There comes a point in any extended vacation (I don’t care if you’re in Europe or at the lake house two hours away) where your mind starts to focus more on home (and all that you have to look forward to when you get back—laundry, bills to pay, floors to vaccum) than the itinerary still in front of you.

For us, that point hit us full force with our arrival in Dublin. We were exhausted and while every tired bone in our body just wanted to veg out on the bed in front of bad Irish reality TV, Tourist Trooper Gail wanted to slap the real Gail in the face and be all, “Girl, RECOGNIZE…YOU ARE IN DUBLIN. Quit whining about wanting to go home and just get out there and ENJOY it already.”

With what little time we had there (and with our attention spans having been reduced to 3-year-olds—this is what 14 days straight of museum ventures and history hunting will do to you), that’s exactly what we did. Enjoyed it. Here are the sites we loved most:

Trinity College

This place is really, really beautiful. The perfect mix of Ivory Tower history mixed with the hustle and bustle of the streets of Dublin. It is smack-dab in the center of Dublin and even our short visit made it obvious it plays a pretty big role in the culture of this city.

Dublin Castle

These Crayola-color-esque buildings were part of the Dublin Castle. Who knew Dublin had a castle? I love how every European city had its own. Imagine if Washington, D.C. or New York had a castle. How come we didn’t bring that idea across the ocean with us? :)Dublin’s Doors

More than any other city I’ve ever visited, I was in LOVE with the street-level charm of Dublin’s storefronts and its doors. It’s kind of Dublin’s “thing”, you know? I noticed, as I was snapping away at all of these (annoying my husband) that tourist shops were selling posters of Dublin’s doors and playing cards too….what a quaint “thing” to be remembered for, eh? Those Irish….

Pubs

In America, bars are all neon beer signs and strip mall parking lots. Europe does it right and the pubs of London and Dublin were no exception. We need fewer BW-3s in the states and more Century-Gothic inspired Lord Edwards :) Christ Church Cathedral

Every building you want to venture into seems to charge for admission. Which explains why we opted not to see the interior of Dublin’s beautiful Christ Church Cathedral. At this point, we were suffering from that “Seen one, seen ‘em all, don’twannapayforanythingelse” vacation fatigue. So, I apologize to you, Christ Church. I’m sure you’re ever bit as lovely on the inside as you were the outside!

The Guinness Factory

Scratch everything I just said above about not paying for anything else on the tour circuit because we happily forked over the $22 a piece for an afternoon tour of the Guinness Factory. AND IT WAS SO WORTH IT.

(Note: Do you see us wearing sleeves here? We got off the plane from Rome and went from 95 to 62 degrees. It was heaven!)

A whole exhibit on how the barrels were made to hold the stout — a topic that should have been boring but not in this museum. We watched the entire 15 minute film!

Not only do I love Guinness stout (well, love is a strong word for someone who only occasionally drinks beer), but I LOVE Guinness’s branding. If you’re familiar with the whole “My Goodness, My Guinness” ads, then you would have loved the John Gilroy exhibit, dedicated to the cartoonist who popularized the animals featured in the ads. At the end of the tour, you head up to the top of the museum (which is shaped like a Guinness glass) to the Sky Bar, where you’re given two complimentary Guinnesses. And get to enjoy views of the city like this. There is something about this particular image — this red bike, that green trim– that makes me want to blow it up canvas-size. Temple Street and Temple Bar

This area is THE hip spot in Dublin. Where all the cool bars (including Dublin’s most famous, below) can be found. Where street musicians try to make it big (If you are obsessed with the movie “Once” like I am, then you should know this is the area where a lot of the movie was filmed). I booked us a room in the Temple Hotel because I thought, “How cool to be RIGHT where all the action is happening, right?” Well, cool during the day, sure. Not so cool at night as  we laid in bed at 2 a.m. and listened to yet another Irish version of a cover song belted out on the street below us. In one of those “not funny then but funny now” travel moments, I’ll never forget my husband’s muffled voice under his pillow saying, “Gail, this has GOT to be the last song. I mean, we’re in Dublin. It’s the Cranberries’ “Zombie”. It doesn’t get more Irish than that. It’s like THE song to end a set with. I’m sure of it.”

Five minutes later, we were treated to a cover of Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” and all I could do was roll over and laugh.

That’s it folks. Our Euro 2010 adventures! If you missed any of the earlier sets, catch up with where all we visited by visiting these blog entries:

LONDON POST

PARIS POST

ROME POST

See more of Gail’s work at www.gailwernerphoto.com. Become a fan of Gail’s work on Facebook. Follow Gail on Twitter.

The more weddings I photograph, the more I realize this: That anything can happen on your wedding day. And in the case of Sarah and Adam, anything did.

There were grand plans for an outdoor ceremony under a beautiful, lantern-strewn pergola. Then Mother Nature shook her wet head all over those intentions and these two had to rely on one another to pull off a Plan B—having their ceremony inside their reception venue as guests looked on with dinnerware in front of them.

