Lullaby of Birdland

That was fun. The semi-original plan was to go to Galway on Satuday and come back that night and party in Dublin. But we aren't early morning people and didn't get out of here until noon. So instead we decided that the money we would have spent on bus tickets to Galway was instead going to be spent on drinks. In the mean time, we got on the Dart to Bray. It only takes about half an hour to get there but it's so different from the city. It's a cute and small town on the ocean. There's a walk you can do that's between one stop on the Dart and the next--between Bray and Greystones. The whole thing is 6km, but we went in for 2 then turned around. It's really cool though. The walk is just this path along the cliffs over there. It's not paved and it was actually pretty muddy when we were there, but I'd like to go back some random day and do the whole path. It's supposed to take an hour and a half. It's beautiful too. I love the ocean. Julian touched the Atlantic ocean for the first time. I got a picture.

We came back and walked across Dublin to the Guinness factory to find it closed. That sucked because it's in the oldest part of the city and there isn't really much around it. But we stopped at a pub on the way back towards Temple Bar and had some Irish food and our first pint of the evening--he had Guinness, I had Smithwicks. The pub hopping began. This place was called Bakers, after that was The Brazen Head--the oldest pub in Dublin where we were only charged for one pint of Bulmers cider instead of two. That was a highlight of the night because that shit was expensive. 5.35 Euro for a pint. Ridiculous. After that was some other place in Temple Bar. I don't remember the name but it was packed and we kind of just gulped down our beers--this time I had the Guinness and Julian tried Smithwicks. Smithwicks is my favorite Irish beer so far I think. It's an ale, not a stout. Stout is too much sometimes. We went to my favorite pub of the night after this and I don't remember what's it's called either. I wasn't paying attention to the names at all. We got really good Irish coffee though. They aren't strong or anything--one shot of whiskey in it, but they taste good. