Trim & Dublin

This past weekend I set across Ireland to Trim. Trim is the small city that Angela has been living in. It's about an hour northwest of Dublin. So Friday was a looonng day of traveling. And of course to make that long day even better, it was the first sunny day that we have had in about.....ummmm....2 weeks! It was almost depressing looking out the bus window for 6 and a half hours at the sun and blue sky.

Trim, a Heritage town, had a wonderful castle and other historical sites.

Here is a picture of Trim castle. We were not able to go on the tour, but Angela has been on it twice already, so she was our tour guide and filled our brains with loads of history. Apparently, a couple scenes from the movie 'Braveheart' were filmed here!

We went to Dublin on Saturday and put a major dent in our shopping. I actually had some luck this weekend which was great. And it was another beautiful day, so that could have lifted my spirits a bit too! We spent most of our time on Grafton & Henry Street, the two major shopping streets in Dublin.

Here is the River Liffey in Dublin. We walked along it several times, going back and forth from shopping and to our B & B. It has many different types of bridges which cross it.

We didn't do much sightseeing this weekend so I have no really cool pictures to show you. I am very excited and in shock that this will be my last week in Ireland. I am not sure how I am going to react when I have to say goodbye to my family and the girls at school. Chances are that I will never see them again, so that makes it very difficult for me to say goodbye. I have cards for all of my teachers and a book to give to each of my 3 classes. I am also making puppy chow to bring in...which I am sure that they will love!

Listowel & Week 7

This past weekend I decided to take a rest from all of the traveling that I have been doing. I do not sit to breathe over here with having family visiting, teaching, and traveling. Ang came to visit me this weekend....which was great. We did some shopping because that seems to be a stress of hers as well.


This weekend I finally had a chance to take some pictures and see a bit of Listowel. Yes, that is the city I am living in and you would think that I would have lots of pictures of it already. I haven't really had time though, and usually it is raining so the pictures wouldn't have turn out anyways.

Here is a picture of the street right off my road. This is the main road in Listowel. It looks so normal to me now, but this picture definitely was not taken in America. Notice those stone walls that everywhere (the ones here are yellow).



Here is the same street further down. It leads into the city square. All of the restaurants and shops that are on this street are right next to one another, and all are connected. There also Christmas lights hung up all through the town. You can see strings of them going back and forth.

The picture on the left is the square or city center in Listowel. I love the different colored buildings everywhere. And the church, St. John's, is located right in the center of the square. My town is very small, only about 3000 people. We do have 99 pubs though, which is quite impressive. Many of the small towns in Ireland look the same. So these pictures would be typical of many smaller Irish towns.

Here is Listowel castle. Unfortunately I do not know much about it, and was not able to climb it or go in it. It's located right along the river. I will do some research with my family and find the significance of it!

School of course was extremely busy this week! All of the classes are preparing for their Christmas concerts. Rather than having a school wide one that is done on one night, each grade prepares their own separate concert. They choose a day close to Christmas to perform it. Parents can then come in during the day to wach their children.

I am working with 1st class on their concert. It is a bit stressful because the girls have a hard time standing/sitting still for us to practice and there is pressure because parents will becomming in to watch. The two first class teachers and myself have been planning it for a couple of weeks and now are working with the girls. It's called 'The Sleepy Shepard'. It's a very cute play and the song selections for the play are great. The girls know all of the songs because we have been practicing them for about 4 weeks. They learned them from me, so we will see how well they do. My singing is so awful. It is torture getting infront of 6 year olds to sing...it really is!

Here are the girls at our first dress rehearsal. The costumes that they have the girls wear are hilarious. They are older ones and they are used with every play they do. They just try to make them appear as though they fit the part the girls are playing. The girl who is Mary has the most ridicilious costume. I helped her get ready, and I couldn't stop laughing. I would show you, but I don't think that would be right. She has a big lacy bow that goes around her head. I can tell that she feels very uncomfortable with it. At least the other girls haven't laughed at her or really seem to notice.

My fourth class started painting their planets. I know it seems like I have been working with them on the Solar System forever, but I am only in their classroom 3 times a week for about 40 minutes. You can't really accomplish that much in such a short period of time. The planets are actually turning out a lot better than I am imagined. They are so precise with how they paint it and try to make it look exactly like the pictures that they printed off. We still are trying to figure out how we are going to add rings to them. I am sure that one of them will come up with something. This week half the girls painted and the other half worked on making a poster to show off their reserach that I had them find. Apparently they just LOVE doing posters and projects.

