Monday, July 21
[When John saw what I had written up for this day, he chided me a bit for my pessimism. I was trying to be realistic, I guess . . . traveling with little ones is not all roses! Still, every moment of this trip was a great privilege, even though some were particularly difficult.]
"This was easily the worst day of our trip so far . . . here's hoping that it stays the worst and tomorrow is better! It started at 3 AM when Ruthie woke up. She would not calm down for anything, and we can only conclude that we really ran her ragged with too much activity and not enough normal sleep over the past few days. She had just lost it. Finally around 4:30 or 5 when she was sitting on our bed between us, screaming her head off, she sucked on her bippy, closed her eyes and flopped over in exhaustion until about 9 AM.
"Gemma was up shortly after that and we let John sleep until 10, since breakfast was open until 10:30. We ate a nice full Hilton breakfast (thanks Grandpa B!) and made the 15 minute drive into the Dublin city center, arriving around 11:30/12, since we got detoured with trying to find a gas station and making wrong turns. We finally found a 'pay and display' parking spot and all felt a little less cranky after taking a pit stop at a Spar nearby.
"Soon we found the City SightSeeing bus we were looking for and bought two-day tickets. We had just enough time on our parking ticket for the bus ride without hopping off, so we set our minds on that, but the girls were quite difficult by the end of it.
"We headed back to the car and John took Gemma potty at the Spar again before setting off. Ruth fussed almost the entire trip, and suddenly Gemma started fussing, too, when she realized that we didn't have her baby. Flustered, we took more wrong turns (thankful for our GPS at least!), and John finally dropped the girls and me off at the Hotel and went back to the city center to get the baby from the bathroom at the Spar.
"Of course Ruthie had fallen asleep in the car and woke up as soon as we got her out, but thankfully she ate some yogurt in the room and then took a nice long nap until around 6 pm. Also thankfully John found the baby without a problem and returned to do some work.
"We decided on Fish and Chips for dinner since we still hadn't had any yet, and we were quite hungry having only snacked on Pringles for lunch. We found a place 7 minutes away that we could get to without going into the city, which was not at all appealing anymore today. Picked up one fish and chips and two "snack boxes" of fried chicken and chips because they were BOGO. Carried them over a block to eat them at a playground we'd spotted. It was fun spending some time with the local kids, even though the playground was pretty filthy and the kids were not at all interested in eating when playing was in front of them!
"Then Gemma had an accident--numbers 1 and 2, the first pee accident in a week and the first poo accident in months. Finally we loaded the kids back up, Ruthie screaming all the way of course, and got them home, bathed and in bed. Thankful for a quiet evening in the hotel, and here's to hoping that tomorrow, our last day in Ireland, is better.
[Most of these photos are from the bus tour we took around the city. There were cathedrals everywhere.]
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