When In Rome

Today we decided to do something that the kids would rather NOT do since TT was here and the kids were at school. A museum perhaps? Maybe the Gallery of Photography? The Book of Kells? St. Patrick's Cathedral?

But TT was all museumed out after her three week J-term in London so......

We went to the Guinness Factory!



 

It was a great museum in the old factory (parts of the property still brew beer) that has been modernized and walks you through a tour of how the beer is brewed, a history of Arthur Guinness,


 
leading up to different advertising schemes. 



At one point you could check to see if any of your ancestry has ever worked for Guinness.

I won: 8 pages of "Burkes" to 3 measly pages of "Kirwans"!

You end up at the "Guinness Academy" where you learn to pour a pint:

... and after you get to take it up to the "gravity bar" where there are 360 views of Dublin. This is actually a picture of the window facing Trinity College (the glass has a description in it).

 
The pint and the view were well worth the entrance fee, plus the sun poked out, which added to the excitement of it all. The Wicklow Mountains were covered with snow and we could see all the way back to the Irish Sea.

We headed back to grab Johnny and his new friend Oscar from school (by then the rain and wind had whipped up, but I'm not complaining -- a little sun is all you need).

Boys are boys, as it turns out, regardless of where they live. Give them some Legos on a rainy day, and they are fine for hours.

Oscar is a good fit for Johnny. I asked what he liked to do and he responded with one word: "Sport."

He taught us two card games -- "Sevens" and "Beg your neighbor" which were great.

Oscar will definitely be over again.

Maggie and TT spent some time down in the village and Sheila and I got ready for Maggie's school's fundraiser for a new all-weather pitch.

I will let Sheila blog about it but I will include just a few descriptors and adjectives to entice you to read (and her to post): a hotel, walking, rain, sweat pants, high heels, trivia, Guinness, another professor and his wife, and some terrible, AWFUL, live music and ... getting lost with a full bladder!