Written by Ruben
This week has bee really fun! The first thing we did when we went down to Dublin was to go to the renowned Prison called Kilmainham Gaol . It was very neat. There were lots of famous leader from the rebellion who were imprisoned and executed there. Also during the famine people did bad things just to get in and get free food. Also in Dublin we went to Trinity college and saw the book of Kells, an awesomely bug library and toured around with a tour guide/student of the University. Mom and Dad have come up with and idea for Mia and I, we need to come up with one good question during every tour. The story of the book of Kells was that it was stolen in it’s box fro a monastery. The box was then sold and the book was buried on a farmer’s land and he found it a short time later and returned it to the monastery. Then it was given as a present to the college.
We then went to the Giant’s Causeway and let me tell you it is very cool! There was lots of pathways that were blocked off because of landslides. We visited some very distant cousins on my dad’s side in County Antrim. We went to a small graveyard and saw the tombstone of my great, great, great grandpa. While we were there we also saw the Carrickfergus Castle. Did you know that it was in a couple of Medieval Wars, It got taken over a few times and was an air raid shelter during World War 2.
In the Republic of Ireland we went to New Grange. I have a good friend that went to New Grange as well and he recommended it to us. Did you know that New Grange is the earliest known ancient structure that is oriented with the sun? When we were in New Castle we saw lots of awesome bridges, one of my favorite ones was the Millennium Bridge, It was so cool. It basically folds up when big ships need to come in. Dad, Mom, Mia and I all walked over it. There are no cars allowed, we all jumped up and down so that the bridge wobbled. the last thing we did was so fun. We went to the Discovery Museum. I learned about how the light bulb was invented, Mia and I built a strong bridge out of foam blocks that could hold us up. Mia and I played air hockey, I was a human battery for a fan, how the joy-stick was invented , how a compass works and dad and I had a blast refracting light with glass. I can’t wait to get to Berlin.
Until next week,
Ruben
Written by Mia
We arrived in Dublin and went straight to Kilmaeinhem Prison, where we got a tour and we learned some very interesting facts: There was a child as young as five in the prison and during the famine people actually wanted to get put in jail because there was food and shelter there. One of the reasons why the famine was so bad compared to other places was because they did not close the port and so food was still being sent out while the people were starving.
The next morning we went to Trinity college and joined a tour group led by a student of the University. We got to see the book of Kells and learned how t was made. We also got to see the beautiful library and in it the oldest harp in Ireland. One of the interesting things about the library was that it was made with a porous type of rock which led to a very damp first floor and so they could not keep any books there. We went to see an old friend of Mom’s from high school. We wet for a walk in the park and then we went to the beach to see the Kite borders and we played a game of tag. We drove to go see the Giant’s Causeway and learned about how it was formed. It was formed by a series of lava flows, as they cooled they formed columns (columnar jointing), the rock type was called bath salt.
After the Giant’s Causeway we sped in the car to see our distant relatives for Sunday lunch. We sound found out how another distant relative had traded her gramophone for a gold mine with the First Nations in Labrador Canada along time ago.
We spent the night in Ballynure at Dad’s cousins house. the next day we went to Carrick Fergus Castle, our first castle in Europe. After being taken over a number of times it stayed a functioning Keep until after World War 2 when it was used as a shelter from the bombers on route to Belfast.
We made our way to new grange, Brune Boinne, one of the oldest roofed burial chambers aligned with the sun. Every Winter Solstice for approximately five days, fifteen minutes each day the sun creeps in through a hole above the door, enters the burial chamber and after about 15 minutes the chamber descends back into darkness. . There are many carvings in the stone and there are little chambers. There is a big stone called a basin stone in which we think they put the remains of there dead after cremating them. They found five distinct skeletons, there may have been more, but before it became a museum the site was disturbed. The carvings in the stone were made by the early farmers. The site is over 5000 years old. There is one carving found in New grange called the tri spiral. Unfortunately we do not know what any of the carvings mean since they did not have a written language. Perhaps the tri spiral represented the sun. We went with dad’s distant cousin to Carnfunneck, where we went to a garden and a maze. Ruben and I played a game of chase but he did not catch me! The maze was shaped like Northern Ireland with all the counties were the bigger squares. Mazes were invented 400 years ago, inspired by the labyrinth. On our way to New Castle we saw Hadrian’s Wall made by the Romans. It is 73 miles long, It stretches from Sea to Sea and it was 15 feet high. We stayed with SERVAS hosts in New Castle. We walked across the Millennium Bridge which looks like a big mouth that stretches across the river and can go up and down for boats to go through. We went to the discovery Museum where I learned about the New Castle Coat. If you were drunk they would put you in a barrel with a hole in the bottom, holes for arms and your head. They called this the New Castle coat. I powered three light bulbs, a small one, a big one and a medium one. There was no battery. My energy just went straight to the light bulb. The small one was easy and the big one was extremely hard, but with all three at once I could barely do it. Dad says we could hook up a bike to the TV, if we wanted to watch TV we would have to power it. I think that would be fun!
Mia
