June 21st: woke up around 9:00, went down to enjoy our first full Irish breakfast here at the hotel. It was buffet style, so no worries about getting something undesirable (like black pudding!). It was a feast! I think I ate more than Phil (what?). My sleeping schedule may have adjusted, but my eating schedule hasn’t, so I’m really, really hungry at times. We enjoyed fried eggs, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, tomatoes, croissants and scones (with jam and butter, of course!) and tea.
Next we headed out for a day of sightseeing. Our plan was to find a place to rent some bikes to give our feet a break. Problem: it was raining!!! and cold!!! Problem #2: we had no jackets! (limited packing space, something easy to buy over here) So we set off in search of something warm. We got distracted along the way looking for the Irish National Library to look up Phil’s geneology. We got distracted along that way by the Irish Museum of history. This place was free (yay!) and very interesting as it went over the history of Ireland from Pre-historic times, to Viking times to Medieval times and beyond. Very cool. We didn’t find the library until later and by then it was closed, so we’ve adjusted our plans slightly to be able to come back to it Monday morning.
Next, we ended up buying tourist sweatshirts for ourselves. Mine is pretty discreet, but they didn’t have the one I bought in Phil’s size. Actually, they had hardly any in Phil’s size. All of the ones he liked were not in his size. So he ended up with one that will be nice to wear back in the states, but for now it points him out as an obvious tourist. Oh well – it’s warm, right? It’s green, although it’s not a bright, obnoxious green, that says “Ireland” on it. Hehe. Mine is blue with a little “Dublin” in the corner. However, they kept us toasty warm for the rest of the day, so yay for that since it rained ALL DAY LONG! We found these in the shopping part of town so we spent most of the day wandering this district. We also ate at a tasty little pub called “The Duke”. For lunch I had Irish stew (soooo good!) and Phil had a gammon sandwich (ham , cheese and butter sandwich on white bread – also very good!). I enjoyed a Carlsberg lager along with it. After that we wandered into St. Stephen’s Green (a park in the centre of town) which was beautiful! Next, we went into a shopping mall called St. Stephen Green Shopping Centre and wandered around that for quite some time b/c it was warm and dry! We also enjoyed an ice cream cone. Finally, we were ready to head back to the hotel and rest our aching feet. We will probably just eat dinner here in the hotel tonight since prices are comparable or even cheaper. There is some live piano jazz music at the pub on the corner that I would like to go listen to while drinking some Guinness.
Tomorrow is up in the air as we are trying to stay on another day in this hotel (not originally planned). So we will see what tomorrow brings. There are some priorities, like the Guinness Storehouse, since we didn’t end up seeing it today. Also, Christ’s Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, and the Jameson Distillery are on the “must” list also. Stay tuned….