Easter Monday Brunch
March 24, 2008

On the Monday after Easter (a holiday in Hungary), we went to the Corinthia Royal Hotel for their Easter brunch. The food was fantastic and the girls got to see this creepy looking Easter Bunny plus some real rabbits. They also got to spend some time at the arts and crafts table. It wasn't cheap (especially since we also had to take a taxi there and back because I couldn't get a fuse to stop tripping so, consequently, we couldn't open our gate to get our car out), but it was good food and fun.

Easter Sunday
March 23, 2008

We began the morning with our annual Easter egg treasure hunt. This year Katie could actually read the clues, while Ashley followed behind with a basket to collect the eggs. Each clue would lead them to the next egg, with the final clue taking them to their Easter baskets. Candy in Hungary is pretty lame, but fortunately three and five year olds do not yet realize this, and if we can stay out of the US long enough, maybe they will never realize it! (On that note...Heather took a care package to one of her primary kids (11 years old), including a few Twinkies that I donated from my stash...serious sacrifice, I know! This family has lived outside the US for most of his life and when he got the package one of his first questions, examining the twinkie, was "What is this?"... I was embarrassed for him)
We watched "Jesus is risen" from the Living Scriptures and then got ready for church. In Hungary we take the Easter Monday off, so without traveling anywhere, we can actually just relax for once.

Decorating Easter Eggs
March 20, 2008

St. Patrick's Day
March 17, 2008

We got back to Dublin the night before the actual holiday. I had to catch a 6AM flight (not fun), so I missed the actual St. Patrick's day festivities, as simple as they were. Heather colored the milk green and the girls breakfasted on Lucky Charms, an exotic cereal here, since you can only purchase it in one store (and then only if you are "lucky" enough for it to be available) and it costs about $15 a box.
(Note to anyone ever coming over to visit...feel free to throw an extra box of lucky charms into your luggage).

Dublin, Ireland
March 13-16, 2008

We decided to visit Ireland this weekend. Considering it was St. Patrick's Day weekend, what better place to spend that holiday than IRELAND (admittedly, we didn't realize this until after we had booked our tickets, but fortunate coincidence either way)?! None of us had ever been there before. I purchased an Ireland patch for my backpack over 10 years ago thinking that I would make a trip when I lived over here during college. But since I never made it over there, I have never been able to sew it on. Now I can.
We flew out Thursday evening after I got home from work. Heather and the girls dropped the car off at my office and we all took a taxi to the airport. Our taxi driver could not have gone slower and the traffic was terrible, so it took us twice as long as we had expected to get to the airport. We checked in with literally only a couple of minutes to spare. It was a direct flight, which was nice, and we had booked a hotel right at the airport, knowing that we would be arriving late and would prefer to go right to sleep. We arrived, got on the shuttle bus to the hotel, and checked in without any issues. The girls actually had fallen asleep in the taxi on the WAY to the airport in Budapest and slept the entire time on the plane, so we were worried they wouldn't sleep too well once we arrived Dublin, but they did great.
We made our way to the city center the next morning, found our hotel where we quickly dropped off our stuff. We stayed at Bewley's hotel, a fantastic family hotel situated in a restored 19th century Masonic school. Since it was St. Patrick's weekend, the St. Patrick's festival was going on, which provided a number of people dressed up in some sort of leprachaunish (assume this is not a real word) oufits. It also meant that there was a Dublin scavenger hunt for families and a number of other holiday exhibits (ie the St Patrick's carnival).
We left the hotel and went directly to Trinity college, where the famous "Book of Kells" is found, the ornate transcription by 9th century Celtic monks of the four gospels in Latin. Considered Ireland's finest national treasure, the writings are almost more DRAWINGS, beautiful caligraphy and illustrations. It derives its name from the abbey in Kells, where it resided in the past.
From Trinity college we strolled down Grafton street, enjoying the lively and busy nature of this walking street. After a quick lunch at a Dublin cafe, we roamed the streets of Dublin, stopping off at Dublin castle (original structure built in the 13th century), walking around the old city wall, and visiting Christchurch Cathedral, built in the 11th century (both the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church claim this cathedral). We continued our journey to the second famous Dublin cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral. At this point we had had enough and decided to head back to the hotel for the evening.
The next morning we woke up to a small sprinkling of rain. We have made it through almost all of our trips without having to deal with rain, but unfortunately this time we were not so fortunate. It started out sprinkling and by mid-day it was raining heavily. It didn't stop us, though. We put the umbrella over the stroller and still spent a lot of time out and about the city, depsite the rain.
We stopped by Oscar Wilde's childhood home, right across the street from Merrion square (and coincidentally just a few doors down from a current store called "Morrissey's"... Wilde was a favorite of Morrissey, sometimes even referring to him by name in his songs ... see the song "Cemetery Gates"). It started to rain harder, so we decided to visit the National Gallery of Ireland. The girls watched the ipod, while we enjoyed the art. It was also there that we were reminded about the scavenger hunt, so from the museum we went to city hall to get our package. We were required to find ten different cultural spots around Dublin, answer a question about the place, and try to do it in the fastest time. We ended up going back to a few places we had visited the day before (Christchurch Cathedral among others), but it was great, despite heavy rain, as in each spot the girls were given some sort of prize (from free tickets to the carnival, to key chains, to getting their faces painted). They loved that. And Heather and I, although soaked, realized that because of this event we were able to run the streets with purpose.
Overall it was a great trip.