Dublin

(preamble: Okay so obviously we didn't get around to pictures (alas!) but they will go up eventually.)


Since we got there so early, we had plenty of time to get a little lost, find and check into our hostel, head  out to find lunch,  finish just in the nick of time to join a free walking tour, and end with a very early but very well priced and quintessentially Irish dinner. It rained (misted, really) on and off the whole time, but our tour guide was really enthusiastic and everything was totally worthwhile. 

Having gotten our general exploring out of the way, we had plenty of time the next day to dawdle out the door, see the Trinity Library (with the Book of Kells!), the Decorative Arts Museum, Kilmainham Gaol   , and wander around looking for sweaters before coming back and making dinner (a progress augmented by free food we kept getting handed- most excellent). 

The Book of Kells  was pretty neat-o. It's got such incredibly minute details... it's hard to understand how they even achieved such tiny fine lines.  There's a really good exhibition surrounding it too, and the ticket also got us into the old Trinity Library, aka the Hogwarts library. Dublin is a very book-centered city- besides the Book of Kells, we also visited the Chester Beatty Library (an extensive and amazing private  book collection made public), and a printing museum. We didn't even touch the writer's museum or any of the stuff surrounding the famous Dublin authors (James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Beckett, etc etc) 
Of course, we also did do the required bits of any Dublin visit, which are: go to the Guinness Factory, go to pubs, drink drink drink. 
The Guinness Factory was all right- we went a mere three hours before closing, so multiple exhibits were closing by the time we got to them. We did get our complimentary pint of Guinness in the 'gravity bar', from which we had a 360' view of Dublin which was cool. After sampling Guinness (verdict: good stuff) we went on to a couple different bars to make a night of it, and got little sampler trays of both whiskey and beer. We even made a little comparison chart (not pictured here). In short, whisky is basically poison, Emily still doesn't like beer, and Leah, though pleased with our samples, is still searching for the perfect beer. A good time was had by all, especially after we met some native dubliners (and one Grecian woman) and helped them celebrate a birthday. Our new friends were in a little group of four, and it turned out that two had studied animation in college, and one is now a real-life artist (and bartender). We even swapped websites!!! (Frankhague.blogspot.com if you want to see his, and herrsuite.tumblr.com if you want to see mine)

The next morning we got ourselves woozily up, out the door, and to the train station just in time to watch our train drive away without us. No worries though, we successfully got ourselves to Killarney, just a few hours later than expected.