Weekend in Dublin -- Kells and Gotham

On our final day in Dublin, we hit the Book of Kells and St Patrick's Cathedral.

The Book of Kells was a must-see not only for its own beauty and wonderment, but also because the boys saw a movie about a boy working on the book, The Secret of Kells, and we plan to visit Iona (where the book was created) in June.  How can this book created in 500 still be in existence?   On the day we visited, the book was open to a portrait of St Matthew and the opening words of his gospel.

Although we didn't have time to tour St Patrick's Cathedral, we found all the British Literature greats in the adjoining park.  The exterior of the church was spectacular in itself.

Quick lunch at Gotham Cafe (boys insisted based on the name) which served reasonably priced pizzas, pastas, and sandwiches and was decorated with Rolling Stones magazine covers.

Cormac's favorite cover: X-Files

Declan's favorite (he wouldn't pose with Bart though)

Our plane back to Glasgow had Saint Cormac's name painted on the side of the cockpit -- helped us home safely!

Besides spending time with the extended Irish family, highlights of Dublin:  ZOO by unanimous vote (here), but also the bog men at the National Museum were incredible.  How these bodies were preserved in the bog is absolutely amazing.  Since it seems most of the bodies found in the bogs met their ends by violent means, my guess is that the bog was ancient people's East River.  Instead of dumping corpses tied to cement blocks into the river (or the New Jersey Pine Barrens as in one Sopranos episode), the bogs made for convenient places to make a body disappear.  Now, they've emerged more than a thousand years later still with skin, teeth, hair intact -- creepy, but cool!

When traveling with boys, this is what becomes a necessary photo.

Today, we're back to our normal routine in Glasgow -- boys at their respective schools and I doing stuff around the flat.  My dad and Holly went to Perth for the day to visit a friend, and since we will be in Perth in June with two families from the USA, we look forward to their preview of it.