So, I am a day behind on here.  Time to catch up!  Yesterday, we went to Trinity College, and St. Patrick's Cathedral, also got a few pics of Christ Church from the street...

Here is a picture of  St. Vincent de Paul in Dublin.  My daughter has worked in the soup kitchen in the one in Youngstown with her church group.

Trinity College has a very cool cobblestone walking areas in the center of the grounds.  The library holds the Book of Kells, the latin gospel book created in the late 1800's. 

Lastly, we toured St. Patrick's Cathedral.  Everything was beatiful, from the stained glass to the floors.  The architecture is really amazing!

We also stopped in one of the shops and looked up our family crest and our Irish Heritage.  My mom's family seemed to be pretty accurate, from the information I have.  I purchased the full history with the coat of arms on it since, it was not a common name and the coat of arms was very unique.

Now down to the best part of the day.... the Guinness Storehouse!  We had an awesome guide to take us around the place with his first hand knowledge of the whole  Guiness process.  His name is David and we met him from a mutual friend.  He is a huge Bob Segar fan and came all the way from Ireland to a couple of his concerts!  

He picked us up curbside to take us to Guinness Storehouse and give us a grand tour!  There are 7 floors in the storehouse.  We started on the first floor where they had us come in to 4 different tables with hookah type smoke...there was malt, hops, roasted barley, and one more that I don't remember off hand.  We had to smell each aroma before we did a taste test of the Guinness.  The roasted barley smelled like fresh roasted coffee...by far my fav!

Next, the guide taught us the correct way to taste the beer.  You smell it, don't exhale and take a huge gulp.  That lets you taste all the individual flavors...to think we have been doing it wrong all these years!  Abbey was not a fan, so I tasted hers also to make sure didn't have a bad batch  ;-)

Then we went into the rest of the storehouse to begin the video tours.  We had our trusty guide, David, there with us to give us all the inside scoop!

We had the option of going into the "pour room" and pouring our own beer with expert guidance and instruction, but since it was getting close to airport time, we opted for the gravity bar to receive our free draught!  The view was absolutely amazing and that was before our beer!  It is the 7th floor and had windows 360.  The barmaids were quite friendly, asking questions and pouring our beer.  Fresh Guinness has a little bit different taste than what we drink in the US.  It isn't quite as bitter...the perfect serving temperature is around 43 degrees.  You have to let your beer settle for 2 minutes before you can drink it, then the barkeeper tops it off and makes a shamrock shape, in the head of the beer, with the beer she is pouring.  Very Cool!

Here are some pics from the Gravity Bar.  There is information on the windows and I had to crop it all out except for my name, on one of the shots.  Quirky, I know!

Our next stop was Dublin Airport.  Our tour guide, David, dropped us off at the airport to begin our next journey in Barcelona!

Blarney Castle, Blarney Woolen Mills, Waterford Crystal

I had a great night's sleep last night and was ready to begin our adventures!  First we went to tour the Blarney Castle!  What an amazing site it is!  The gardens are beautiful and I was really excited to see my first castle.  There were signs for various rooms in the castle, and I can't even imagine life then!  

There is a circular stone stairway with 100 steps up to the top where the Blarney Stone lies.  I was thinking of my girls, as I climbed the steps, and decided it would not have been a good situation to have those narrow steps when they were still in their sibling fighting stage.  I could easily see tempers flaring and someone going done!  (the thoughts you have as a mother)  

The rooms common rooms were pretty much open sky.  The "family room" was the largest with a huge fireplace on one end.  The kitchen was small and you could see where a smoke stack had been.  These rooms were both up a few flights.  I can't imagine carrying your food up there!  It just amazes me how people used to live.  The girl's room, was about the size of a really large walk-in closet.  I could see my three girls sharing a room that size!  Not a pretty site!

There was another house on the land called Blarney House.  It looked more like a castle I would live in.  It had a proper roof.  I am not sure of the history of Blarney House.  I know it was built at a much later time.

After, winding down at Blarney and the shopping at Woolen Mills, we headed to waterford to see crystal in the making.  We had a great tour of Waterford Crystal. It was very interesting to learn all the facts about the crystal and see the steps it takes to finish a piece.  If is isn't flawless, it is smashed and the remaining pieces are added in to recycle and make new pieces.  

We watched the art of glass blowing, which I didn't really understand before I actually saw them doing it.  I wouldn't want that job!  I think out of  all the pieces they had on display, the phonograph was my favorite!

We finished the day of with some good food in an Pub named Geoff's!  It was really good food and a cool little pub!  The had an old sewing table transformed into a chess board.  Abbey got the penne" and I got the curry...delish!