Thursday, 15 February

The Ha' Penny Bridge


This past weekend we went to Dublin to met some friends of ours. Our friend, Justin lives in Dublin, and our friends Julia and James were flying up from England. We got into Ireland at 9am after the worst flight ever. We had been told that there would be turbulence during take off and landing. Take off was not all that horrid, but landing was dreadful. The plane was shaking and dipping so much that I thought I would vomit all over.
Mike was fine and causally looking out the window at the landscape... I was sweating, shaking, and highly nauseous. My only saving grace was that all of a sudden the flight attendants turned up the AC full blast. Our friends from England had similar issues, but James was not as lucky as the rest of us. Good thing it was him that was sick though... the rest of us would more than likely have felt rotten the rest of the day. He wanted breakfast right away, and after food was ready to go for the day and drink Guinness.

The Christ Church Cathedral

The bus ride into Dublin was great. We were able to start to see the city right away. The first thing that I noticed was all the doors. I have seen the posters of the Pubs/Doors of Ireland, but it never really hit me that I would be seeing them before I was 50. The doors are amazing; red, turquoise, yellow, orange, etc. all next door to each other with no issues. If someone back home were to paint the door of their house bright orange, there might be a neighborhood intervention scheduled. At the very least, everyone would talk about them.

After a tasty breakfast at Cafe Andaluz, we headed over to the Guinness Storehouse. Along the way we passed the Christ Church Cathedral. We had other things to do, so we just checked out the outside of it and the ruins (which they do not charge you to see). The church was massive and beautiful so hopefully we will see it later on in the weekend. The Guinness Storehouse was amazing! And you get a free gift! (That's what they tell you, but believe me, we paid for it. (At least Mike was cheaper because he's a student.) Either way the storehouse was wonderful. We learned all about the brewing process and the history of Guinness. Then we went to the top where we were treated to our complimentary pint of Guinness. Again... its another "free" gift...) The view from the top of the storehouse was amazing. You can see over most of the city, and Justin tells us you can even see the hills surrounding the city on a clear day.

Next on the list was a spectacular lunch at Gallagher's Boxty House. It was my first Steak Pie since arriving in the British Isles, and it was wonderful. Mike had the beef boxty that is the restaurants speciality. Boxty is a potato pancake which they wrap around a beef / chicken / veggie tastieness. It was very good and we highly recommend trying it if you ever venture to Ireland.

We ventured over to McDaid's Pub after some early souviner shopping. Its a beautiful old pub, but small. We had tried Kehoe's before stepping into McDaid's, but that pub was relatively full already. So, thankfully we were able to grab seats for all five of us. The pub was great and we entertained the lone gentelman next to us by playing pub games. I think he was sad to see us leave for the next pub as he lost his free entertainment. He did thank us for teaching him a new game though!

Mike, Justin, and James at the last pub of the night.

This is the front of Kehoe's pub, which we stopped into but didn't stay given the fact that there was no where to sit. But the interior was definitely interesting.