Family Themes

I have realized over the years of parenting that from the time they are born and so far through our homeschool years certain things define the way we parent, teach and interact with our kids. Some themes that seem to continually reoccur over time. Blogging has helped me realize a lot of those themes because I tend to write about similar things often.

1. Reading
We read to them all the time. We encourage them to read. We demonstrate to them how much we read. Reading is definitely a central theme in our family. We are readers and we are raising readers. We all spend a good portion of our days reading. We read books, magazines, comics, websites really anything. We talk about what we read, we talk about what we want to read, we read after dinner as a family. I think they will all grow up remembering reading.

2. Nature
Exploring, discovering and enjoying nature is an important part of our family. We spend lots of time outdoors but also indoors at locations like nature centers, zoos, and arboretums. We hike, we camp, we geocache, we bike, we play lawn bowling and frisbee together. We often just walk together as a family around our neighborhood and around different area parks. We really encourage exploring and loving nature like Ciaran's love of frogs, Sirah loving owls and their desire to touch and examine all of nature around them. We encourage nature note booking and free exploration.

3. Faith

We are raising our kids with a strong faith. We try to live out our faith, we try to give them examples of what that means and to model it for them. We teach them about God and morality. We do our best to live according to our beliefs, we offer them materials to learn from and experiences and activities that support and encourage their own faith. We answer tough questions and are trying to raise them to have a faith of their own not just a "because my parents said so" faith. Our faith is often expressed and lived out in the small everyday details of our lives.

4.Experiences
We try to offer a lot of experiences to our kids. Our favorite family saying "One never knows what this crazy clan will do!" We bring them along with us to a wide variety of places and to meet a variety of people. We take them campaigning and to political rallies, to the art museum and book signings, to the orchestra, Irish and Scottish festivals, caving, to all the museums (not just the zoo and childrens), petroglyphs, farms and skyscrapers. Basically if we would go there they will go there with very few exceptions. And we take them to all the possible crazy places you can think of to take a child on a field trip. We always try to make it fun and often, though not always, educational. If we have read about it I will try to find a way to bring it to life for them in a more tangible way.

5. Travel
We travel a lot. We have family scattered throughout the country and many in wonderful vacation spots such as New York, Maine, Chicago and Southern California. We take them to visit relatives and see the sites. We take them places we want them to experience. I think if we were suddenly to become millionares this is the piece that would increase the most. When we were learning about the pharaohs and we talked about the exhibit in Texas Rhiannon asked if we could go there on a field trip as if it was around the corner. Ciaran piped up and said wouldn't it be better to just go to Egypt? How nice it would be! Ciaran and I have an agreement that when he is older we are going to travel to the rainforest and jungle together even if no one else comes with us. Sirah really wants to go to London because that is where her special bear is from. Rhiannon would love to visit Rome and Ireland. All of them want to go explore caves around the United States and the world. I suppose we have taught them to dream big and that travel is a wonderful thing. I did however sit Rhiannon down the year she was 7 and explain that this is not "normal" life to get to travel to the beaches of Southern California, New York City, Walt Disney World and the retreat of Maine all in the same year. We talked about how privileged we really were. I think we have given them all travel bugs much like our own since we have not stopped traveling because we have kids.

6. History/Philosophy
We have a love of history and philosophy. While they may seem an odd mix in a lot of ways they are not. If you looked at our home collection of books you would see a ton of philosophy, history and political books, along with a smattering of science books. Serona has a passion for philosophy and I have a passion for history. We will watch family movies and documentaries that show this love along with our love of nature. We take field trips and family outings to places of historical significance or places that bring alive history. We talk in ways that promote philosophy, logic and argument. We even are beginning to see it in the communication and choices of our kids. This has led to a lot of inquisitiveness in our kids and that is a wonderful thing even as we answer Why or How for the millionth time. Those two subjects I think really inform us of who we are and how we got here both in experience and in our minds and choices. I am glad that is an important theme for us.

