We arrived in Dublin about 9:00 a.m. Dublin time after an overnight flight. Neither of us slept much or soundly, but it really didn't seem that bad. From Philly, the flight is only as long as a drive across South Dakota! Dublin is 5 hours ahead of Orlando time, so it was about 4:00 a.m. according to our body clocks when we got to Ireland. Feeling surprisingly awake, we caught a bus from the airport into Dublin and checked into the Mercer Hotel. Our hotel was recommended in Patricia Preston's "Ireland Travel 101" as a modestly-priced, well-located "little gem, exuding the atmosphere of a private club." That is a good description. It is nothing fancy, but is very nice, clean and close to the medieval part of Dublin, with many restaurants, pubs and shopping close at hand.
We set out to do some sight-seeing-saw the Book of Kells at Thrinity College and although we didn't tour, we went by St. Patrick's and Christ Church and Dublin Castle--so we are calling it good on those. It was unbelievably cold here-very windy. In the distance from Dublin you can see snow on the mountains. In case you don't know, mountains in Ireland aren't that high. That's just how cold it is here right now!
After our sight seeing-such as it may be--we returned to our hotel, turned up the heat and took a two-hour nap. Then we headed out to the Temple Bar area--comparable to New York's Greenwich Village--for some dinner and night life. We found it at Gogarty's(recommended by Kathy and Steve) Bev promised she would drink Guiness in Ireland and got off to a good start on that tonight. Gogarty's has live traditional Irish music, which they advertise as going from 2:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. We had dinner there and made friends with the people sitting on either side of our table. On the one side were three American men who were pilots for Delta. One of them is married to an astronaut! On the other side was a married couple from Italy who were celebrating their third anniversary--Natalie and Vincensis. Dick now refers to him as "my friend Vinny." Natalie and Vinny gave us some valuable tips on traveling in Italy. We can't wait for that part of the trip, which will be all of May. But wait! We CAN wait, because we have a lot of Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany to enjoy before we get to Italy!
We were so entertained by the great pub music at Gogarty's that we stayed about three hours longer than we'd planned, finally leaving about 12:30 a.m. What adventures await us tomorrow?
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