Dublin Fun With Jim!

(Jim's visit continued...)

Tuesday we slept in and then went into Dublin just to walk around a bit. (We had convinced my friend Micheal to come sight-seeing with us the following day, so we were waiting for him to see the sights). We walked around O'Connell Street, Across teh Ha'Penny Bridge, through Merchant's Arch, around Temple Bar (and my favorite: Crow Street), explored Trinity College, said hello to Molly Malone, took a stroll down Grafton Street, walked around the beautiful St. Stephen's Green, stopped by Christ Church Cathedral (but didn't end up going in because it was like 9 Euro just to go inside), and walked over to St. Patrick's Cathedral. We paid to get into St. Patrick's and then stuck around for the evensong which was BEAUTIFUL! St. Patrick's is pretty well-known for its acousitcs, and I wasn't let down. There was a choir of about 6 people, but it sounded like the Cathedral was full of singers. The cathedral was founded in 1191, is the larger of Dublin's two Church of Ireland cathedrals, and the largest church in Ireland. We stopped at Carrol's so Jim could get some souvenirs where we ran into my SMC friend Jackie and her friends that were visiting from home (one of whom happened to be from Wisconsin). We rode the train back with them, parted to get some groceries for dinner, made spaghetti, and met Micheal to walk over to the Roost for pub quiz. So, Micheal, Jim and I met Jackie and her friends and performed some mad team-work skills. However, we sadly did not win the prize of Corona. Sadly...

And Wednesday we met Micheal and took an early train to Dublin. We took a bus to Kilmainham Gaol and took the tour then walked to the Guinness Storehouse. We stopped at a Pub called The Tram on the way to Guinness and had a FANTASTIC carvery lunch with roast beef. After we went through the Guinness tour, the boys got their free Guinnesses, and I got my free Fanta, we headed over to Dublin castle. However, the tours for the rest of the day were sold out. I was so upset that the boys wouldn't get to see the castle... :(

After we gave up on the castle we walked all over town trying to find some kind of Irish coffee for Jim's mom. He finally decided to settle for some coffee beans from Bewley's and we stopped off at a movie store so Micheal could purchase Once to watch later. We took an early afternoon train back to Maynooth, Jim packed, and we went over to 8D Dodder (Micheal's apartment) for some stir fry. (Micheal cooked for us! He's SO nice!)

After dinner I had to say goodbye to another friend and another great week. Jim left that night to sleep at the airport with one of the SMC girls that was also flying out the next morning... I went back to Micheal's apartment to watch Once after chatting with Colin on Skype (I miss him! Did I mention he's coming back for two weeks at the end of the year!) It was the end of another great week gone by... but I had another long week ahead of me...