7. Music
We all have an appreciation for music and Serona can play music. Music is a part of our daily life. We often listen to some classical music, show tunes but mostly now we are listening to Christian music we all like as a family. We have music streaming on our computers, the kids each have their own cd or mp3 player in their room, we listen in the car and on the go. We sing songs together, we in general enjoy each others music and we all like listening to it. Music has been a unifier for our family and given us yet another area of shared experiences as a family both for educational and mostly just for fun purposes.

8. Video Games
This one is harder for me to admit but it is reality - we are a video game family. I grew up playing video games. I have more limited taste in the types of games I enjoy. Nintendo Wii is a good fit for me personally and for our family. We also have an Xbox 360 system that Serona mostly uses. We play together as a family, the kids play together and Serona or Ciaran will play alone. I used to be really hesitant about this screen time but I realize how many more hours in a day my kids really have with homeschooling, they really do have more free time and when chores, school, reading, outside/exercise time is over if they want to play video games that is fine by me. So they get more video game time than people might think they would get in our house. It is social and fun for them and sometimes even for me. I really am a fan of the Wii system - it is a great family console.

9. Board Games
Not only do we enjoy video games but we play lots of board games. We play as a family and often I play with the kids. The kids will play certain games on their own as well. We have a TON of games, card and board games and I do manage to purge every few years but I amazed at how many different games we really do play. We have certain favorites we come back to time and time again but in general we play a lot of games. I see Ciaran have my competitive nature and Rhiannon having Serona's "It's just fun to play" attitude which sometimes makes it difficult to play all together a game like Blokus. I like that we play games together I think it promotes a lot of good things and offers lots of great life learning experiences.

10. Activism
We are an activist family in a lot of ways. We have been politically involved as families and individuals for a long time. We try to stay on top of important issues and participate in the ways we can. We are raising our kids to see the importance of being an involved citizen and they get to see the frustrations that go along with that involvement as well. We are volunteers in different areas of our lives, advocates in others and activists in still others. The commonality of this is teaching our kids they need to be aware and informed of what is going on in the world around them. They also need to be ready to stand up and defend their beliefs and those things that are important to them. We are trying to equip them with the necessary tools to be an involved and active citizen in all areas of their lives by teaching them and demonstrating them for them.

Together these themes often come out in our parenting and homeschooling choices with our kids. While they don't encapsulate everything about us and we are not consitent that we live all of these all the time - they give you a fairly good picture of the way we exist as a family and some of the things important to us all.

Peace,
Tenniel

If You Lived in the time of the American Revolution

So far I think this was my favorite of the classes in this series. Perhaps it is because we are in the middle of the American Revolution here at home but it was a fun class I think the kids enjoyed. I decided to make the focus of the class walking the students through the history that led the Patriots to rebel against the British in a fairly interesting and interactive way. We used candy to make it most interesting to them.

For the main talk time everyone gathered in a circle on the floor and was given a napkin full of skittles. We had someone be King George, someone be the tax collector and someone be parliament. In the future I would skip the parliament as it made it too complicated. We walked through all the laws and rules passed by the British and took candy from the kids to represent their losses in money/supplies/freedoms. I went through each of the following, briefly explaining it and then having the tax collector take away candy to represent it. For example we took half their candy during the currency act to represent loss of half of money value. For the intolerable acts we "taxed" them for glasses, clothing, shoes, etc) I also handed the following out as a printout the kids added to their books as a reminder of the lesson and overview of the causes of the American Revolution. This is a simplified list that was useful for our class, it is not detailed and comprehensive however.

