Ireland Trip – Dublin

So I finally figure out a clever use for this blog that I’ve had tucked away on my site for a while now. I’m going to post updates about my Ireland trip as often as I can… And as soon as I start sending photos to my phone to my email, I’ll post those as well.

So our trip started out of Kona on Sunday afternoon, and we flew non-stop to Chicago, where we arrived at 6:30am. I didn’t get any sleep on the flight over, so it was around bedtime when we landed. We left the airport and got on the tram-subway thing they have, and headed downtown to meet up with Anton. We wlked out to a big aquarium out there, only to find it was closed until 9:30. So we ventured off looking for someplace to eat. We walked along the waterfront to a big metal sculpture, and a chrome plated kidney looking thing (I apoloigize that I don’t remember the name of anything i did the other day, it was at this point that I came down with a fever and all I remember was wishing I didn’t have to walk anymore). We stopped and got breakfast, then headed back to the aquarium to meet Anton, who was still driving in from whatever cornfield town he lives in (his words, not mine).

The aquarium was very cool, lots of nifty sealife, and it was good to see Anton and family again. I have to congratulate him on getting married, and on his beautiful baby, and his baby on the way. Unfortunately, we didn’t have long to spend with them, as we had to get back on the tram and head back to the airport (about an hour’s trip) to board our plane to Dublin.

Air Lingas is by far the best airline I’ve been on. Not only are their seats made by Recaro (a company that makes seats for race cars) but they’ve got an LCD screen with TV, Movies, and music on demand. Altho, the food wasn’t much to celebrate, it was better than having to buy your food (thank you, United).

We arrived in Dublin at 5:30am, picked up our car, and headed into the city center to find the car park next to our hostel. At this point, everyone was pretty tired, but we couldn’t check in until 2:30pm, so we wandered until we found a place to eat (somewhat underwhelming, but the tea was good). Then we walked over to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells (very cool), over to the National Museum to see some of their cool artifacts (and to kill time at this point). Then we headed back to the hostel at around 3pm, and Nohea and I passed out until we all woke up at 5am.

So, fun so far. We’re heading off to the Guinness factory later today, and the Dublin Castle, then we’re heading south. Not sure how far we’ll get, but I’ll post again as often as I can.

And I apologize if there are spelling errors, the font size on this computer is locked and I can hardly read what I’m typing.