Dublin, Ireland – Day 2!

Today, I got on a train and rode to Dublin. It was really fun—I listened to my book while I looked at the beautiful water, beaches, and boats along the coast. Once I got off the train, we got onto a Hop on Hop Off bus, which, if you don’t know what that is, is a tour bus with speakers telling about all the landmarks you see while going to your destination. We hopped off and got lunch at Bite of Life. I got cheese pizza and hot chocolate, which was super, super delicious.

Then we walked to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which is over 800 years old and the largest church in Ireland. The audio tour device was like a cell phone. You typed in the number of the tour location you were at, pressed play, and held it up to your ear to listen to the speaker. One interesting thing I learned is that one person cleaned 25 out of the 27 stained-glass windows. Also, the church was built on an ancient well that supposedly was used by St. Patrick.

While we were there, we did crafts. I made a beautiful card by tracing out a dragon using a stencil, cutting out the dragon, and then taping it to the card. Then I painted over it with red, orange, yellow, and black paint, and when I removed the stencil, there was a white dragon.

I think it was a very fun place to go to – defo recommendo.

After that, we went back to where we had lunch and got ice cream. We walked to Christchurch Cathedral, then to Dublin Castle, and then to St. Audoen’s Church, where we played with musical instruments in the park outside. It was really fun to jump on these pads that played notes when you jumped on them. There was also a walkie-talkie thing where there was a tunnel that crossed underneath the park, and you could talk to a person on the other side.

We hopped back on the bus to do the whole tour, but instead, we got off to see the portal to NYC, so I got to hang out with my homies. We held signs and waved to the people in NYC. The Dublin Spire was right near it, so we saw that, too.

We met my mom’s friend Maura for dinner at Brother Hubbard. The food was amazing. I had these mini-drumsticks, and I put a little yogurt on them, and it made them taste super-gouda, like the cheese. Then we followed Maura to Murphys, the best ice cream place in Dublin. It was really good, and everything was homemade. I had Kieran’s Cookie, which was basically chocolate chip.

Maura then walked us back to the train station, and we hopped on the train. We met a super nice Irish teenager on the train, and we talked about traveling with her. She also told us a lot about going to school in Ireland. When we got off the train, we saw a double rainbow!

Now we are home, and I am going to bed!