Dublin to Ennis

Wow its Sunday and we are off to look at Dublin today! On Sunday the shops stay shut until the afternoon so people can go to Church.In Dublin lots of people do not have cars so they walk or bike instead, and …. they take DOUBLE DECKER BUSES! 

There are buses everywhere and if you don't know which number bus to get on you can go all the wrong way. If you are at the bus stop and see the bus coming you have to wave the bus down or it will go right past without stopping. We got on Number 46A and went right to the very top. You have to be careful climbing the stairs as the bus driver does not wait.

The US president Mr Obama was due in Dublin the next day and there were Policemen (GARDA) on all the streets preparing for his visit. Many streets were going to be closed which meant that people had to find others ways to go where they wanted.

In Dublin we walked along Grafton Street which was one of two main streets in Dublin. The first thing we saw were horses and carriages drawn up at the kerb for people to hire.

If there were lots of buses then there were hundreds of people walking along the streets. Street performers made balloon models, music was playing, performers were dancing jigs and there were magic acts. 

There is a song that the teachers at Glen Massey will know called Molly Malone and in Dublin we found a large statue of her selling shellfish from her barrow. Maybe the teachers will sing the song to you?

And guess what the kids found right next to Molly Mallone. A real full size, walking talking leprechaun! Dallas, Martin and Chance even were able to shake his hand. 

Now Leprechauns are magic and if you find one you might be able to find his pot of gold. We couldn't see any gold with this leprechaun and he didn't do any magic. He looked too big to fit in the lighthouses that we saw so we think that this may have been someone pretending to be a leprechaun. We will keep looking.

Further down the street we turned and entered the courtyard of Trinity College. This is a very famous and very old college in Ireland. Here in their library is a very famous book called The Book of Kells. It was written and decorated with beautiful designs by Monks long ago. Many of these designs can be seen reproduced on various celtic artwork. Some look very similar to traditional Maori tattoo. Trinity college is built of  huge stone buildings which stood all all around us.

We left the town and took the bus back to the flat we were staying in. It was raining lightly but as everyone was having a barbeque we went outside with our umbrellas and joined them.

The next day we hired a car so we could travel to Ennis. Mr Obama was in Dublin and there were hundreds of Garda patrolling the streets.

We travelled South west across Ireland and had to detour around the town he was visiting. The roadsigns are written in both English and Gaelic. Gaelic is an Official language of Ireland and some of the words are really hard to say.

I had to make sure that we did not get lost so I took a place by the GPS so I could tell everyone where we were going.

We saw one sign showing that reindeer were jumping into the sky. I wondered if maybe Santa visits this place sometimes? 

The fields on the roadside were a lot like the Waikato but there were castles across the paddocks. Some were really broken.

When we got to Ennis we went for a walk in town. The streets were quite narrow. They were one way as only one car could fit down a street. 

As we walked all the shops were in small old buildings but when we went through the door of one we were amazed to see what it turned into.

And Chance and Dallas got to meet some folks they had read about in New Zealand. Can you guess who?