As you can tell, the planets are turning out great!

I also enjoyed some time with my 4th grade girls at their break. This was the only nice day for the past like 10 days. When I say 'nice' I mean not pouring rain and ridicilious winds that blow you everywhere. So I felt that I should show off some of my jumping moves. They were quite impressed!

On Tuesday the Junior Infants teacher was not in. She asked me on Monday if I would take over her class for the day on Tuesday. She would rather have the girls with someone they knew then to ship them off two by two to different classes. The principal said it was fine. I was so excited to be on my own in the room and kind of pretend like it was my own class. I had such a great time with them, they are so adorable. They behaved really well, which is good because noone came to check on me once. It is so weird that they just completely trust an American girl who has been there for 7 weeks with 4 year olds. Regardless I loved it!

We talked a lot about Advent with the Junior Infants. I read them a book called the Manger everyday this week, while we had our Advent wreath lit. They loved it and were so into the book each time that we read it. We also practiced writing some sentences dealing with Advent and drew some wonderful pictures throughout the course of the week.

1st class girls impressing me with their Irish dancing skills. Unfortunately there wasn't a camera around while they were trying to teach me :)

Week 6!

Did I seriously just title this entry as week 6?!? I cannot believe it. Time has seriously flown by. This week was no exception. I was so busy with school and lesson plans...it consumed my week.

And I am really starting to talk Irish over here. Not the language, but things I say are totally like what they say. I guess it has partly to do with being around these young girls and I try to make myself understandable to them. But I really am 'conforming' to the culture. I catch myself telling the girls that their art projects are lovely, I would have never said that prior to Ireland. I say the word 'loads' when I mean many of something, and 'thanks a million', when I am really thankful. 'Well done' has been heard coming out of me. And I also call the girls 'love', which is something that they use all of the time over here. 'Excuse me love, or what is wrong love' are often ways that I use that word. I don't know what is getting into me. I also say certain things with a bit of an accent. Some of my teachers start laughing, but I seriously cannot help it. Apparently I am in this for the entire Irish experience!

4th class
I think that I have become a solar system expert after this week! We did solar system activities all week. I think by far their favorite was paper mache on Friday. I blew up a bunch of balloons to represent the planets. Obviously the sun and Jupiter were the largest and the rest were all different sizes in relation to these two. The girls dipped strips of newspaper into the paste (simply flour & water) and wrapped it around the balloons. I think that this was the messiest art project I could have ever done, in any class. I was very organized with everything though. On Thursday night I made the paper mache, put them all in different containers so that each group would have their own, and ripped the paper.Here are my helpers. Lisa, one of the girls in my family is in the white. Yes, my little Irish girl. This was us on Thursday night making a mess in the kitchen.

Friday was very chaotic with the girls. But I imagined that it would be. There were two girls to every planet, and then two girls for the sun, two for the moon, and four girls worked on making asteroids for the asteroid belt. We will paint them all next week after they dry. I know for sure that the girls really enjoyed doing it, so it makes it all the more worth my troubles and time. They had so much fun. They made a huge mess, but I had newspaper everywhere and it was easy to clean up. I, however, walked out the biggest mess. There was paper mache all over my pants, and my black shirt (which really made it stand out). I even had it on my neck and in my hair. I apparently was really into the project as well. They told me that I would be the only teacher who ever dared trying this with them. But I don't blame the other teachers. There are 26 ten-year old girls all in one room, always talking. I suppose I am too naive and inexperienced to have really understood what I was taking on.

The girls really weren't too thrilled that I made them wear their art shirts. But they very soon understood why.

IrIsH lAdS & pApEr MaChE!

1st class

My 1st class girls were very energetic this week. So to say the least, they were a bit exhausting. I also had to be a bit spontaneous this week. On Tuesday the teacher did not show up for school. She pulled a back muscle and was unable to make it. Apparently they do not have a sub come in if the teacher only calls in sick the morning of. The girls are instead shipped off two by two to other classes and do loads (see there it is) of work that they are assigned to do.

Since I am very comfortable with this class, and in there quite a bit, the principal, Mrs. Mulvill, asked if I would feel comfortable taking over the class for the day. I of course said yes, and the girls seemed as excited as I was for me to be there all day. The day went very smoothly, and I had so much fun being the one 'in charge' and kind of creating my own schedule. Interesting though: not the principal or one teacher came to check up on me. I really don't think that this is something that would be allowed back in America. I didn't need anyone, thankfully, so it was not really a big deal. There was a slight accident where one girl became so excited while playing the fly swatter game that I taught them, she kind of wet herself. I literally bit my lap to stop my laughter. But all in all, it was a great learning experience for me, and forced me out of my comfort zone!

