5:00am....beep beep beep beep beep beep!!!!!! Up bright and early on Saturday for our trip to Dublin. We took the train to Dublin for a day trip of sight seeing. We both thought we might sleep some on the train so we booked a 6am departure. I had a feeling that Mike wouldn't sleep because he can't sleep anywhere other than a bed but we said we would give it a go. Anyway, we made it to the Cork train station in plenty of time, unlike lady weekends disaster and the train station is pretty nice. 
Where the president of Ireland lives
Sunday:
Kid slide 
Got it
They have cool parking where you can text to reserve/pay for your parking...kind of cool to me. I wasn't sure how the train was going to be but everyone said we needed to take the train because the petrol can be so high that it sometimes cost more to drive than to take the train. But that all depends on what time the train leaves. Like a rush hour train could cost you €80 round trip or an off peak train might be €30...big difference. Needless to say that was another reason for our early departure.
The ride down was nice and I think we slept a little but nothing to write home about. The best part of the train ride was watching Mike try to sleep. He started out well but faded fast..,I was dying laughing. 
This was his second position...I missed the original head down on the book bag pose. 
The side lean wasn't working so he tried the arm rest sleep pose...another fail but a great pic for me :-)
Finally he gave up trying to sleep so we took a family pic...Shaun's first train ride...I think. 
The train ride was about 2.5hrs so we made it to Dublin relatively early...early for Ireland. So we stopped to get Mike a coffee and a little snack for breakfast. It was a little chilly since the sun wasn't shining down in everything and I was getting worried that I didn't dress appropriately. I usually need a jacket if its going to be 70F but I didn't bring one since it was suppose to be in the upper 70s almost 80F. But by the time we got done with breakfast and figured out what we were kind of going to do for the day it had already warmed up a little...thank goodness. So we decided to do the city bus tour where you can hop on and hope off as many times as you want. It's a really cool concept because being stuck on the bus as they pass all these places to take tours kind of defeats the purpose I think. It's a reasonable price if you consider how much it would cost to take a taxi to all those places or the time it would take to walk there...anyway we did it. It was nice enough outside that we sat on the top layer, I should have took a pic but didn't :-( I think Shaun enjoyed it too because he was just looking around at the sites almost the whole time...barely slept. There is some cool architecture and sculptures in Dublin...I guess because of how old the city is.
Here are some of the pics we took while on the tour:
Here is a pic of some man who did something important for Dublin...maybe all of Ireland but I can't remember...cool statue anyway. I think maybe it's O'Connell...
The oldest churches in Dublin, St Patrick's Cathedral...we didn't go in but it was amazing looking from the outside. 
The Guinness factory of course...Mike had already went through the factory tour so we decided to not go this time. I know we will have to go when Alicia comes to visit so I'll wait until then. The cool part about that tour is that you get a can at the end of the tour. Mike said it taste much better fresh than it does once we get it in the states but he's still not a Guinness drinker. 
This is cool because every year they update the year sign to show how long this facility has been here. We found out that Guinness use to be the largest employer in Dublin with over 5000 employees at one point!!! That's freaking crazy, but now they are down to around 800. It's amazing what technology and automation can do to the economy. We are getting more efficient but taking the jobs away from the people. Also, did you know that Arther Guinness signed a 9,000 yr lease for £49/yr for the original brewery? I don't thinks its still valid but it was for a long time. Last bit of trivia ...how many kids did Arther and his wife have??? An unbelievable amount...answer at the end of the blog...
We also saw the new facility that Guinness is building at the other end of town by the train station. It looks like it is state of the art and huge.
Next we actually got off the bus to go on a Dublinia tour...history of Dublin. It was pretty interesting, Mike loves history (me, I'm so so) so we usually go to one or two history tours. It is amazing to hear about the history tho, it goes all the way back to 841AD...that's a long freaking time. We learned all about the Vikings coming over and discovering/developing Dublin. The disease and famine that killed off 1/3 of the population in around 6 yrs. Then the new age construction and development of the city. One of the cool things we saw was a road excavation replica ...basically showing how the city/roads where just built on top of each other. So whenever they repaved the roads they just put the new layer on top of what was already there...it ended up looking like this sandwich showing how each century changed ...wish I could have taken a picture to better explain it but trust me it was cool. We also saw some clippings about the controversy around one of the buildings that they built a few years back. Apparently when they where digging up the ground for the construction, they found an old city...had all the roads still there and outlines of the city limits and some of the houses/buildings and what not ( a lot of history) and the people didn't want them to build on top of it...wanted to preserve it but they built on top of it anyway...but I guess the history is still there. Anyway, all in all a good tour and mini history lesson on Dublin.
