Gaelic Phrases:

Cead Mile Failte - " A Thousand Welcomes"

Dia Guit - " God be with you"

Go Raimh a Maith Agat - "Thank You"

Teach - House

For the last three days my family and I stayed in a hotel in Dublin, Ireland. At this time it was very cold. It was so cold we could see our breath. The weather was 7 degrees Celsius (44 degrees Fahrenheit). Most of the time it was raining, so we didn't go outside very often.

Our second day we went to Trinity College and saw The Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a lavishly decorated copy of the four gospels of Christ, written in Latin. It is unique because it is one of the oldest known books in the world (800 AD). Also, the books pages and cover are made of Vellium (calves skin). It took 185 calves skins to create the book. While we stayed in Dublin we took the hop on-hop off bus tour, which was a lot of fun!We took a double-decker bus around the town and saw tons of famous sights. We even saw the house that Bram Stroker (the writer of the book, Dracula) lived in. Another place that we went to was the Guiness beer factory. At the factory we saw a case containing the hundreds of different types of guiness beer bottles. We also saw a wall that had a virtual moving picture of flowing beer. We learned about how they make Guinness beer, and tried Guinness bread. It was delicious!On top of the factory, we stood in the gravity tower where the adults sampled Guinness beer and we had soda. The gravity tower also gives a stunning view of Dublin!

Lastly, we visited Kilmainham Prison. This now closed prison is very important in Irish history. In 1916, 14 men& women lead a failed rebellion against British rule, lasting only 5 days. While the rebellion was a failure, it still brought success.When the 14 leaders of the rebellion were executed at Kilmainham prison, the people of Ireland became angry & rallied their support behind the cause of independence! In 1921 the British signed a treaty with the Republic of Ireland for all but 9 counties.

I think that Dublin is a great place to go to it has a lot of spots to see and has some of the finest pubs in Europe.