Ireland

Well, in true Danielle and Janelle fashion, we only had rough ideas of what we wanted to do when we arrived in Dublin.  When we landed at the airport, we bought a map and jumped on a bus headed for the city.  We started out walking through St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful park right in the middle of the city.

We walked through the Trinity College campus while imaging what it would be like to go to school in Dublin.

We went and saw the Book of Kells, an illustrated manuscript of the four gospels written circa 800 A.D., at the library there.  This is a picture of "The Long Room" at the college which holds a ridiculous amount of first editions and other really old books.  The shelves were stuffed!

We took a self-guided tour of the Bank of Ireland and luckily we got out of there when we did... it was robbed the next day, and the thieves took 7.5 million euros!

We went to the Dublin Castle but didn't want to pay for the tour.  Instead, we walked around the courtyard, and this is us trying to pose like one of the statues in the garden area.  Thank goodness for the self-timer button on the camera.

After the castle, we decided to make an appearance at the Guinness Factory.  The stuff is disgusting, which I expected, so we stuck to drinking our free cokes.  

This is a picture of a little town outside of Dublin called Howth.  We had to take a short train to get there, but it was worth it.  They had the best fish and chips I've eaten so far and a really pretty lighthouse.  

After touring Howth, we took a train to Malahide.  This gothic castle was part of the Talbot family and was taken over by Oliver Cromwell for awhile.

On our last day in Dublin, we walked around Merrion Square and stopped by a statue of Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish author.

Next on our list of things to do was find The Harlequin, a vintage shop I had seen in a magazine back in November.  It's famous for its celebrity shoppers, such as Brad Pitt and Bono, and on the way there, I spotted a pink door.  Dublin is famous for its Georgian architecture, and I became obsessed with all the different colored doors.  I had been hoping to find a pink one and couldn't believe I did on my last day there!

This is a random sculpture we saw, but I thought it was so funny.  It's a ball made out of metal chains....get it?  Ball and chain?  Haha...

Well that's my trip to Ireland summarized into a few pictures.  I have loads more but don't want to bore anyone...until I get back home ;)