We were Vikings for a few secs :-)
Taking an old fashion dump...this guy even made noises...grunting and everything. Hilarious!!!!
Mike likes playing make believe...that chain hat was heavier than you think...I couldn't imagine having to wear that around. 
Next we took a tour of the oldest prison in Ireland, Kilmainham Gaol. It was really creepy and just seemed almost inhumane how the prisoners lived. At one point the prison held over 10x it's capacity...that meant 3,5 maybe 10 people in a cell at one time. There where even children in there, sometimes the men, women & children where all in the same room. Violent and white collared criminals all together. Talk about crazy. There were also politicians that spent time in the prison before being electrd into office, one paid off the guard to let him out and some lived like normal with visits from friends family. There was even one politician that was allowed to leave for a funeral for 2 weeks un-guarded...and he even came back as promised. I'm sure that kind of thing happened all over the place but it was just interesting to hear about it. We asked why would kids be in prison and especially in one with all kind of criminals and the guide told us that sometimes if the person being imprisoned had kids but no family members to take the kids they would go to prison with them...could you imagine?
Hallway in one of the older parts of the prison (about 200 yrs old)
Inside one of the cells
Newsy part of the prison. A first of its kind with this design but this is now more of the standard layouts for prisons.
Outside courtyard area for the prisoners. This was where they spent their 1hr a day and they were inly allowed to walk with their heads down in a circle...this was exercise time. Do you know how long one man spent in solitary confinement (in the dark) at this prison? He was in the dark solitary waiting for charges against him to be filed...he wasn't even convicted of anything. Answe at the end...
Next exciting thing on the tour was the Phoenix Park where the Dublin Zoo is located. This park is HUGE, with tons of grass just to lay out and have a picnic, trail to jog/bike or sightsee all the monuments. Their president even lives in the park. Do you know how many Central Park's could fit inside this park??? Answe at the end...
Largest obelisk in Europe. I have no freaking idea what an obelisk is. They said it on the tour and I was like "wtf?" Mike says I'm a retard, which isn't too off from the truth but I didn't want anyone to think I actually knew what that was called because I didn't...and I had to look it up in order to add it to the blog...hahaha
Gates to something significant...can't remember what.
After the park we decided to do some walking around so we got off and headed towards the Temple Bar area. This is basically a big area (that's relative) with tons of pubs, food and shopping. Mike went here for the night life when he came to Dublin last year and he said it was packed! Even during the day it was crazy busy, so different from Cork. On the way to Temple Bar we took a pic on the Liffey Bridge (named that because there use to be a toll to cross the bridge). 
Lots of walking and of course the 0.20€ fee to go pee...so annoying. This was a cool area, definitely have to come back without any kids and stay the night so that we can really enjoy the pubs!
Had dinner at this gourmet burger place. The burger was ok but I think we are so use to Red Robin and the burgers only been Med that it was hard to swallow this well done dry burger. And we didn't know we had an option for cooking temp until after we had our food and the people next to us were ordering...oh well. The did have the most amazing onion rings and garlic mayo dipping sauce...amazing!
Looks good but it was cooked for about 1.5 min too long.
Shaun getting ready for a visit from Aunt Aunts (trying to stick his tongue out but it looks more like a smile) 
Shaun is also getting really bad with trying to grab whatever is in your hands. Every time I tried to take a drink of water he would reach for my glass...I kept asking him if he was thirsty but he didn't answer me. We tried to let him have a sip of water too but he just made this horrible face like "wtf is this????" Hahahaha
We had a great day in Dublin...loads of fun and still lots left to see and do with visitors come so that is exciting. We took the train back and got back to the apt pretty late but we found a little short cut to the apt so that was a nice late night surprise.