It wasn’t the way Sarah and Adam envisioned their wedding day. But they rolled with the punches, the “anything” that can accompany a wedding day like theirs. They even laughed at all that went wrong. And if you ask me, if you can laugh off the hardships on the day of your wedding, then you’ll do it every day of your marriage. And the two of you, together, will always be stronger for it.

So here’s to Sarah and Adam having a wonderful (and dry) honeymoon in Puerta Vallerta. And here’s to knowing that, years from now, they’ll remember their wedding day frame by frame, not rain drop by rain drop. And speaking of frames, how about a peek at these?

Sarah, you are so gorgeous. It takes my breath away a little. I’m sure Adam felt the same :)

It’s not right to show a favorite in a sneak peek, but I’m sorry…I couldn’t help myself. :)More to come from these two. I forgot how much I love this. And by this I mean the euphoria that comes with capturing people in love.

See more of Gail’s work at www.gailwernerphoto.com. Become a fan of Gail’s work on Facebook. Follow Gail on Twitter.

This is a family so dear to me I don’t even know where to start. They are sweet, they are real, and the love you see a glimpse of here in two frames? It’s so so SO genuine. But I didn’t have to even tell you that, right? :)

I’ll shush now with the promise of more—so much more—to come.

See more of Gail’s work at www.gailwernerphoto.com. Become a fan of Gail’s work on Facebook. Follow Gail on Twitter.

I don’t know what part of the country (or world) you all live in, but here in Indiana, it has been a BRUTAL summer. So many days with temperatures in the 90s I’ve now lost count. So hot that chickens somewhere have gotta be laying hard-boiled eggs. And so humid you could come back from being outside and wring the perspiration out of your tanktop.

All this to say I’ve cared less this summer about spending time primping in front of the mirror then perhaps any other summer of my adulthood. Which leads me to this month’s self-portrait—my attempt to pay homage to the classic bun. A hairstyle I could now conjure up in my sleep. Simple, easy and the tamer of all limp, unruly tresses that refuse to make friends with Mother Nature this time of year.

I know someday when this photo should surface again, the first thing I’ll think to myself is “It must have been August. And oh Lordy was it a hot one.”

See more of Gail’s work at www.gailwernerphoto.com. Become a fan of Gail’s work on Facebook. Follow Gail on Twitter.

The other day a friend of mine shared a link on Facebook to an old article from O Magazine and whereas I sometimes find the content in Queen O’s magazine a bit too…too, I don’t know…preachy? kumbaya-ish? too something anyway, this piece grabbed my attention when I read: “We in the developed world mostly take very good care of our bodies, but we often take lousy care of our souls.”

Doing a little “mmm-hhhhmmm” to yourself in agreement right now? ‘Cause I know I sure did. Here’s another gem from psychotherapist Mira Kirshenbaum: “Emotional energy is the precondition for everything we care about. Everything worth doing that’s difficult gets lost without it. Marriages fail when we run out of the emotional energy to reach one more time across the divide of anger and silence. Dreams die when we lack the emotional energy to hang in there in the face of all the obstacles. How can you be the best possible mother without emotional energy? It’s never selfish for a good person to put fuel in her tank.”

I loved how the author of this piece tackled some of our biggest energy drainers—from putting ourselves up against others’ expectations to suffering from the weight of unfinished projects or the burden of envying people. Three drainers that, at least in the photography world, are the bane of every camera-wielding girl’s existence. Am I right?

So here’s the link to the full article if you’re having a hard day and need this exact kind of encourage or just want to read more for yourself (and I hope you do!). And here’s a few of the energy boosters that were offered up as part of the article (full list here). These were some of my favorites and I’m committed to reviewing this list every few weeks to peek at the kinds of things I should give myself permission to do (or let go of) more often. We all need a little more of that in our lives, don’t we?

• Plug into a great memory of you bursting with excitement—your first crush, a big promotion. Relive it in your mind. “Enthusiasm, radiance, joy—these energetic states come from happy emotions,” says stress expert Alice Domar, PhD.
• Don’t turn on the TV for 24 hours. “Television,” Domar says, “can suck the energy right out of you.”
• Think about any attachments that are depleting your emotional reserves. Are you dwelling on an ex-lover? Stewing over a grudge at work? Consider letting go.
• Write down what your purpose in life is. “You have to be going somewhere to have the energy you need to get there,” says cardiologist Mehmet Oz, MD.
• Call up your most fun, zany friend and get a dose of enthusiasm—it’s contagious. Even better, make plans to do something together.
• Go out right now and spend some serious, or not so serious, cash on yourself. There’s absolutely no science to it, but shopping has a way of reanimating you when you’ve run out of steam. Could it be a natural high?

And because I decided to get a little Oprah-esque on you here myself, why don’t I throw in a photo of these lovely sunflowers now gracing my dining room table? What is it about photos of flowers that instantly put me into a zen-like state? I don’t know, but I like it :)

See more of Gail’s work at www.gailwernerphoto.com. Become a fan of Gail’s work on Facebook. Follow Gail on Twitter.