Junior Infants

I was not with my Junior Infants as much this week due to me being the substitute and all of my work with the Solar System. I did continue to work with them on their paintings. It is a lot of fun to do with them, but so much work. I have to set all of the paint up, and mix colors to make ones that we don't have, make sure that all of their uniforms are rolled up, and aprons on, and keep eyes on every girl to make sure she is painting her neighbor. I love how hectic it is, but it can be a bit exhausting.

We also started our Advent wreath in the class and I explained to them a little bit about Advent. We are currently reading the book 'The Manger' and the girls are loving learning all about the birth of Jesus. They were also thrilled to perform their song that they have been practicing for the last couple of weeks. We had mass on Friday morning with the whole school for the beginning of Advent, and they were glowing as they sang their song. They did wonderfully!

Ring of Kerry and Killarney

What a weekend! Katie and I traveled to Killarney on Friday after school and we had an incredible weekend.

I think I might be finding that they saying 'The Luck of the Irish' is true, because Katie and I were so lucky this weekend. To make a long story short:

Lucky #1~ Well, I guess there will always be something that doesn't go our way. And on the way to Killarney, it was our bus. It smelt so bad. Noone else seemed to notice, but Katie and I sure did. It was so awful and I was almost gagging. But our second bus smelt great, and we didn't have to wait an hour and half, like previously planned. So that saved us a good 2 hours (because normally the bus would have of been late!) Very exciting for us!!

Lucky #2~ When we have been traveling lately, we randomly select B & B's to contact and see if they have openings. Usually things are so booked, and you can't be picky about the location. Well it just so happened that our B & B for the weekend was a 5 minute walk from the bus station and a 5 mintue walk into town. It was so awesome! We didn't have to walk forever, nor did we have to pay money for a taxi! It was pretty grand!!!

Friday night Katie and I 'quickly' walked into town, it was raining of course, and we had some dinner at a pub. The pub we chose had live Irish music every night of the week, so we thought that would be a great way to kick off our weekend. The place was very crowded, but it was great to be in an Irish pub, with Irish music! Our Irish entertainment was a solo artist who sang along with his harmonica and guitar. We didn't really know the songs, but it was still nice to listen to!

We got an early start on Saturday morning and were excited to see the weather. We walked in our B & B on Friday night leaving rain and lots of wind outside. But when we opened up our blinds at 8:30am :

Lucky #3~ The weather on Saturday was perfect! The sun was shining and their was no wind. On our walk into town we even saw a rainbow!

I think we were so thrilled about this change in weather because we had planned on taking a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry. A beautiful, historic, and scenic tour of one Ireland's most famous and favorite part of western Ireland to visit. Our bus tour was from 10:30am to 4:15pm. It was a loong day, but well worth it. We made several stops along the way to shop, to take photos, or to just enjoy some lunch! There were several other Americans on the bus, but Katie and I did not talk to them much. They seemed to keep to themselves a lot. Our huge bus cruised along the narrow roads, flew over the bumps, and went winding around the mountain sides. There were 4 women in the back of our bus from Scotland and I think that they had the best time being thrown around the bus. It could have helped that they had a glass of wine at every stop we made :)
A picture of our bus. Not too huge, but when it is taking you on Irish roads, around the Ring of Kerry, it is huge!
Here is a picture of Katie and I at one of our stops. The river ----- is behind us (I don't remember the name off hand). I just cannot get over how beautiful the scenery can be around here. The towns are very old looking to me and very old fashion, but the scenery is so amazing!

I am posing infront of the Atlantic Ocean. Everyone of you is just a short swim across it. I was tempted to swim home!

If you look closely at this picture, on the right you can see the rain coming in. This picture was taken moments after the one on the left.

Lucky #4~ We missed the rain literally by seconds. It poured pretty hard, but within minutes it was gone..and the sun was shining! But I suppose it is not uncommon here for rain to come and go like that. But I was thankful that it left!

Here is a picture of Katie and I at Ladies View. Only women can pose for photos here...it is true! Not sure why, but it is true!

Saturday night Katie and I went back into town to listen to some Irish music. At the pub we were at, there were a bunch of young lads dancing all around to the Irish music. Totally not something that boys in their 20s would do at home. But over here, I don't think they care quite as much as the boys at home do. It was funny. Their pants were all hiked up and their pant legs rolled up.

