A Haunted Castle and A Live Opera

Heeelllo weekend! ...a brief update on our past weekend excursions. Oh what a great past weekend. I have photos and stories to prove it. Friday around 12:30 pm, Elizabeth, Monica, Jeanine, and I scurried out of DIT heading toward a building that would have my father gleam like a child in a toy store just before Christmas. What might you ask is this building?

Yes. The Guinness Storehouse.














Let me preface this by saying I had no initial desire to go to Guinness. However, I was definitely surprised by how well presented the self-guided tour was. All I could think about was how I would give anything to have my dad with me. He would have been in manhood heaven....just the history behind Guinness is fascinating. I was very focused on one of the Guinness history videos.


















We ate at the Guinness Storehouse for lunch. I had the most amazing salmon chowder. The food there is amazing, and the Guinness bread....to die for.
















Guinness markets their beer at being made with the purest water from the Wicklow Mountains. Here we are in front of a beautiful waterfall display in the storehouse.











Guinness is apparently 'good for you', as their slogan depicts. The taste is growing on me...we did get free drinks at the Gravity Bar (as seen in the first photo in this post) You can see nearly all of Dublin City from this high point. We met a nice older couple from Ohio while there, finding out later that they were Notre Dame fans, but even through our disappointment, they were the nicest people in the room.

The tour, lunch, free Guinness in Gravity Bar, and souvenir shopping lasted well over four hours. We were so tired when we returned home. I came home to a phone call from a helpless little boy looking for someone to distract his lack of productivity and boredom. Poor Adam...














He was so distraught from his day dedicated entirely to solitude, so he came over to spend time with the girls and me.


The next day we all woke early to go visit a haunted castle in Malahide...a seaport just north of Dublin. The day was a bit chilly, rainy, windy, and misty. It seemed like the walk to get to the castle lasted forever, but we eventually made it. I thought the castle was pretty cool....but it could have been cooler if we were allowed to take pictures, go into the secret rooms, and touch things. I am still on the prowl for a castle maybe in Edinburgh, Scotland that will scare the pants off me (and Mary Beth...my scare-loving partner).




One of those crazy posts that have signs going in every which way. We managed...

The castle
and the front door


....creepy. I was hoping to see a ghost, but witnessed nothing. We were told that loads of people see 'the white lady'...

Here you can see outside of her bedroom window.
















An old fence...














The roomies!













I asked Adam if I could take a photo of him by the stone fences...I really like those. He wasn't very happy.... :)

















An old building where the family's gravestones are preserved.












Some family graves..













More graves...













We randomly spotted a peacock just outside of the Castle.












They had an awesome playground at Malahide. I have never seen anything like it! I wish I had taken better photos, but here is what I have...both of Brian. See my roommates blogs and hopefully they'll have better photos. This is like exercise equipment..the gazelle:)














A pretty cool chair. They had these awesome gliders too. The kids would have loved it!















Malahide was awesome, exhausting, and wet. We booked it home because Brid Ann (our dean lady) got us tickets for the DIT opera...Wolfgang Mozart's 'The Magic Flute'. It was amazing! We got dressed up and ready very quickly. DIT just renovated their auditorium. It smelled so nice and new.














It rained the entire evening..before, during, and after the opera. We got a cab to the show, but as for walking home....we are all now pros at walking two miles in a cold downpour in heels. Funny, Sunday was warm and sunny. The weather is so unpredictable here. It is just best to predict rainy everyday:)


Post Script:

The boys made us delicious tacos last week. Here is a photo. I forgot my camera as I would have taken many more photos. It was so goooood. We were impressed!