Dublin - Olympic fever

Another late start this morning…sleeping in until 9am.

The day was brighter than yesterday so we took an ‘early’ morning stroll to the beach which is down the road from where we are staying. It is one of those beaches where, when the tide goes out, it goes out so far you can’t even see the water! Eloise was desperate for a ‘swim’ so was a bit disappointed – although I think she would have been more disappointed had she actually been able to feel how cold the water is!

Later that morning (or it might have been early afternoon) we took the dart into the city again to explore St Stephens Green. It’s a really pretty park – like Central Park on a MUCH smaller scale…it even has the horse drawn carriages outside waiting to take tourists for a ride (in more ways than one!).

There was a nice playground in the park, with a very cool baskety-swing type thing that the girls loved, and another baskety-turny type thing that they also had fun with….

We found a nice little pub just down the street and went inside for lunch.

There was a big screen inside with the Olympics on and it was all pretty peaceful for a while until suddenly the sound was turned up on the big screen and I turned around to discover the pub was now absolutely packed….it was time to make an exit with the kids. We walked out of the pub and straight into about 6 policemen standing at the door – I thought it was the beginnings of a riot until I realised they were there to watch the television that was setup just outside the pub. Apparently Ireland’s great Olympic medal hopeful (a female boxer called Katie Taylor) was fighting for a medal position against a British boxer. Luckily for us, and most of Ireland I suspect, Katie won her fight.

Speaking of Olympics – it is extrodinary to see the different coverages from the different countries compared to our own. In America it was only about the American athletes – I am not sure they even knew the names of any other competitors. Granted America has won the most medals and so almost all events that are covered in America were won by Americans.

In Ireland, we are seeing the UK coverage mostly – which of course is aimed at British athletes. And they are doing extraordinarily well too. But the coverage is far less biased.

I must admit we have heard little about Australia and how they are doing – which by all effects is probably a good thing because I don’t think we are doing great….Australia isn’t even on the medal tally when they show it on TV.

And speaking of TV – is it just my children all do all kids watch any cartoon on TV? Yesterday they were fixated by an episode of Spongebob Squarepants on TV that was dubbed in Gaelic! They couldn’t understand a word but wouldn’t let me turn it off!

Anyway – I digress.  After lunch we wandered down and around the city, stopping at Trinity College who Shane will be working with for the next few weeks.  Dublin really is a lovely city and quite compact to walk around – but then anything would seem small after New York!

Later today we went down the to stream near our place and fed some of the ducks. There was also a ‘school’ of seagull-type birds who were led by a larger bird, who were renamed all of 1T and Mrs Thornton!

1T and Mrs Thornton the birds, as named by Neve.

Eloise testing her photography skills at Trinity College - not bad!