We met a lot of people from around the world on Saturday, and crazy enough some girls that go to college at Eau Claire, LaCrosse, and River Falls. It was so nuts to meet them and it was great to hear American accents. They are studying in Scotland, traveling all over Europe and Ireland has been their favorite! We also talked to some Aussies, Brits, Hungarians, French, and some very TALL American basketball players. Overall it was a great night and nice to meet people from all over the world.

Enjoying our time in Killarney!

We also did some shopping in Killareny. I'll tell you, it's very stressful thinking of gifts to get people back home. I feel pressure to find the right gift for everyone. (Not that anyone is pressuring me by any means... I do it to myself!) I am hoping to be done with shopping soon because I only have 3 weeks left and I don't want to have to be running around the last weekend looking for stuff. But knowing me, I probably will be! So if you want something certain, please do not be afraid to let me know. Actually, I would love it!!

Dingle and Week 5!

I was so busy that I did not have a chance to blog last week, so I am a bit behind. But I am catching up. My mom, sister, Aunt Debbie, and cousin Michael visited me on Sunday, November 19. It was so nice to see them. I spent the day with them on Sunday, but then would only see them after school. They traveled during the day, but they stayed in Listowel so that they could see me during the night! The weather was not too great for them, but I think they enjoyed seeing the sights in Ireland that they did see!

On Saturday, November 18, the family that we are staying with, took Katie and I to Dingle Peninsula. The weather was so awful during the week, that we figured their would be rain. But for some reason the luck of the Irish has been with Katie and I since we have been here. The day was beautiful. It was sunny with some clouds, which apparently is perfect for this type of sightseeing.

Dingle is mostly seen by driving around the peninsula. There were several scary moments due to these narrow roads over here. There was a portion of the trip called Connor's Pass. It is was so narrow and the road winds around the mountains. The road is only about one car's width. If a car is coming in the opposite direction you have to pull over as far as you can, and then slowly inch past eachother. Fidelma, the lady we live with, was even freaking out and she is from Ireland. Not going to lie...was a bit scary!


Here is some of Dingle. I love the mountains. They really intrigued me! The views were absolutely breathtaking. I cannot believe that people are able to see this everyday of their life. There are houses scattered throughout this picture, might be hard to see with the naked eye. People acutally live in this valley! It is just so nuts.
A waterfall in the Dingle Peninsula. I love how there are random waterfalls all over Ireland!



This past week at school (November 20-24) was so busy! Neville visited us on Tuesday and Wednesday. He is our supervisor over here. He lives in England and is responsible for placing us in schools and homes, as well as helping us with any issues that we may have over here! I was really nervous about him observing me, but it went so well! He made me feel so calm and comfortable while I was teaching. He walked around the classroom and helped out students. It was great to see him interact with the kids as well. I really enjoyed talking with Neville afterwards and hearing about his stories with teaching, and listening to all of the wonderful advice that he gave me. He such a patient and encouraging man.

I was also busy with teaching my three classes about Thanksgiving this week. In each of the classes we made turkeys for our art projects.


Here are the Junior Infants turkeys. They loved the idea of using hands as the feathers and wings. They did such a great job decorating them and taking their time. I also read each of the 3 classes a book on Thanksgiving. I first explained to them briefly about Thanksgiving, coordinating my story with the age group, and then read them a book about what Americans do on Thanksgiving day. Some of the girls knew what Thanksgiving was about because they have family that lives in America. All of the girls were extremely jealous to hear that American children have 3 days off of school to celebrate Thanksgiving. I had every class get in a cirlce and hold hands and tell us one thing they were thankful for. It was great to see how appreciative they are of things in their life. Some of the things they shared were quite humerous, and the teacher and I had to laugh. The 4th class decorated their turkeys and wrote on the lines provided things that they were thankful for. On Friday, not one of the classes failed to ask how my Thanksgiving was. They are so thoughtful over here!

When Neville observed my 4th class, my lesson was an introduction to the solar system. One of the things that we talked about was the orbit of the Earth around the sun. I did an activity with the girls in which they were all given a different size balloon. The girl with the yellow balloon was the sun in the middle of the solar system. The girls that could tell me what planets came next in correct order away from the sun got to hold a balloon that represented that planet. So the girls that were holding the sun and the planets all stood in a line. I had them demonstrate the orbit for around the sun for a year, and a rotation for a day. The planets furthest from the sun take longer to orbit the sun, therefore their year is longer than Earth's year. It worked really well and the girls were able to physically see how the planets orbit the sun! They also created, with a partner, their own way to remember the order of the planets. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas was the one that I gave to them. They had a great time coming up with their own little story. I was really glad that I had them do it. I was able to see a creative side of the girls. I was going to stop them from doing it because it seemed like they were struggling at first, but eventually they got the hang of it. I did an American lesson with them on Friday and they loved talking and hearing about America. I promised them that I would do another one the last week. Next week I will continue with the solar system for 4th class.

This week in 1st class we talked about healthy foods. We learned about serving sizes, the food pyramid, and how to eat healthy. The girls learned how to identify the foods in the different food groups, and where vegetables, fruits, and dairy products come from. One day I drew pictures of all of the things I ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the day before (made up of course!), and told them that they needed to help me eat better. It was so funny because I think that they think that I really eat as awful as I pretended to. (I heard them whispering to eachother that Miss Burmesch will get really fat if she eats that all the time!) They loved thinking that they were helping me! I then gave them paper plates and they created their own dinners, healthy of course.

My Junior Infants are developing their fine motor skills. We have been working with writing letters in the small amount of space provided. They would use the entire page for one letter if it were up to them. I am doing a painting activity with them to help them develop these skills of drawing/writing in small spaces, as well as work on detail. They each brought in a favorite toy of theirs. I had to explain to them that it has to be something that they can leave overnight. They will be painting a picture of their favorite toy. We just started this week with using water colors to paint our background. This whole project should be interesting, because a majority of them struggled with simply painting back and forth. They wanted to go up and down and all over. I really stressed to them to go from side to side. Most of them were able to do it. This is only the first step, and I am eager to continue working on this with them!


Junior Infants playing in the sand! So cute!

Oh, I also taught my classes the 12 Days of Christmas!! If anyone knows me...they know I cannot sing. Either the girls didn't realize that I was out of tune, or they were just being extremely polite. God, I was so awful.

Week 4

So I just completed week 4. I cannot believe how time is flying. Quite amazing! I have been extremely busy with school, lesson plans, and traveling...so that could be a factor.











Here are some pics of my house. The one on the right (I have them backwards) is the front of my house. And the one on the left is the right part of my house. I would change them but it takes forever to upload these pictures. Sorry! You will have to use your imagination. The room that sticks out there, behind the car, is my room! I am in my own little oasis, off the rest of the house. I even have my own bathroom! So...I guess I am not that anxious to get home :)

School, I love going to my school. I am finally managing and juggling all three classes that I am in. A huge factor in this adjustment for me was the girls. All three classrooms are full of wonderful girls. They treat me with so much respect, always are listening, and willing to help me with any questions I have. I suppose it helps that I am from America, young, and not the same teacher that they have had for the past 3 months. But it is still nice to have all of the attention that they give me.










So here are my first class girls. Aren't they adorable? I agree. We just finished our 3 day project of creating pigs. They were so excited and proud of their pigs. It was quite the process. We had to collect magazines, and then search for pink in the magazines. Then the girls ripped the pink paper into small sections and glued them on their paper plates. They turned out really nice. They also insisted that I take a picture of them with pig faces. They are the cutest little porkchops! Although, I walked out of school each of these days with glue all over my clothes. It definitely was a messy art project!











The left is a photo of my 1st class girls hard at work. This week we discussed and identified people at work. We thought of many different jobs that people have, how those jobs help us, where these jobs are located, and so on. They thought of so many, I was very impressed! They also loved discussing what their parents jobs are, and it was funny to hear how they interpret their parents occupations! We also did a mini lesson on the sun, earth, moon, and stars. I taught them the different sizes of the objects and shared information about each of them. It was amazing how intrigued they were. Although, the solar system and how huge everything is, is a very large concept for them to grasp at such a young age. I taught the children money, but I had to teach myself about euros first. The other teachers and the girls that I am living with were a huge assist to this! I also did a Thanksgiving introductry activity by making turkeys. You will find our final project above and to the right!











Again, here are my Junior Infants hard at work. Their classroom is obviously full of color and art projects. The hand prints that you can see was an art project that I bravely took on. There was lots of paint everywhere, but they turned out wonderful. I will be cutting them out to make one big mural. I will show that at a later date. The Junior Infants do not have a class photo because they felt it was unfair to leave out a girl that was absent. They are so funny! Kind at the same time. They are a busy group of girls and I am constantly on my toes in this classroom. They kept me busy this week with reading big books, talking about healthy foods and bad foods, learning the letter p, and talking about the seaons. This class is probably the biggest challenge for me, yet the most rewarding! I have never worked with children this young in a classroom environment and it amazes me how much attention EACH of them needs! Yikes! I do love it though, not sure if I could ever teach it full time. But the times I am in there, I love it!

