First stop, Dublin

Ok, sorry it's taken me a few days to post that Simon is now over this side of the world. In fact, we've now used up most of our time in Dublin. We've made good use of it though.

We arrived yesterday morning and after making our way from the airport to our hostel, we met up with Cormac for lunch. We had decided that we would wait until the next day to buy a Dublin Pass, so we went to one of the attractions not covered, Trinity College. When I was here in June, I went on a guided tour, but they don't seem to be running them at this time of year, so we walked around and I told Simon what I could remember. We then went and saw the Book of Kells and the Long Room (a library with lots of old books).

In the evening, I took Simon to see the Aussie pub where Cormac and I watched Australia play Italy in the World Cup back in June. I didn't actually notice last time, but they really do have a large selection of Aussie beers, as well as various other beers from around the world. Simon had a Coopers Sparkling Ale. For dinner, we went to and Irish pub and had good Irish pub food, and Guinness (yes, me too).

Today, armed with our Dublin Passes, we went to lots of places: St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle, Christchurch Cathedral, the Guinness Storehouse and the Old Jameson Distillery. On of the highlights was learning how to pour a "perfect pint" of Guinness, despite the fact that the special exhibit for that was a summer thing and had closed. We asked about it because my sister did it a couple of months ago and they let us do it anyway at one of their bars. It would seem that the pouring of the pint does make a difference as Simon's tasted better than mine. Another highlight was that both Simon and I were selected to be whiskey tasters on the Jameson tour. After our pints of Guinness, the tastes of five whiskeys and our extra serving of Jameson's, we are fairly well liquored up, and shortly we'll be meeting Cormac and Susan at a pub for dinner and pints. Slainte!