May 17-18, 2025 - We're headed to Dublin! Indianapolis has a new direct flight to Dublin that will make our trip super easy. It's an 8 hour flight which leaves Indy at 7:50PM and gets into Dublin at 8:00AM. Since we weren't in a hurry to get to our Airbnb we took the Airbus 700 from the airport to O'Connell St. The bus was 10 Euros each and dropped us just a few blocks from our apartment. We stopped for a coffee (we only got about 2-3 hrs of sleep on the plane and the coffee helped wake us up a bit). Next we went in search of SIM cards for our phones. The ATT international plan costs $12/day for 10 days and then is free for the remainder of the billing cycle. The second phone on the plan is only $6/day, so between the two of us it would have cost us $360 since our trip spans 2 billing cycles. The SIM card plan we decided on has unlimited data for $22/month, while in the EU. The plan also came with 30 Gbs of roaming data outside of the EU (which we will use once we leave Ireland for the UK). So we should save over $250. We found a 3 Co store where they helped us with the cards. We took out our current SIM cards (while our phone was still in Airplane mode, and added the new card with the EU phone number on it. Once the card was in the phone we turned off the airplane mode and we were able to use our apps and we will use What's App for text and phone calls while we're here. It sure was nice to have access to Google maps with the new card. We had a few navigation problems while trying to find some place that sells SIM cards, since I didn't download the Google maps that I needed! We got settled at our Airbnb and then headed out for some exploring.
We're going to Dublin!
That's Ireland down there...
Our Apartment is only a few blocks from the Spire. We should be able to walk to most of the places we want to visit this week.
A coffee on O'Connell St
Home sweet home for the next week
there are some pretty buildings in Dublin. This one was decorated with painted tiles.
We found the most famous bar in Dublin...Temple Bar.
It was hoppin' on this Sunday afternoon and they had live Irish music which we really enjoyed.
We started off with one of Kev's favorites a Smithwicks
Then it was time for a Guiness, which I had never had before. It didn't look like a beer I would like, but it was actually quite good.
I love all the flowers
The Temple Bar area is cobblestone streets and pedestrian only in certain areas.
More tiled buildings
The Ha'penny bridge (a pedestrian bridge) over the Liffey River. The bridge was built in 1816 to replace ferries that were taking people across the river. For 100 years a ha'penny was charged for crossing the bridge.
We're happy they don't charge a ha'penny any more
The Church Cafe is just a few blocks from our apartment, so we stopped there on the way home.
Each night at 6:00 they have live music and dancing, so we'll have to stop back later this week, because we're a little tired tonight
pretty bar
May 19, 2025 - We went to bed at 8:00 last night and slept until 7:00 this morning. I think we're caught up on sleep! Today we're headed first to the Leprechaun Museum, a 10 minute walk from our apartment. This isn't a typical museum. Our guide led us through several rooms in the museum, and told us stories about leprechauns. He was quite a good story teller and we learned a lot about Leprechauns, Fairies, Banshees and Pucas. The image of Leprechauns that is widespread today (green jacket and red beard) was how Walt Disney chose to portray Leprechauns in the movie "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" and the image has stuck.
Another view of the Ha'penny bridge
The Leprechaun Museum
Our story teller shrunk us
beautiful bench at the museum
Next we had lunch and a beer at the Brazen Head (the oldest pub in Ireland). The beef stew was amazing (it's got 3 dollops of mashed potatoes on the top!)
Christ Church, pretty cool bridge across the street
We wandered around the church courtyard
but decided we'd do the tour of St Patrick's instead
The entrance into Trinity College
beautiful bell tower
It was graduation day at Trinity College, which was fun to watch the grads take pics in the quad
The 1200 year old Book of Kells is housed at Trinity college. We did a self guided audio tour ($22/each). This is Ogham which is old Irish writing from the 4th-7th centuries written on stone. We weren’t able to take pictures of the Book of Kells. It was smaller than I expected (not as big as the Guggenheim bible we saw in NYC). The Book of Kells are the Gospels (Latin text) that are beautifully scripted and decorated. They were crafted by monks on the island of Iona and moved to Kells after Vikings raids.
The tour led us through the Narrow Room in the Trinity Library.
The hall was lined with sculptures of notable philosophers, scientists and authors.
Many of the shelves were empty as they are doing a conservation project.
They have added 4 sculptures of notable women. We were happy to see Ada Lovelace the first computer programmer (we get this clue often in crosswords).
"Gaia" by Luke Jerrom which uses images of earth from NASA.
The oldest Irish harp
Pretty building on the Trinity campus
Superman on O’Connell St?
There's the Spire again, as we cross O'Connell Bridge. The Spire was erected in 2001 after a redevelopment of the O'Connell area.
More O’ Connell St
Dinner at home tonight. Chicken salad with a 55 cent loaf of bread from Tesco 😋
May 9, 2025 - Mom's 90th birthday is May 25th, but to get everyone together we needed to have the party earlier in May. We decided to have the party at Ann's since it's close to Emily's house and only 30 minutes from the Cincinnati airport. Elaine and Meg both took off work on Friday and Meg got in around 10:00AM and Elaine around 2:30. Emily and Vinny drove down for the afternoon/evening and it was fun catching up with everyone.
Meg's here!
We were all hungry, so we stopped at Skyline on the way back to Ann's
Who doesn't love a Skyline 3-way?
While we waited for Elaine's flight to get in, we enjoyed the screened porch
Yay! They're both here!
We were greeted by Emily!
Catching up with Gram
Nicholas is busy looking for fun stuff to play with at Nan's
Dinner together
6 pints of Graeters ice cream, gave us lots of good options for dessert
Yum!
More time relaxing on the back porch
May 10, 2025 - Today we're headed to the Cincinnati Art Museum for some exploring and lunch. Then Chinese takeout and birthday cake back at Ann's
morning on the porch
A few games of Qwinto
A beautiful day in the back yard
Some board books (and a cute library book bag) from Emily for the newest Greene.
No tractor rides this visit
That diet coke is for sharing with my Sis (although she doesn't like diet coke)
Nicholas is ready to take the tractor for a spin
ladder ball anyone?
Ann likes us to be in the shade
We packed the car full for our drive to the Art Museum
Gram and her granddaughters
Meg's riding a BIG bike
Calder mobile and a mural by Saul Steinberg of Cincinnati that was originally displayed at the Terrace Plaza Hotel
Lunch at the Terrace Cafe
The whole gang
That's a righteous bench
selfie with Elaine
I've never seen a bench like that before
great bench for conversations
pretty Roualt
cousins
a tiara for the Goddess of Minerva
and a facetime with Maddy and Ian
blow out those candles Gram
90th b-day glasses and balloons!
It was a nice evening for a fire in the back yard
Kevin made a 3-pronged marshmallow stick
the weekend was too short
Mother's Day cheese Danish on the way to the Cincinnati Airport