Causes of American Revolution

French-Indian War
colonists help England fight and win
England decided to tax colonies to increase money and
lower expenses by closing the frontier

The Sugar Act 1764
tax for all sugar, used patrols to enforce

The Currency Act 1764
made colonial scrip (money) illegal
reduced value by half

The Quartering Act 1765
provide barracks and supplies to
house or quarter British troops

The Stamp Act 1765
required government stamps for all official papers
stamp masters tarred and feathered by patriots

Repeal of Stamp Act 1766
Parliament repealed under pressure
America's first victory

The Townshend Acts 1767
taxes on imported goods such as
glass, tea, coffee, paper, paint

Writs of Assistance 1767
search any home or business
encouraged neighbors to "tattle" on one another

Colonial Legislatures Dissolved 1767
Massachusetts assembly dissolved by Parliament
due to resistance and encouraging others to resist
-dissolved MD SC and GA as well

The Boston Massacre 1770
shots fired into a crowd of civilians
5 people dead - led to outrage

Townshend Acts and Quartering Act Repealed 1770
all repealed by British prime minister
except tax on tea


The Tea Act 1773
decreased British East India tea essentially
creating a tea monopoly for Britain along with tea tax

The Boston Tea Party 12/16/1773
colonists disguised as Indians boarded tea ships in
Boston Harbor and dumped 10,000 pounds of British tea

The Intolerable Acts 1774
Boston ports closed until lost tea costs paid
Changed and controlled local government structure
New worse quartering act - troops stationed in homes against will

First Continental Congress 1774
colonial delegates meet in Philadelphia to decide on common action
wrote a petition to King George III asking him to intervene
rejected Parliament but said loyal to king
Patriot/Loyalist break

Lexington and Concord Battles 1775
The war begins

Some Famous Americans of the Time

George Washington
Patrick Henry
Thomas Jefferson
Samuel Adams
Abigail Adams
John Adams
Paul Revere
Ethan Allen
Benjamin Franklin
John Hancock

While this list seems really long it moved quickly and had an impact. I think the kids really felt injustice at losing something they valued. We left everyone with somewhere between 2-5 skittles and allowed them to eat them saving the rest for later for a review activity.

Then we broke the kids into small groups and moved them through a few stations.

Spy and Secret Messages
1. Invisible Messages: They got to try their hand at using invisible ink to write messages. Use one of the following mixtures to make your own Invisible Ink:

* lemon, grapefruit or orange juice
* milk
* sugar or salt water (teaspoon in a cup of water)
* white vinegar

Use any kind of heavy white writing paper, paper with lines is best kind. Dip a clean pen (not a ball-point) or any instrument with a smooth point, like a toothpick, into the ink. As you write the words will disappear, so hold your finger at the end of the last word to mark your place. When its dry, hold the paper over a bright electric light or a heated pop-up toaster.



2. Book Cifer Code: Think National Treasure, most of the kids understood it from that reference. Pick one page from your favorite book, make sure it has a lot of words on it! Assign numbers to the words on the page to make your own Secret Code. Use the words to compose a message to decode. We had a teacher create the message and they deciphered it.

3. Rebus game
http://www.ushistory.org/march/games/rebus.htm

These were all available at the one station for the kids to try. You would not likely need all.

Almanac Making Station


Tying it to the almanac of the day we had each student make their own book to keep records of the class in. Using crumpled paper bags, white hole punched paper and leather straps the kids made books designed to look old fashioned but fairly low budget. They wound the piece of leather through the holes in the paper and bag and then wrote If you Lived on the front and their names inside. We had enough pages for each week we did to have several sheets for them to fill. They pasted in the work from the previous week (knights) and this week - the outline of causes and spy games.

Food, Discussion and Artifacts
The last station is a catch all station - they get to eat their food - this week was tea and shortbread type cakes. While they are eating I show them pictures from various books the DK Publishing time period books work really well. We also had a tricorn hat from the time period for them to look at. I had set up a water harmonica but we could not make it work. This is the wine goblets with water filled at different levels. After persistence one of the students figured it out and it does sound beautiful if you can figure it out. We had some of our glasses filled too high.

At the end we brought them to review the American Revolution causes. To keep them interested we used candy. I went through my long list above reminding them even if the names sounded strange they could likely figure it out from our experiences before. I rewarded right answers with candy. That was a hit and served as a nice review.

