June Part 2-The European Adventure part 3

Day 12- Saturday June 22nd-  Finally a much needed day of rest.  Today we relaxed and hung out with the Kremser family. Miranda went to Jaxon's soccer tournament while Teresa, Mikalya and I stayed behind and took Audrey and Levi to the park.  Paula took us to the grocery store so we could stock up on yummy European treats/souvenirs.  Later that night we watched the kids so Paula and Miku could go out on a date. We even had a dance party and ice cream before bed.  It was a great day!

The Kremser's house with cute Levi and Audrey

Levi at the park--cuteness!!!

Cousins!!!

Day 13-Sunday June 23rd-Today was probably our hardest day of travel.  It was hard to say goodbye to the cute Kremser kids--especially when Levi was crying "don't go!" It was hard to carry our luggage through all of our train transfers.  Before the trip we thought it would be great to travel by train across Wales and then take the ferry over to Dublin...novel, unique, a way to see more of England.  Well, by this point in our travels, trains were not novel and without a map we really couldn't tell what towns the train was traveling through.  Things were finally calm by the last train.  We didn't get to see much of the town Holyhead like I thought we would...just the train/ferry station.  Then, the ferry was nice and very large, however, when we got out to sea, the weather was bad and the ferry rocked like crazy..I spent just about the whole ferry ride with my head down on the table so I wouldn't loose my lunch:(  By the time we made it to Dublin we were very ready to be done with our travels for the day.  We took a taxi from the ferry dock to our bed and breakfast.  Seeing our cute room and meeting our very nice host was the best part of the day.

Conway Castle-Jacob and Ron went here on their trip to Europe...we saw it out the train window

The Welsh name of  one of the towns we passed through--can you pronounce that one?  Ya, didn't think so.

on the ferry before we started moving

The wonderful room that awaited us

Our bed and breakfast

Day 14- Monday June 24th- Our first day in Dublin. To start the day, we rode the Hop on Hop off tour bus through it's entire route.  It was a good way to get a feel for the town and decide what we really wanted to see.  After eating in our first Irish pup we visited Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells and the Long Room which was so cool!  We visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, went souvenir shopping, walked through the Temple Bar district and also saw a few other Dublin sights.

at breakfast--delicious every morning thanks to our wonderful host Noula

Miranda in the Long Room--a room filled with thousands of old books

Trinity College

Traditional Irish dinner-orange stuff is not sweet potatoes it's some kind of yucky vegetable paste stuff...

On a bridge over the Liffey Fiver

We even found some real leprechauns!

 Day 15-Tuesday June 25th- The best day in Ireland!  We woke up very early to meet up with our tour bus group.  Today we spent about 13 hours traveling across the whole island of Ireland from Dublin on the east coast to The Cliff's of Moher on the west.  The Irish country side was beautiful and the actual cliffs were breathtaking.  We got there just 20 min before the clouds came down and covered them up. We made several stops to see old castles, abbeys, and other landmarks.  We stopped in Limerick and basically got the condensed version of the  history of Ireland told to us throughout the day.  The bus was nice and it was just great to let someone else do the planning.  Great day!

The pictures seriously don't do it justice

Day 16-Wednesday June 26th- Today was our last day in Dublin and the last day of our trip...we were moving slow.  Our bodies and brains were tired, but we still got out and saw some great things.  Most of the day was spent visiting the Kilmainham Goal--an old jail where the English held Irish rebels.  I guess it was one of the first jails that had individual rooms for inmates.  It was a quite impressive place. We then spent some time on Crafton Strret watching street performers and browsing through a mall, took a break in St. Steven's Green, and then we just had to get some photos in front of all those cool doors in Dublin.( you need to be friends with Miranda on Twitter or facebook to see those photos though...I took them on her phone.)

Kilmainham Goal

One Direction fans?  Yes!

Day 17-Thursday June 27th- The long road home.  This was one long travel day.  We figured out that it was about 26 hours from the time we left the bed and breakfast in Dublin to the time we walked in our front door...mostly thanks to long weather delays at JFK.  It was a day where we learned how hard it is to get back into the United States and that playing phase 10 cards and extreme games of war help pass the time in airports.

So, it was an amazing adventure. It was amazing to see places that have only been seen in movies and realize that yes, they really do look like that.  It was amazing to people watch in all those places we went.  It was amazing to learn that what we call old here in America doesn't hold a candle to what they call old in Europe.  It was overall just amazing, but we were glad to finally be home:)