Ireland 2015

Ruben was asked to go to Ireland this week (kind of suddenly) and I was able to tag along! My dad arranged to fly out and watch the kids while we were gone...he's absolutely winning dad AND grandpa of the year!!! We flew over Saturday and, despite dealing with some serious jet lag, had a great first day yesterday! First we checked into our amazing hotel near St. Stephens Green, seriously the breakfast buffet is so enormous, elegant and delicious I may have to embarrass myself and snap a pic this week. Then we toured Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells and the Old Library. The Book of Kells is a copy of the 4 Gospels of the Bible painstakingly copied onto vellum 1200 years ago. But they also decorated it with exquisitely detailed illustrations of the text and unique page frame designs. It's the brightest spot in literature and arts in the Middle Ages!

The Old Library at Trinity is 2 stories high and very long and just one room. It houses 200,000 books. It's impressive and beautiful!

We also went to the National Museum- Archeology to see artifacts from ancient civilizations that lived in Ireland thousands of years ago. The country is unique among Europe since as it was out of the way it was able to preserve the evidence of early peoples. We saw gold jewelry, Viking-influenced weaponry and my favorite: bog bodies! Bob bodies are fascinating! The chemicals and ph levels of a bog naturally preserve human remains (and other items), and there are several remarkable examples in the museum. Some have almost perfectly preserved fingernails and hair. Sadly, most of the bodies were victims of pre-Christian cults that believed in human sacrifice.

Tomorrow I'll post about the adventures were had today driving our car (horrible!) and visiting a castle (awesome!). Too tired tonight...