I am always amazed when I type this all out how much we do in the span of a single hour. It is really because we have several teachers there is no way to do all this at one time with one teacher. But maybe divided over a few days you can get it in. I never expect them to have depth just a basic taste and overview of the time period we are learning.

I love teaching history this way because it really seems to bring it alive to kids. They suddenly find history fun and interesting and hopefully some of the details will sink in because they learned them not just by dates but through experience. I know my own kids do really well with this format.

More than the memories

Awhile ago when Serona and I were having a discussion about what we would do if we suddenly became independently wealthy and did not need to worry about working or money I immediately replied with travel more. There is so much of the world I want to see and experience and share with Serona and the kids. I have always treasured travelling and enjoy it so much. I am thankful for the many opportunities I have had to travel. I visited more states in the United States (42) by the time I was 26 than most people will see in their lifetime. I just recently got my first passport stamp to Ireland! I love traveling and believe I always will until it becomes too difficult for me.

During this discussion Serona asked me why I valued it so much because when it is all said and done all you have are the memories and some pictures or souvenirs to remind you of the time you were there. I guess I never viewed travel in that light, though I can see that perspective. To me travel is experience, and for me life is made up of experiences. Long-time readers of this blog will know that about my parenting and homeschooling philosophy, people who know me and my love for field trips and activities would also know that about me. To me experiences and what we learn from them make up our lives.


When we were recently sitting inside a stone beehive hut built by monks in the early 6th century or so on our trip to the Aran Islands in Ireland I put it all together. For me I value experience much more than my "stuff" my physical items. I value the time I spend somewhere and learning something far more than the items I purchase or own, even though they last longer and I use them more. I suppose there are of course exceptions. I value my wedding ring highly, the journals I write for my kids and I suppose our computer, and I am sure someone can point out a few other things. But in general experiences, even brief ones that I learn from I value higher than items I can purchase at a store.

I really believe I am one of those people who learns by experience, and can find a lesson or value in most anything I do or experience. Sitting in the huts that day I realized quite a bit about what we consider shelter to be and what people of the past considered shelter. I learned quite a few lessons about being outside more and what we have made our homes into in this day and age in our country. I took a lot away with me from those brief moments we sat inside the beehive hut listening to the wind blow, feeling the cool temperature, seeing what full daylight lighting was like, the limited space and imaging what it was used for in comparison to what our homes are used for. Thinking about how much time was spent in this shelter and how much time we spend inside ours today. A commitment to even more time outside was born in me in that brief experience I had while traveling. There are many more examples from our recent trip to Ireland and our walk through history there. There are even more examples from my everyday life and experiences and the places I have traveled over the years.

So for me traveling and experiences are more than the memories and the photos I take with me. They represent opportunities to learn, to understand, to grow and to change or reaffirm my own beliefs and values about certain things. They grow me as a person and provide more breadth to my understanding. To be sure not all travel does this for me, or anyone for that matter. There is only so much new you can see in a different cities airport, fast food place and so on. In many ways people are people wherever you go and some differences are overstated to be sure. However, some things really are different and those are experiences I tend to seek out. The unique things about a place, what makes it special, what is it known for, what is the history of the place.

I especially love finding opportunities to bring history alive to me, to try to experience it in a new and unique way. Seeing the actual Book of Kells was much more significant and shed much more light on history for me than reading about it. Walking through a 5000 year old megalithic site was much more unique than seeing it on the internet. Going to see the Ingalls Wilder sites brings home the books more. Sitting in the back of a session of Congress brings home governance more. Climbing the Statue of Liberty and visiting Ellis Island makes immigration feel much more real. Walking through a vineyard brings you closer to understanding how wine is made and what it means for families that produce it. Standing on a glacier in Alaska looking at a giant crevice caused by a candy wrapper brings home the effects we have on our environment far more than any book can. These briefs moments offer experiences that have stayed with me for a lifetime and so many others I have had and so many more I hope to one day experience. Lessons I hope to pass on to my children and hope they too can experience.

