Vacation Day 2

We arrived in Dublin on time.  I was so excited to be in a land I had never been to, but somehow felt like I was coming "home".  Our next adventure was to pick up our rental car.  Oh....what an adventure it was.  We were in a land of many roundabouts and the world of driving on the left side of the road.  Chris had to learn how to drive a stick shift using his right hand, to add to the confusion.  Our shuttle driver was helpful in giving us directions.  He had a heavy accent!  "Ya go down de road and ya take de turd round-about, unless there is construction, den you take de fort round about" I LOVED it!!  I had a hard time following the heavy accents, but my family had no problem and made fun of the lost look I would get when I would try and listen.  We were off to find the Zortman's home, without a GPS.   We only thought we were going to die a few times.  We hit several curbs, got honked at, learned how to use a round-about and saw a beautiful country.  Chris actually did a great job and we arrived to their home safely.

This is our little car for the next 10 days!

 

It was great to see our friends!  With a 5 hour time change and not sleeping well, we were all pretty worn out.  My sweet friend Aurora said that our goal for the day was to stay awake until 8:30.  The Zortmans have learned that if you can do that the first day, your body clock adjust better.  Every time we sat down I would start to fall asleep.  Aurora did a great job at keeping me awake by walking us all over their beautiful city of Malahide.  We first went to a gorgeous old castle not far from their home.

 We had pastries and cheese from a cute shop on the castle grounds.

 

I loved this cute little shop.

You can see from the map, how big the grounds really were.  It was lovely!

There were a lot of statues in Ireland. 

A church and cemetery on the castle grounds.  Here we are with Aurora, Ethan and Tyler.

 Isn't it a gorgeous castle?  Tyler said that Chris was really looking like a tourist!

 

 I thought it was interesting that the signs said "toilets," instead of restrooms

 They had an awesome playground on the grounds as well.  The kids had a great time talking and running around.  They all got along so well!  They had a great time climbing around on this web.

 Ethan

 

Tiana

Larisa

Tyler

Chris enjoyed relaxing.  Aurora and I were chatting away and so were the kids.  I think he enjoyed a few quite moments.

The sky was beautiful!!!  The kids had a blast on this little zip line!  They got a lot of running in!

Go Tyler!

 Here comes Tiana!

Go Larisa!

A brother race!

And the sisters are off!!!

Here they come.

Oh no Larisa, it looks like Tyler is beating you!

 

Now Larisa is a head.

Its a tie!!!  We walked home and I couldn't stay awake at home, so off we went again, this time to the Irish Sea!

 

We passed this amazing house on our way!  Isn't it incredible.  LOVE it!

I liked these town homes too.

The Irish Sea.  They had a lot of amazing shells on the beach.

What a gorgeous walk.

 

 We walked around in the city of Malahide.  It was a quaint town.  Aurora stopped and got some fresh salmon for dinner.  It was so yummy.  All of the food in Ireland is so fresh and wonderful.

 Aurora had her pedometer on and we walked 10 miles that day.  It was a lovely day and we enjoyed seeing where our friends lived.  We had a great time visiting and exceeded our goal and stayed up until 9:30.  We needed our sleep because our next couple of days were going to be very busy.