Dublin You're Fun!

Our hotel

We arrived at 4:30 a.m. and took a taxi to The Westbury. The taxi driver kept calling me "the missus." Love it! It was too early to check in, but the hotel agreed to store our bags. Nothing was open yet, and we couldn't fall asleep or the jet lag would ruin our time in Ireland. We took some notes about our trip and tried to familiarize ourselves with a map of the city. When the sun came up, we set out to find our pick up spot for the next morning's tour. We had breakfast at one Starbuck's, and located another one where the bus was to pick us up the following day.

Arch of Justice in outer wall of castle

We walked up one of the main thoroughfares to Dublin Castle (circa 1230). We walked around outside and took pictures. When the Queen visited Dublin, they held a reception for her here. 

Dublin Castle

We then wandered up to Christchurch Cathedral. Services were going on so we couldn't take pictures inside. We

Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin

Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin

continued on, looking for the site of a Viking fort that was on the map, but got out of the touristy loop and into some rather sketchy areas. I'm pretty sure I saw a drug deal go down as a guy reached into his sweatpants (not the pockets of his sweatpants, if you get my drift) and handed something to this other guy. At this point I told Don we needed to walk faster and get back to a more populated area! ;) Never found the fort. We did duck into a little Franciscan church near there and took some pictures. 

           

 We visited City Hall which had a very nice exhibition in the basement of the history of Dublin. The city is named after the River Poddle which flows into the River Liffey, running through the center of town. The waters were very black from the peat moss and so

were called in Irish, dubh linn, or "dark pool." 

Further down the street I took a picture of this doorway. (Because it was cool.)

And a picture of these. (Because it was funny.)

And this, because it was cool. 

And this, because it was BATMAN! 

Then we ate at M.J. O'Neill's. (Because it was

an M.J. place. And we were hungry.) When we checked the menu, we were pretty excited. Stew, Shephard's Pie...our first genuine Irish

meal! But when we went inside, the meal was served cafeteria style by Russians. Still, Don had his first beer, O'Hara's Irish Red. We were hurting by this time so we went back to the hotel to check in and napped from about 2-4. 

The room was lovely.

Towel warmers rock!

 Then, feeling refreshed, we set off again, heading in the other direction. We ran across a Disney store with the cutest Tsum Tsums! These are pill-shaped plushes with the faces of Disney characters. What I liked, besides their obvious adorableness, was the fact that they had some rather obscure characters that I recognized. See anyone familiar here?

Tsum Tsum translates to stack stack. You can see why.

 We continued on down, walking past St.

I believe this is an archway leading into St. Stephen's Green

Stephen's Green and a statue of Oliver Wilde I never got a photo of. We were in search of old pubs, as we had been advised these were the best places to frequent. We found one of the best "snugs" as they call them, O'Donahue's. It had a nice outdoor area, too, in an alley between buildings. We hit a few other pubs, as well.

Watching rugby World Cup

Outdoor area at O'Donohue's

Another snug we visited where Don had a Cute Hoor (ale) pronounced just as it is spelled!

Not sure what this building is, but I thought it was cool so I took a picture.

Loved the ivy on these buildings.

Thought this was so cool. They were doing construction here and put this nylon-like cover over the building with a picture of the building on it.

Ivy up close. Isn't it lovely?

We ate dinner at Foley's, a restaurant attached to O'Reilly's pub. We split beef pie and I had Eton Mess, which was delicious! If you ever see it on a menu, order it. It is a dish with berries or bananas, cream, and meringue. This one was raspberry and on point. By this time I had also discovered ciders, which were great! We finished off with pints at Bruxelles and McDaid's, two pubs on opposite sides of the street, right outside of our hotel. Cause, ya know--

When in Ireland, do like the Irish!

Finally, we tumbled into bed, exhausted...