Yet I am a practical person as well and traveling is extremely expensive and at times an extravagance that many (including us) can not afford, especially once you add some kids into the mix. We save and do what we can and we try to fill in our experiences by taking full advantage of what is local and available to us and build a spirit of adventure and flexibility into our kids so when it is possible they are adaptable and excited for the opportunities. Part of our whole "One never knows what this crazy clan will do" philosophy.

Even when we can't travel to a particular location we have so much available to us now. So much has been written in books, on the internet and by individuals. Information has never been more plentiful and more accesible to so many than it is now. We have so many mediums available to us. We may not be able to stand on the site ourselves but we can get pretty good experiences from others. We can view pictures from every angle, read personal accounts and blog posts, see virtual 360 degree ours, video clips, short home movies, audio clips and the list goes on and on of so many places that were previously unaccessible to us.

As we educate our children and yes ourselves we have so much available to us that we need only locate and take advantage of. We need to think outside of the box. Yes reading is great and still a primary way to experience and understand history and information about places and people but there is so much more now to supplement and enhance that. To get us as close as possible to experience being there. We can never truly recreate and rexperience history as it was lived - but we can get a glimpse at what it might have been like, have opportunities to experience and try to get an idea of what walking in their shoes might have felt like. However imperfect it may be it is a closer experience that what we can create alone in our brains.

For me one of the most surprising rewards of homeschooling has been relearning history and science with my kids. I find that this time around I really care and want to understand what happened and why things work and are the way they are. This time around I see value in understanding history and science. I find our story and our need as humans to express ourselves and tell our stories fascinating. In many ways blogging allows us all to tell our history from our perspective and communicate to whoever cares to listen and down to the generations that follow.

I find the more I learn about history the more I yearn to travel and experience the places we read and learn about. The more I want to understand and experience. So yes for me it is more than the memories though I do treasure and cherish those. To me travel is a chance to experience history and other people and cultures in a way a book will never bring home for me. A chance to evaluate what I believe and confirm those things that are important to me and question those things that may need to change. I am not a wishy-washy person prone to change at the drop of a hat - it takes convincing but it does happen from time to time. We have so much to learn and there are so many ways to learn it. Yes travel is an expensive way to do it but a rewarding and lasting one if you have the right perspective while you do it and make wise choices about what to include and what to leave out of your travel plans.

So if we ever become independently wealthy (not likely in my lifetime) you can expect to read more travel blog posts here :)

Cheers,
Tenniel

New Grange and Knowth

After two days full of Dublin we headed North about an hour to see some of the oldest things in all of Ireland and to date actually in the world. Yes these structures are older than the Great Pyramids in Egypt (and no it is not Stonehenge - which is in England though everyone asked if we would see it in Ireland) and they were very fascinating.

We began our tour at the visitor center of Bru na Boinne where we could catch our tour buses out to the sites. The only way to see these sites is through the guided tours provided from the visitor center. Still the tour is worth both your time and your money and we were glad we choose to do both NewGrange and Knowth sites - you can no longer visit the Dowth site or we would have done that as well. The visitor center is well done and provides a great introduction to the area and the history of the prehistoric sites. Definitely plan to spend some time there if you go visit.

We headed to Newgrange first and we were impressed that you can still go inside these ancient tombs. Our tour guide was great and very good at admitting that all of this is prehistory so we are making our best guesses and theories about what these passages were used for and different people have different interpretations. They believe it has something to do with the solstices as the light fits perfectly into the tomb passageways during the winter solstice at Newgrange and the summer solstice at Knowth. We got to walk inside these passageways that were built in approximately 3200 BC and be amazed at how long they have lasted and how well they were built. It really is hard to express how we felt walking inside those passageways and contemplating what they were made for and who they were made by and how long they have lasted and been preserved and just how crazy it was that we could be inside them right now. It was of course raining but we did take time to walk around and see all the carvings on the stones and try to understand what it meant and be amazed at how long it has lasted and weathered through all the harsh rain and winds of Ireland over these 5000 years. Our time there was too short and we headed back to catch our next bus over to Knowth.


