anyone want to buy a condo?

We’re moving

therefore….

we have to sell the condo.

We’ve talked to a few realtors and we have one that we like because she knows the area really well and has contacts that could prove very helpful to us.  Unfortunately, we’re starting to feel a little taken advantage of since she’s well aware of our particularly time sensitive situation.  So right now, we’re employing a few stall tactics and we’re going to see if anyone that works at NGA might be interested in buying our place because it will be closer to their new campus.  We’re only going to stall until the end of the month but who knows, we might get lucky.

Given this plan of ours, I needed to make up a flier for Will to post around which, of course, requires pictures.

So… on Sunday, we did a combination of “real” cleaning and “pretend” cleaning aka moving things out of the room that was being photographed.

Here’s what we got:
Bedroom:

 
Bathroom:

Kitchen:


Dining Room:

Living Room:
 

And…. reality….

It’s specific to Will’s office but here’s the flier I made up:

Our House Flier

day 9 - newgrange

After having our fill of Dublin (I even managed to find a Gap in the Arnott’s so that I could get a new pair of jeans since I was in country and short a pair of pants to make it through the trip), we headed out for Newgrange.  But we decided to take a quick detour through Bettystown, Co. Meath.  It wasn’t too far out of our way and we couldn’t resist being able to get a picture of Mom with the sign for the town. 

We ended up getting to the Brú na Bóinne Visitor’s Center around lunch time only to find that we couldn’t get a tour of Newgrange for a few hours.  Well, we decided to just camp out in the cafeteria because Newgrange is one of the decidedly cooler Irish attractions and something that Will was particularly interested in.

 

It had been raining off and on all day but the skies cleared nicely as we headed out to the burial mound.

The rain did roll back in while we were out there though.

 

 
The entrance to the mound.

  
The rain coming in the distance.

The River Boyne as we walked over it back to the Visitors Center.

Our last event of the day was to find my maternal grandmother’s home in Kells, Co. Meath.

  

Then it was on to Mullingar for the night.

View Ireland - Day 9 in a larger map

Day 1: Arrival, Adare, Tralee
Day 2: Dingle Peninsula Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Day 3: Kilarney, Muckross House
Day 4: Rock of Cashel
Day 5: Tipperary and Waterford
Day 6: Wexford and Vale of Avoca
Day 7: Dublin Part 1
Day 8: Dublin Part 2

day 8 – dublin part 2

We were spending our day apart from my folks and started out the day getting a virtual cache at The Spire of Dublin aka “The Stiffy on the Liffey.”

   

the view down O’Connell Street.

After our short trek, down the street, we got tickets for the Hop on, Hop off bus.  Our first stop was the Guinness Storehouse.  On the way there, we passed several pretty examples of the Georgian doors for which Dublin is known.

I’ve been to the Guinness Storehouse before and hadn’t been terribly impressed.  Somehow it was different with someone who is obsessed with Guinness.  The tour starts with an explanation and discussion of the ingredients that make good Guinness – barley, hops and water.

Will playing with the barley.

 
Water – it doesn’t come from the Liffey as is often rumored.  The tour continues on through the various stages of brewing.  Pretty shiny kegs…

Old school kegs.

An old Toucan lamp.

Next up was probably Will’s favorite part of the whole trip – the “Pour the Perfect Pint” experience wherein they teach you to pour the perfect pint of Guinness which, of course, you then get to drink.

 

one happy husband!  

Even though we’d begun our days separately, we ran into my folks at the Storehouse.  They actually came into learn to pour their own pints as we were getting ready to leave.

Mom took a sip but in the end, Will got to have another.

Then we headed up to the Gravity Bar on the top floor where Will got to have his third pint!  He was really happy about that.

 

See?  Happy husband

Afterward we hopped back on the bus for our next stop – Kilmainham Gaol.

 

Later that evening we met back up with my parents to go on a musical pub crawl.  It was something that in all their trips, my parents had never been on.  For a chilly, rainy, nearly off-season evening, it was a well-attended crawl and quite enjoyable.  Lots of traditional and fun songs.

our guides and musicians for the evening.

ok, these guys were actually playing while we were eating dinner at Oliver St John Gogarty’s Pub which is where the pub crawl starts.

Lastly, I’d been traveling all over the country with my pillow from home and this is what we found when we came in for the night:

My pillow all fluffed up and made up on the bed with the rest of the pillows

Day 1: Arrival, Adare, Tralee
Day 2: Dingle Peninsula Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Day 3: Kilarney, Muckross House
Day 4: Rock of Cashel
Day 5: Tipperary and Waterford
Day 6: Wexford and Vale of Avoca
Day 7: Dublin Part 1