Oktoberfest and Phoenix Park

This past weekend was much more fun than my actual week!  I took Drew back to Oktoberfest on Friday because I wanted some more hot mulled wine and some bratwursts.  I didn't even know Dublin had any sort of Oktoberfest until my function with the American Women's group on Thursday, but it was fun and I know we'll be going back several times in the next three weeks!

We then met some friends in Ranelagh and drank too my wine but had a good time nonetheless.

Gorgeous night on the River Liffey!

Mmmm an entire grill full of sausages.  Yum.

Bratwursts, sauerkraut, potatoes.  Delish.

More glorious river pics.

And...still more.

Fun times!

On Saturday, we slept in late and headed over to our local favorite, Queen of Tarts, AGAIN, for brunch.  I can't resist it!  It's too good and too cute!  I'll take you all there when you come visit.

Roast Chicken, Broccoli, Courgette, Red Pepper, and Coriander Tart!  Doesn't get much better than this.

It was a fabulous, cool day and we wanted to do something "touristy" and fun, since we still haven't seen all of the local hot spots yet.  Whoops.  We headed over to Phoenix Park!  Phoenix Park is a humongous park in northwest Dublin, and it's actually "one of the largest walled city parks in Europe", according to Wikipedia.  "It includes large areas of grassland and tree-lined avenues, and since the seventeenth century has been home to a herd of wild Fallow deer."  It also has huge monuments, enormous grassy fields, a Papal cross, the President's (of Ireland) home, a cool zoo, a visitor center, a fort, some gardens, the home of the US Ambassador, etc. - the list goes on and on.  We figured the best way to see the entire park would be to rent a bike and cruise around, even though we swore we'd never get on a bicycle again.  Ok, maybe that was just me.  But we got back in the saddle and it wasn't half bad.

This is the Wellington Monument - it's 203 feet tall, and it's the tallest obelisk in Europe.   It commemorates the victories of Arthur Wellesley.  Whoever that guy is.

This is the giant Papal cross that was built in 1979 for the Pope John Paul II's visit to Dublin.  Over a million people attended the open air mass!  Coooooool.

On the other side of the cross is a HUGE grassy field, filled with Fallow deer!  You can walk right up to them!  There seemed to be one deer in particular that kept everyone at a safe distance and was doing his duty as guardian but that's to be expected.  It was awesome!

Us, with our bikes, and the deer, in the fields.

Cue the heavenly chorus.

The home of the US Ambassador.  Now how he got hooked up with this palatial residence is beyond me.

It was a perfect day.  We then went shopping and then headed to our friend's Lauren and Bryan for dinner and got to play with their cutie doggy.  Sigh.  I miss mine.  ANYWAY, on Sunday we tried a new church (more on that later), did more grocery shopping, lounged around, and headed to a popular pub in Dublin called The Woolshed with Tracy...that shows NFL games!!  Drew was in heaven.  We saw an American girl in a Romo jersey sitting by herself so we invited her over to sit with us.  Yay!

Cutie with his football games.

It was a fun, low key weekend!  Woohoo.  More reports on church shopping to come.  Now I'm going to watch the Emmys on our Slingbox and research Paris!  Bye for now!