Knowth has a completely different feel and there are many more passageways and tombs here. The carvings are much more detailed and significant and you could spend much more time here - but you can not go down the passageways. So going to both sites is a good thing, I also enjoyed going to Newgrange first as we had more appreciation for what we were seeing at Knowth. I also enjoyed our tour guide here more - she was a bit more informative and interesting. She shared a lot of details about the different mounds and to be fair there is a lot more going on at Knowth that at New grange so she had more to talk about. The big stones has substantial carvings on them, some look like they were just recently done. There is also a big and smooth fertility stone that was interesting. Just like at Newgrange the mounds are made up of beautiful quartz that make them fascinating to look at.

Instead of going inside this passageway we were able to climb on top of it and see the views from up high. You can see several other tomb areas and the mountains. Our day was a bit rainy and overcast so our view was not as good as it could be, but beautiful still the same. We took time to walk around the site and examine the carvings and think through who built them (most likely teenagers) and how long it took them and why they did it. Again history coming alive in very real and interesting ways.

Once again we felt our time here was too short but our tour was over and the next group was arriving so we bid Knowth and Newgrange goodbye - fairly confident we will never experience something built so long ago during our lifetime - but you never know. We would definitely recommend going to see these sites if you are anywhere near or in county Meath.

We headed on to explore some other ancient sites - which did not seem so old after spending the day at sites over 5000 years old.

Dublin History

We spent our second day enjoying Dublin and seeing all the things I most wanted to see. Serona was great about letting me choose what I wanted to see here as he had already been here and he was okay with the fact that for him that meant seeing some things again because I really wanted to see them.

We started out at Trinity College and the Book of Kells. This was one of the things I most wanted to see in Ireland. Having spent this past year learning about the time period and the Book of Kells itself I was very excited for the opportunity to see it. The weight of how old the book was and how long it took to make is apparent when you are there. Rhiannon wished she could see it as we spent so much time learning about it and book making from this time period. Even having a lesson pretending to be a scribe and illustrator from the time.

The exhibit is set up well. With a room full of information and history about the time period and images from the book blown up large for you to examine. We spent about an hour going through this room and learning more about it. Then when we were finished in there we headed into the room with the Book of Kells and the Book of Armagh and Book of Durrow also on display. There was a page of writing and a page of illustrations open so you could see both. The table was crowded with people but you could wait your turn and take as much time as you needed we spent another half hour in here or so.

The books were incredibly impressive and made you feel their age and the tender care with which they were created. The policy was no photography allowed to preserve the books. I was angered when I saw people taking photos just brazenly - fulfilling the image of the "ugly American tourist" and others were saying things like "Four score and seven years ago...I've seen something like this" - of course there is nothing in our country this old or even coming close. (This picture was not taken by us in case you imagine we were the ugly American tourists)

We waited for that group to move on and then took some more quiet time examining the books, thankful for the opportunity to see them. Amazed that they have been preserved for so long and through such dark and violent times - thankful for the monks and scribes who took the massive amounts of time to create and preserve so much for our benefit. I was surprised at how impressed I was at the writing itself which was done painstakingly and so neat - it clearly was an art. Knowing the cost of a mistake makes you really aware of how careful they were. I was also surprised by how small the ornate letters are. So often we see them blown up to see the detail - it was suprising to see they were usually no more than two or sometimes three lines of text when I had the impression they would be much larger. Overall I was in awe and thankful for the opportunity to see them and feel the weight of what they accomplished and preserved for us generations later.

As we headed up to the Long Room, a great library filled with more volumes that you can count and impressive statues of famous heads we were discussing what of our time will be as impressive as that and our human need to express ourselves and communicate our history. We have blog and more books then have ever been written before but will people want to read them the way we want to see the Book of Kells and examine them? The sheer beauty and artistry that went into preserving the history and truth - somehow it feels to me our society is lacking that. What will future generations flock to see and experience from our time?


