Day Two (8/8/09)

When I say briefly, I mean like maybe half an hour. At the most. But it was okay because my migraine was starting to go away. Evan and I discovered that the entertainment system had a colouring book function on it, so we coloured until the flight attendant served us breakfast and tea.

Shortly thereafter, we landed in Dublin after a short flight of only 6.5 hours. I quickly discovered that my phone did not get service in Ireland. We stepped out of the plane into a wet, cold, dreary day (which is apparently how every day is there- more on that later.)

Out of the terminal, we had to stand in a mile-long line (probably not an exaggeration. It was bad) in order to get our passports stamped, and then finally left the airport in a taxi. I noticed that every road sign or other public sign was written first in Gaelic and then in English, like how back home some signs are written in English and then in Spanish.

Our hotel was pretty nifty with modern architecture, right across the street from a beautiful park and within walking distance of the pedestrian shopping streets. We decided to freshen up and walk around a bit. We walked through the park, which had beautiful sculptures, fountains, and pigeons that nearly attacked us. Then we walked over to Grafton street, which is like the St. George street of Dublin. They had really great street performers- most notably, the violinists, statue men, and band of cute Irish boys who all played their instruments remarkably well.

We ate lunch at Gotham Cafe, where my migraine started to come back. Surprise, surprise. Anyway, Gotham was anything but traditional Irish food. Evan and I got penne with pesto, and Jon got some sort of Thai dish. Way to integrate. Even so, it was good food.

We walked around in search of a pharmacy. Apparently, however, Excedrin does not exist in Europe, so I bought an equivalent. I took two pills and we continued on. Our next stop was trinity college to see the Book of Kells, which is an illuminated manuscript. It was beautiful viewing the pages up close. But my favourite part of the stop to Trinity was the Long Room, which is an enormous room filled with shelves and shelves of ancient books. Jon told me that they had considered filming for Harry Potter there. It is against the rules to take pictures there, so the photo included is a stock image of the place.

After we left, we walked down by the river and found Dublin Castle, where they had some beautiful sand sculptures on display. We walked over to the tourist info center, where Evan and I tried on some funny hats. Jean found exciting items with the Brennan crest on them, and she bought a Brennan family heraldry paper. We were all pretty tired at this point- enough so that when we visited Ireland's oldest pub, the Brazen Head (established 1198), we weren't enthused enough to stay awhile or even go inside. So we caught a cab back to the hotel.

Now, even though I still had a migraine and sleep would have been excellent, Jon suggested that we stay awake until at least 7:00 to get used to the time difference. So Evan and I watched this strange children's show called Mega Nanny until 7:00, when we promptly fell asleep.