaque from her as a gift for my b-day.

With this I also received a wonderful card. I absolutely love this plaque.
As you can see it reads "Rejoice," and next to it there is a bible verse,
"This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. " Psalm 118:24
She's such a wonderful lady and I am truly blessed to have her as a friend.
Thank you so much Val, I have the perfect place for it in my home.
Thanks you so much for thinking of me on my birthday!
You have made my day!

I also want to thank my best friend Lisha.
She sent me a birthday gift as well from one of my favorite boutiques in Norman, Francesa's!

I adore this dress, it's super funky and bright. I can't wait for it to be warm enough so that I can wear it! Thank you so much Lish, as always I love it, you know me too well ;)
She also got me a couple of tank tops which you can NEVER have enough of!
This dress ROCKS! THANK YOU LISH!!!

I am expecting three more packages. One from my mother and two from my dad. I think I might miss them before we leave, but it will be even more exciting when we get back to have birthday surprises waiting for me! There's nothing like stretching a birthday out for weeks so you can really enjoy it!

Tonight we are going out to dinner with our friends Sarah and Deaner! We heart these guys!! They are so much fun and I am so glad they were able to meet up to celebrate my birthday.
We are eating at the Brauhaus Castel. It's an amazing German restaurant and brewery. So I looked forward to some fattening German food and having a lovely Heffeweizen to wash it all down!

We're going to miss you guys this weekend!

I look forward to catching up with everyone when we get back! Even though it's only four days, I'll miss blog land!

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Bit of a Packing Delima

Thanks so much ladies and gents for all of your suggestions. I have so many things written down now that I want to see and do! Hopefully we can fit everything in during our three day visit. I am so looking forward to going on this trip. After reading all of your fabulous comments I got even more excited about this mini-vaca. I definitely think for me this is a trip of a lifetime, some place that I have wanted to visit since I was a little girl and I definitely didn't think I would get this opportunity until later in life. (Thanks to living in Germany, I now have that opportunity.) Jon couldn't have given me a better birthday gift and in all honesty he went way above and beyond for me. I truly am one blessed and lucky girl.

Things To See:

* Guinness Storehouse (of course)
* Kilmainham Jail
* Dublin Castle
* St. Patrick's Cathedral
* Temple Bar area
* Catch a pub crawl
* Take a Wild Wicklow Tour
* Visit the country side

That sure is a big list! We also have our own personal tour guide, whom I mentioned in my post yesterday, Oisin. He will be taking us around all day Saturday. I am so happy to have a tour from a born and bred Irishman. I know we'll get to see some awesome things with him.

Now to my packing issue:

Jon said the easiest thing for us to do is to carry our luggage onto the plane. That is perfectly cool with me and totally understandable, I'm just at a loss on how I am going to fit everything into ONE backpack (yes that's right, you're only allowed ONE carry-on that includes your purse,) that is equal to or less than 25 pounds. Yup. You read that correctly. So needless to say I am only bringing WHAT I will actually need to get me through 3 days of traveling. I am "that woman" that packs four bags for a weekend trip.

I'm not complaining in any way shape or form. I mean come on I'm going to IRELAND! I am just saying that if I can fit everything into a 25 pound bag, I should probably get some sort of packing award from Guinness Book of World Records or something. RIGHT! I guess the airport is a huge stickler on the dimensions of a carry-on as well so it has to fit the exact dimensions or you're screwed. (Which means you'll have to check your bag, costing extra money and there is a chance it will get lost, which I was told this airport is known for losing baggage.)

But I am so excited I've already started packing. I am already up to 10 pounds on my bag and I hope I can fit everything else in. Of course there are some things I will have to leave at home, (like my four other bags of random junk that I NEED for everything vacation.) but I think I will manage ;)

Again thanks for all of the advice. If I have left anything off my list that you think I HAVE to see while I am there please add to it!

Also, I have been having my weird dizzy spells again. This morning I had a wicked spell and I am hoping that I will be better before my trip! Please say a little prayer for me. It would mean the world to me. I would be devastated if I were sick on this trip! Thanks so much!

Hope you all have a fabulous Wednesday!

P.S. Aren't these so fun! We have four beer mugs with My Goodness My Guinness and similar pictures written on them. I also bought several plaques like these for my dad and he now has them hanging in his garage.

He Cracked!!!

My birthday surprise is..............

IRELAND
HERE WE COME

We are leaving Friday morning!! I CANNOT wait.

Jon told me this morning! I was surprised he told me so early and very surprised that we are going to Ireland. Although I should have known, because my family is from Ireland and I've wanted to visit for as long as I can remember. My dad is HUGE on the Irish culture. He has been to Dublin twice and loves everything about the country. LITERALLY everything. He's all tattooed up with Irish paraphernalia/symbols. We actually both have the Irish Claddagh tattoo. I'm so excited, I'm just jabbering on and am probably making no sense whatsoever.

One of my great friends lives in Dublin and he is going to take us around the city all day Saturday. I so look forward to seeing him again. He's a tough little Irish fighter that my dad trained while he was living in the states. He's a great guy and Jon and I both look forward to hanging out with him!

So off we go Friday at the crack of dawn and will be arriving early morning in Dublin!

As my dad says I'm going back to the Motherland ;)
This Irish girl is finally going back to her roots!

My husband rocks!

Any ideas from you lovely ladies on what we should see and do. We will only be in Dublin from Friday through Monday!!!

Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!