We headed upstairs and the Long Room is impressive. Unfortunately they had some special exhibit about war going on and it was distracting form the room. Long banners were in the way of seeing the books and big display tables took away from the beauty and quiet of the room. Still it was powerful to experience. As we walked along and looked at Homer, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and on down through history and we saw and smelled old books it once again was hard not to feel the weight of how old and special everything was. The experiences and weight of history comes alive for me in such circumstances. We were disappointed that about half the hallway is roped off because it is high tourist season so we missed out on seeing half of the head statues and the non exhibit half where you can better see the books and get the feel for the room. Still it was incredible to experience and makes us both desire to increase our own home personal library.

As all good tours end ours ended in a gift shop so we could browse the items and spend more Euro. We actually did pick up some gifts here for the kids, some beautiful Connemara marble crosses for them. We browsed through the store and headed off to our next location - Dublin Castle.

We spent time in each of the courtyards and near the church. We decided against the tour inside as we still wanted to get to two other locations and had spent so much time inside Trinity College already. Still it was impressive, not as large as most castles but large enough for a city. The courtyard had an impressive feel and it was beautiful. We took a bunch of pictures here - I am so thankful for digital cameras and no more rolls and rolls of film. We just keep taking pictures and are assured of getting a few good ones. With over 400 pictures a day we should get a few good ones.


We headed over to Christ Church and spent a good amount of time there. It was a self-guided tour that took us through the church and down into the crypt where some of the most interesting artifacts were. There was a good video and many interesting items that have been collected over the years since the 11th century. Again it is hard to see these things and walk through this building and not feel how old it is. to know it is built on Vikings remains and the history behind the church and its significance was interesting. We spent a good part of our afternoon here.


Then we headed over to the Guinness Brewery and Storehouse for something completely different but also quintessential Irish. i can honestly say that I like Guinness before Serona but he converted pretty quickly and for both of us it is a beer of choice - so to be there was fun and yes the Guinness does honestly taste better there. It is a bit smoother, creamier and less bitter, very enjoyable. We asked if it was our imagination or if there is a difference. It is the same beer but about two weeks older in the United States it is also stored and served slightly differently in terms of temperature and the way they pour that does affect taste.

The tour was self-guided but very interesting. This allowed us to take as much or as little time in any given area and to skip areas if we wanted. We learned about the whole process and it was interesting. I think most interesting to me was how important the water source is (for Guinness from the Wicklow Mountains) and that the founder was so confident that he signed a 9,000 year lease for 45 pounds a year! Learning the process of beer making was interesting. We took our time going through the brewery and ended upstairs in the gravity bar to get our "free" Guinness (read most expensive guinness in all of Ireland for 18 Euro apiece - the cost of the tour). The bartender made a shamrock on top of our beers at our request. We enjoyed a lovely view of Dublin and a peak at the Wicklow mountains as we enjoyed our Guinness with many other people in a standing room only bar.

After our tour we were tired and ready to head home and get a bite to eat - having not eaten since breakfast. We got caught in a downpour! The one time we left our hotel without our umbrellas - we did thankfully have our raincoats. Still the walk back was long and I was in a skirt and birks (not the best rain gear to be sure) and we were completely soaked and a bit miserable with each other when we finally arrived back at the hotel. We dried off and headed downstairs for a bite to eat at the hotel pub. Decent food, good Guinness and no rain was involved - a blessing to us all - even if it came at a high premium cost for hotel food.


After dinner we headed back out to the Temple Bar area opting for a taxi this time to stay dry. We ended up back at the Auld Dubliner after trying a few other places and enjoyed some good live music. One of the things we did not expect about Ireland was all the bad American music played - we discovered that sometimes a sign that read "live irish music" actually translated into "live bad american music played live by the irish" - still we had a nice time and a full day experiencing Dublin! From ancient history to the pubs and the brewery that made the beer all in all an excellent day spent in Dublin - despite the rain.

Peace,
Tenniel