Sunday, July 5 & Monday July 6 in Dublin

Arrived in Dublin about 8:30 am. Even though we flew coach, all in all it wasn’t terrible. Staying at O’Callaghan Stephens Green which is right across from a beautiful park called – Stephens Green. After a short nap we took a walk and decided to board the hop on hop off bus. Sat on the top so we could see the city. First stop – touring the Guinness factory – you keep walking up floor after floor until you reach the top, which is the bar with the best view in the city. Included in the price of admission is one pint each, however after one taste, I determined Guinness is the worst tasting crap I’ve ever had in my mouth. So very bitter – looks like a chocolate milkshake but tastes like crap, so I opted for a diet coke. Janice liked it and it became her drink of choice throughout the trip. Sue, wanting to stay in the spirit of the country settled on Jamison whisky – which is filtered tree times – and is very smooth. Tree, by the way, is how the locals pronounce three. They don’t pronounce their h’s that follow t’s.

First night I was sooooo very tired that I couldn't leave the room and Janice went to fetch dinner – Chinese take away – and she had to pay 2 Euros for plastic chop sticks. Take away is their words for carry out.

The next day we toured Dublin Goal – which is a jail – It was a very long tour – somewhat interesting at first but Sue got bored very quickly. That night we tried to find some fun, but were disappointed. We went to a bar that was recommended to us by a young lady on the bus from New Jersey. Said older men were there and trying to pick her up (she was 23), so of course Janice and I were in. We got to the Arlington Hotel and walked into a very large, very crowded bar/restaurant. There were 5 Irish dancers – 2 guys and three girls. They were very good – like the River Dance folks, but it was mostly couples and groups of people in the bar - no single men, so we asked the young bartender and he pointed us to another place, which turned out to be very quiet – then we were told that not much goes on there Monday evening. All in all Dublin was nothing exciting – proved my theory that I don’t like big cities – just small towns, but it was a good place to catch up on our sleep and get our clocks reset.