My fourth class girls are camera shy this week. I am only in their room 3 times a week for about 45 minutes each time. Of course those days I did not have my camera handy. They are a large class, which also need A LOT of attention. They are excellent for me and there is never really any discpline problems. I find that the girls work very well independently. I have done some group work with them, which they seem to enjoy a lot. I have not seen a lot of group work done in Ireland. Teachers will teach a lesson, and then the students will do their work. We did a science experiment with partners and they loved it! I also taught about changes that have occured over hundreds of years. They found it very hard to believe that there was a time when there were no computers, televisions, or phones. I found it hard to have the girls think of what people did before those times. I think they thought that I was completely nuts and that the American girl did not know what she was talking about :) But they are a lovely group to work with and always make me feel so welcome!

Next week will be extremely busy with Thanksgiving lessons to teach, an observation from Neville our supervisor, and my family is visiting. This week was great, and I can't wait for next week!

Up the Dubs!

Dublin, Dublin, Dublin...what an amazing city. Angela, Katie, and I had a great weekend in Dublin, Ireland this past weekend!

We left immediately after school to start our weekend. We spent 6 hours on a huge bus, traveling along little roads. A bit of a nail biter, but we got there. The first thing we noticed about Dublin was there accent. Extremely different than the west side of Ireland. We could barely understand the swears coming out of our taxi's mouth as he took us to our B&B! It was quite the ride. We first arrived in Dublin at 9:30pm, but still wanted to see some of the city. We are getting so good with city transportation, and managed to figure out the bus system.

This is a picture of Temple Bar located in the center of Dublin. It is one of the main attractions in Dublin. The cobble stoned streets on which it lies, are filled with pubs, restaurants, shops, and many, many people. A major tourist attraction....hence our visit it to it.

Here are some of the Irish lads that we met on Friday night. The Irish love to hang out in pubs, drink their pints, and socialize. They were friendly boys who made our first night great. There was never a dull moment chatting with them!

On Saturday morning we took a tour through Dublin city. It was called the City Bus Tour. It took you to over 25 different locations through out Dublin. You could get off when you pleased and pick up the next tour bus that came by every 10 minutes. It was very convenient!














Here is a picture of Trinity College. The man who took the picture of the three of us apparently had difficulty including us and the building in together. But oh well! Trinity College is the oldest college in Dublin, built in the 16th century. It has 12,000 students! The Book of Kells is currently in the hands of the university. Only four pages are displayed at once. And I think they said the pages are turned once a month! Interesting fact: David Beckham, the European soccer player, attended this college!

Another stop of ours and perhaps the most exciting one for multiple reasons was the tour of the Guinness Factory. This is the most visited place in all of Ireland!! Shocking...probably not!

Let's begin with the line outside of the Guinness Factory. It wrapped around the building and down the block. There was also a que (line) that continued to wrap around the inside. Well, the lady that Ang lives with knows someone who works at the factory, so we received three free tickets. Not only did we not have to pay the €25 for the ticket, but we also did not have to wait in line. IT WAS AMAZING!! We got to walk right past everyone to the very front. We felt very VIP. It was probably one of the best moments of my life! It saved us 2 hours of waiting in line and $40!! So we were liking the Guinness Factory already.

It was self-guided tour through the factory. So we were able to stop and look at what we wanted to!
The first four ingredients of Guinness is water, barley, hops, and yeast. Here is a picture of the three VIPs holding up the ingredient of barley. The large smiles and glows appearing from our faces is due to the fact that we just got to skip the whole line!

The tour provided us with loads of information about how Guinness is made, interesting facts about Guinness, and how Guinness actually does give you strength. Guinness contains a lot of iron, and it is recommended by doctors that those who lack iron should drink a pint of Guinness a day!

The first photo was our final stop of the Guinness Factory. We are in Gravity Bar, and about to taste our first complimentary pint of Guinness! The second picture was our reaction to the Guinness. I think that explains how we felt about the taste. A bit to bitter for our liking!

Our three pints of Guinness. Clearly Katie was the better sport and enjoyed hers more than we did! Overall, it was a great tour of the Guinness Factory. I recommend you get free tickets if you would like to visit it...it makes it all the more worth it :)