Wednesday June 21st would be a full day in the city center of Dublin. Fighting the rain, and very nasty wind, we walked down into town where we found the tram. We ended up running into, and talking with a guy from Lancaster, PA who does website design and was here in Ireland to visit his deceased wife's grave. We talked for a while on the tram into the city, and after parting ways, we made our way to an Insomnia Cafe for some capps, sandwiches, etc., and then continued onto various city destinations including the Dublin castle, a tour of St.Patrick's Cathedral, many of the shopping districts and into the Guiness St.James Storage tour which was very fun, informative, and tastey. Outside, the wind and rain continued it's abuse, but we persisted, and continued walking and exploring alongside the river and back towards some of the shopping areas where we stopped to get some refreshments to take back to the hotel, and then took the tram back, ordered a delivery pizza from Four Star, and watched World Cup football. We would both agree that Dublin is a really cool, vibrant, unprecoscious, young city with tons of energy and bustle. We are amazed at how tied people are to their mobile phones and their iPods, but that just seems to be the way things are going, and these young folks are leading the charge.
Thursday June 22nd, we began embraced the open roads of Ireland. In the morning, we checked out of the IMI Residence, missed the bus by about 5 seconds, and rather than waiting 45 minutes for the next one, we hiked down to town and caught the tram into the city center of Dublin (St.Stephens Square). We walked towards O'Connell Street, from where the airport bus runs. After locating the stop for our bus, we walked back to Henry Street and found an Insomnia Cafe where we enjoyed some capps and eats and a lively conversation about globalization, it's impact on the U.S. versus Europe, as well as how identifying oneself with a religion and/or political party influences one's paradigm of the issues of the day. Soon after a waitress accidentally dumped a mug full of hot chocolate down the steps right next to us, we gathered our bags and walked back over to the bus stop. A taxi driver pulled up and said he'd charge the same rate for a ride to the airport and so we and another couple took him up on the offer. At the airport, the young lady at the Europcar rental desk got us all set up and before long we were outside getting into our little light blue automatic Ford Focus hatchback. We took our time getting prepared before I pulled out onto the highway, but once we both got familiar with the roads we'd be taking, we went for it. I was jittery, and Vee was apprehensive, but after a while, we finally escaped the worst of the traffic, and found ourselves cruising the highways without issue. Driving on the left side of the road became less of an issue as more time went by, but the roundabouts, intersections, exits, and narrow streets were nerve racking. We got a bit screwed up in Kilkenny, but with Vee's navigation skills, we righted our way and found the Celtic House B&B without too much trouble. Traffic is bad though. We were greeted by our hosts and we pulled the car into their gated parking area. We brought our bags inside, and soon went out to find a bit of dinner. We walked this fabulous town for a while, and eventually went into a great little family pub for a delicious meal; I had a beef and Guiness stew and Vee had a chicken in creamed mushroom sauce plate. Our waitress was fantastic, and after we paid up, we walked around town some more, admiring the old buildings, pubs, cafes, shops, churches, the castle, etc., and popped into and off-license for some beers to bring back to our room for the night. We caught the end of Brazil's 4-1 win over Japan, and that would pretty much complete the day.
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