Both of us were tired after a long day in Dublin and with the weather being a little crapy (cloudy, cool and scattered showers) no one (except Shaun) wanted to get up but the fun must go on...after Mike finally got up (around 10:30) we put ourselves together and got rolling with our day. Today we decided to go to the SuperValue since we haven't been there before. I went during the week just to see what it was like but didn't really do any shopping but I told Mike it felt more like a grocery store than the Tesco. Tesco is more like a Walmart where you can buy a TV, eggs (with the feather) and cloths all at the same time. Where as SuperValue is just groceries. Once Mike got there he got the same feeling I had. Anyway it's a cool store...nothing fancy. So since we still haven't got our air shipment of crap we are starting to run out of things so we are having to do real shopping (not just food). Today the new items on the list were deodorant and soap for Mike...sounds simple enough. Well first off the "men's grooming" section is smaller than the pet toys section in Kroger/Stop & Shop. Secondly, there is absolutely no solid deodorant containers...only spray or roll on's! Who uses the roll on deodorants anymore??? We were in shock...something Mike is going to have to get use to I guess. Lastly, there are no bars of soap only gels. That was just crazy to us, there are solid deodorant containers and bars of soap for ladies but not men...go figure. Next I needed some bleach because... well who doesn't need bleach...I'm in this freaking apt for 2 months I need to smell bleach before I put my son in the tub...anyway bleach is called Thick Bleach or Domestos...what is that??? I have no idea but it wasn't any thicker than our bleach but it does smell a little weaker (I had to smell it). It's really not that big of a deal its just different and we have to get use to it. But we got a good laugh about it while in the store. The lady in the isle with us just kept looking at us like we were crazy...and she was right but that's ok too.
After our shopping trip we went to the city center. This weekend was the World Champion Street Performer event. I wasn't sure if it was still going to be going on by the time we got down there anf with all the rain but it was. They closed off the main shopping road, St Patrick's for all the events to take place. There was loads to do. Carousel, mega slide, face painting, food, shopping and of course all the street performers. We got there kind of late so we didn't get to see very many of the acts but the few that we did see were pretty good. It's a pretty cool concept actually, I mean its free to get in and you can watch all the act if you want and you can give the performers money or not. It's a little silly not to give them money, when they put on a show for you. I'm sure a lot of people don't tip/pay/donate but these people are not getting paid unless the crowd gives them money. We thought it was a great idea and we didn't have a problem giving them a few € for each act...it's cheap entertainment if nothing else. But anyway, we thought we were only going to spend 30 min or so at the festival but we ended up staying there of like 3 hrs. It was still partially over cast so it was a nice day to be out.
Our first stop of course was food...this was a cool grill that we got a jumbo hot dog to share. Mike was happy to see them using a grill to BBQ instead of gas and he was surprised that the hot dog was actually an American hot dog. The one that he had before was basically the breakfast sausage that they called a hot dog...no bueno.
Enjoying our treat together... <3
Some pics from the festival
Juggling a ball with some contraption
Pogo stick man...chasing a kid with a balloon
This is the only act that we saw the entire performance...rock & roll magic. But the magic was very basic and only lasted about 5 min of the 30 min act. It was ok, but nothing fancy. He had an accent like he was from London but it was just part of the act...he was from upstate NY but born on Long Island...so of course we had to give him a nice donation!
The Chairman. Not a fancy or complicated act at all but they threw food at the audience so it made all the difference. We liked them
Shaun is still determined to get whatever we have in our hands...today it was a water bottle and we actually got a few pics to prove it...picture isn't the greatest but you get the point.
Well we had a great weekend with lots of crack...now the countdown until Lino gets here. Oh speaking of Lino he is really swimming now!!!! I can't believe in 3 weeks the little tyke is swimming. We can't wait to see it in person...Mike even made me get a swimming suit so I have no excuse (and just so you know, it's totally cruel to make a women go look for swim suits only 4 months after having a baby...stuff just isn't in the right place yet... Ugh!).
Finally time for bed, this post took a lot of time with all those pics...it's dealing 2:15am so I better get a little sleep before Shaun wakes up...Night!
PS:
Answers to the questions...
How many kids did Arther Guinness and his wife have? 21
Do you know how long one man spent in solitary confinement (in the dark) at this prison? 2.5 yrs
Do you know how many Central Park's could fit inside this park? 2
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