bunratty castle is . . . a castle

so picking up right where i left off, ireland.

ireland is beyond green. they don't call it the emerald isle for nothin'. the green and the fog seem to go on forever.

so it's now saturday. we're in ireland. with 2 four year olds who could care less about castles, abbeys, guinness or the absolute greenness of ireland. so we decide to head out to a castle. we spotted bunratty castle on the drive from the airport and it's literally 2 miles from our hotel. perfect. so off we go.

we, unfortunately, forget that dignan is claustrophobic and that gemma does not like to walk flat surfaces, hills, stairs or anything these days. we get a quick scope of the place but gemma refuses to let either of us go on the castle tour. i think she may be just tired from the strenuous one hour flight over from b'tol but hearing that girl whine and cry does not a vacation make. so bunratty castle, despite it's glorious irish history, is a bust for the strassers. except for the bunratty castle gift shop, which my children seem to love because it's filled to the hilt with every irish tchotchke one can imagine. and they want one, if not 2 of everything in there. of course.

one score from the bunratty castle gift shoppe, would be the guinness caramel filled dark chocolate bar, because i haven't waxed poetic about chocolate enough lately. hershey bar thin, this boasts 0.2% genuine guinness goodness in every bar. not to mention caramel and dark chocolate. delish but a little skimpy on the caramel and not much, if any, beer taste at all. we were hoping to knock the little ones out as we plan to drive to the cliffs of moher, which are about 2 hours away by car. so no luck on that. probably enough sugar content in the pieces we gave them to cancel out any alcohol effects the chocolate may have had. which means they are tired and wired - an awesome combination for a road trip if i ever heard one.