Post Dublin Adventure Reflection!!

           For the 10 days that I was in Ireland, some of my favorite parts about it was that you could get to anywhere that you needed to get to, without driving a car. You could bike, take the D.A.R.T. take the bus, or walk. I loved our house! I liked my new school that I visited. It is interesting how the ways that houses work in Dublin. It is different than our house, where it is actually a building, but our house in Dublin, is connected to a huge chain of houses that are all connected and it looks like a huge building.

          I like how it rains a lot there, but not to hard. In GR, when it rains, it rains really hard, but if it rains in Ireland, it just kind of casually sprinkles than goes away in a couple of minutes. It is really pretty when it is sunny also. I got pictures of a lot of colorful doors that I saw when I was walking around Dublin.

         Our house is really awesome. The basement is our kitchen, and it is always really warm down there because of the AGA, and the floors are heated down there. We also have an awesome wine cellar. Mama has a really awesome bath tub in her room. Here is a picture of Levi in it. Also the AGA.

Levi in the Bath-Tub

The yellow AGA

           The next time I will be going to Ireland, is with my friends Ben, Max, and Caleb. We will be going to visit after school gets out in the middle of June! Hopefully, we will go to visit the island where they shot the last scene in StarWars The Force Awakens!!

Went to Glasnevin Cemetery!!

           Today, I was going to meet a new piano teacher at 11 AM. I had an appointment at Waltons School of Music. We started to walk over to the Waltons School of Music at about 10:30 AM. We got there on time, and at 11 AM, I got to have a lesson with my new teacher to see if I wanted him as my teacher when I moved. His name was Andrew. He was very particular about how I played and I cant figure out if I like him or not.
   

            After my lesson was finished, we walked over to a place to eat about a block away. It was called "Taco Taco". It was a brunch place. They had tacos, and some breakfast items. It was very unique! Oma and Levi split the Chicken and Waffles. I got a pork burrito with black beans and it had egg inside of it. It was AMAZING! It was very big but I managed to finish it. Me and Oma also each got a pot of peppermint tea. We sat in a booth, and we were trying to eat fairly quickly because we had to make it to the Glasnevin Cemetery at 1:30 for a tour.

Our Booth

           We were going to take the bus to the Cemetery, but we did not have enough time, so we got a taxi. We took the taxi to the Glasnevin Cemetery. We got there a little bit late, but we were still able to join our tour. The Glasnevin Cemetery had 1.5 MILLION graves! It was the biggest Cemetery I have ever been to. We got a very long tour with a lot of information given to us. I got a lot of cool pictures of the Graves!

Cool Pic of the Graves

Awesome view

More pictures

Another one

          After we visited Glasnevin Cemetery, we decided to walk over to The Gravediggers Pub. We read about it on TripAdvisor, and it got high ratings, so we decided to go check it out. When we got there, they were not serving food, but I got a hot chocolate. Oma tried an Irish Coffee, and said she could taste whiskey a lot in it. 

In The Gravediggers Pub

Outside View

             After we finished our drinks at The Gravediggers Pub, we took an Uber back to Fitzwilliam Square. It was a fun last day!! Tomorrow, we would have to be to the airport by 8 AM to conclude our awesome week visiting Dublin, Ireland!

                                        -4/9/2016

Went on a Viking Splash Tour of Dublin!! & Rode the bus

           Today, we did not have a lot of things planned to do. I got to sleep in this morning, but at about 12:30 PM, my mom wanted to take the bus that I would be taking to St. Andrews College every day for school. The bus stop was only about a block and a half away from our house, so we walked there. Once we got there, the bus comes about every 10 minutes, so we waited for my bus. The bus I would be taking was bus 145. We got on the bus, and it had 2 floors. They are very more luxurious than the ones in Grand Rapids. They have 2 floors, and there is WiFi on them. Here is what they look like.

Dublin Bus

          The bus ride took about 15 minutes to where i would get off to go to school in the morning. We got off a stop to late, so we decided not to walk to my school, and just take the next one back to our house. We got back to our house, and I got to do whatever until about 3:30. At 3:30 we were going to walk over to the place where we would go on a Viking Splash Tour of Dublin. The vehicle that we were getting a tour in was a car/ boat, because it could drive on land, and go in the water. We all got viking helmets! Here are some pictures!

Picture of the Car / Boat

Awesome Viking Helmet!!

We are all vikings!!

          We drove around with an awesome guide. He was really funny! We learned about a lot of the history of Dublin. We got to a part where we were all given life-jackets, and they attached floats to the car and we drove into the water! It was really awesome! Here are some pictures of us with Life-Jackets on!

In the water!

Rockin the Life-Jackets

Me and Oma!

           
     

                          -4/8/2016

Visited the Dublin Castle, and St. Patricks Cathedral!

          Today, I got to sleep in until 11 AM. We were going to a place to sign something for Oma that had something to do with her traveling to Ireland. She needed to sign something by May 8. After we got that signed, My Mom and I went to Dublin Castle. We got 2 tickets for the tour at 12:30 PM. Until then, we had an hour, so we walked 10 minutes to Christ Church in Dublin. It was a huge and very pretty church. The windows were beautiful! There was an underground part in the church that had awesome artifacts in it! Here are some pics.

