St. Patrick's in Dublin (or You Only Live in Europe Once)

With the goal of trying to enjoy as much of the European experience as possible while we're over here, we decided to head to the land of shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day!

(I apologize in advance for the poor quality of these photos.  Of course I forgot the camera so these were all taken with an iphone with less than perfect results.)

We arrived Saturday afternoon and after checking into the hotel we headed downstairs to the pub under our hotel to kick off the festivities.

First drink in Dublin!

Our local pub for the weekend

After the kick off festivities we headed over to the craft beer festival where we met some locals.  They thought we were lacking in Irish accessories so they dressed us up a little bit!

Homemade Irish shamrock cookies.

Check out the bow tie.  This was actually one of the Irish  girls hair bows.

My favorite leprechaun!

Sunday morning to begin the St. Patrick's day celebration, we headed over to the Guinness Brewery.

At the brewery we learned important skills like how to pour a perfect pint of Guinness

 The brewery also had an Irish sing-a-long and traditional Irish dancers.

We figured we couldn't go all the way to Dublin without visiting a few of the major sites, so we headed over to St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle and Trinity College.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Christ Church Cathedral

It looks a lot like Dumbledore's podium!

Underneath the church itself was a large crypt that was still undergoing excavations.

Mummified cat and rat found in an organ pipe.

Dublin Castle

Trinity College

After seeing the sites we hit the pubs to taste the local brew and enjoy the evening Irish style!