Here, There and Everywhere: Dublin, Ireland

The second stop on our cruise was in Dublin, which we were both pretty excited about. Little did we know when we docked that we were actually going to have two days in Dublin! We could not leave the docks that night because the weather was getting bad. This was our first taste of reality in regards to a trans-Atlantic cruise. Not everything goes as planned because you never know what the weather is going to bring.

The first day, we were total tourists. We started the day off at Trinity College, the oldest University in Ireland. We took a great tour with one of the students. The library at that place is unreal! We saw the Book of Kells, which is an illustrated manuscript gospel book created by Celtic monks in about the year 800. It is so well preserved, and so impressive. They figured out ways to use to many colors. Considering the fact they did not have Crayola markers back then and had to use nature to create them, I was impressed.

Next we walked through the city to the Guinness factory, a must-do. The tour part of it didn't impress me too much, but it was worth going through the whole thing to have the beer at the end and see the impressive views of the city from their bar. I'm not a huge fan of Guinness, but I gave it a go. Kevin was happy to drink my leftovers!

The rest of the first day was all about stocking up on wine and cigars to smuggle on the boat.

When we found out that we were not leaving (and missing our stop in Belfast, Northern Ireland- sad face) we of course went back into the city to check out the pubs. There is an area called Temple Bar (it's also a bar) and we went to a few places there. I had read about a place called Brazen Head that was the oldest bar in Dublin, so we hiked it up there for lunch. Overall, it was just an awesome day. Unfortunately, it started to rain pretty hard when we were walking back and no raincoats or umbrellas could stop us from getting totally soaked. Better the end of the day than the beginning!