Cool statues

Christ Church of Dublin Ireland!

Cool Gold artifacts

          We were told some of the history of Dublin Castle. There was only one part of the Dublin Castle that was original that was still standing above the ground today. It is one of the 4 big cylinders.

Dublin Castle!

The only Original part of the Dublin Castle
Standing above ground today.

          We first learned about when and why the castle was built. We went underground to see where one of the big cylinders would have been, but it got dug up. It was a huge circle and it looked like a huge cylinder of the castle could have fit perfectly right into the dug out shape. After we saw part of the underground, we headed over to a chapel that was by the Dublin Castle. We walked into it, and it was very small. We learned how the structure was made out of wood, but it looked like marble and it was really well done architecturally. Here is a picture.

This structure is wood!

           After we saw the Dublin Castle, we went to this really cute place to eat called "Queen of Tarts" It was really cute!!! I got a sandwich with chicken and a special kind of bread. Me and my mom both got tea. I love tea now and it came in a tea-pot which was really cute. The food was delicious, and they had a lot of bakery items like cake and scones. I had to take pictures of it!

Queen of Tarts

Inside of Queen of Tarts

Inside again!

After we finished our delicious meals, we went to see St. Patrick's Cathedral. We walked over to it from the Dublin Castle, and we got there, and it was HUGE!!!! We went inside, and it was beautiful! The windows were spectacular!

       

Inside of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

AMAZING!!!!

Its very large!

          We walked home after St. Patrick`s cathedral. I practiced piano while my mom went to TK Max (TJ Max, but its differently spelled here) Then I walked home and I was done for the day!!!!!

                               -4/7/2016
         

Visited my School! (St. Andrews College) & GreyStone

          Today, I got up at 8 AM so that I could take a shower before I went to visit my school St. Andrews College. It is called a College for some reason. I took a shower and then we started to go to St. Andrews College. We walked out of our house, and started to walk to the Dart. The Dart stands for Dublin Area Rapid Transit. It is like a train that comes every 15 Minutes. We walked to the nearest station and then got on the Dart, and rode it to near the school. Here is a picture of the Dart.




       

Outside of the Dart

           

Inside of the Dart (it has wifi)

Above view of the Dart

          One thing cool about the Dart is that it has Wifi so I can text whenever I am riding it. We got off and started to walk to the school. On the way, there was a cute little shop called "Sweet" It had a lot of pastries inside of it. We stopped inside because it was cold.

"Sweet" shop!

          Inside, I got a hot chocolate with marshmallows. We  kept walking to St. Andrews College. We got there, and there was a lot of courts outside for tennis and other sports. The school was kind of large. We walked inside and met Mr. Herir. He was the IB Coordinator. He was also head of the Model United Nations trip. He gave us a tour of the school. We interrupted some classes and talked to some of the students about the school. I took some pictures of the school.

Courts on the outside of the school

Outside view of St. Andrews

Lunchroom

Outside area

Hallways 

Lockers

         Mr. Herir told us a lot about the subjects and what the IB part of this school will be like in 11th and 12th grade. 10th grade, is a Transition Year in the school St. Andrews. Transition Year is trying a lot of new things and finding out what you want to do in the future. It is based a lot on the students and there is a lot of trips that I can go on. There are 3 projects this year and it sounds really cool. Ms. King was the head of Transition Year, so she told us a lot about that. I get to choose a lot of my classes.

     

          After we visited St. Andrews College, we got back on the Dart, and went to Greystone. It is the last town on the dart which is right on the sea. It is the furthest south that you can travel on the dart. In Greystone, we went to a restaurant. It was called Theatre Lane. It was very good. After that, since Levi wasn't done eating yet, Oma and I walked around Greystone for a while. We found a cute shop called The Happy Pear. It had organic Fruits and Vegetables, and a lot of really healthy foods, nuts, seeds and other things like that.

Seems very happy!

Inside The Happy Pear!

          Me and Oma got 2 ripe, ready to eat Avocados, and a red pepper. Then we walked slowly back down to the Dart station. It started to rain very hard all of a sudden, so we went into the station for cover. Oma called Mama, and they were in a cafe, so we went to meet them. We went into the cafe. It was called Cafe Grey. It was a cute little cafe. I got a raspberry leaf tea. It was very tasty!

Levi, my Mom, and Oma at Cafe Grey

Very cute Cafe

            We walked back to the Dart station in Greystone, and we had to wait 11 minutes for our next Dart to come. We got on, heading back to our house. On the way, Mama and Oma wanted to stop at Dulkey to go to a bookstore that they knew of. We got off the Dart, and it started to rain very hard. We walked all the way to the bookstore in Dulkey, when we found out the bookstore was closed, and we realized that we should have just stayed on the Dart. We walked all the way back to the dart, and we waited for it to come again. We got on, and traveled back to our house. On the Dart, there is a very good view of the sea, and I got some really beautiful pictures!

Shoreline from the Dart

Beach with cool rocks!

            For dinner, Levi had fish sticks, and I had a chili soup. It was very good. We ate an Avocado that we got from The Happy Pear. They were perfect. Since my friends Ben, Caleb and Max are coming to Dublin with me in June, me and my mom wanted to go to the store to get some food ready for that week.

                                                             -4/6/2016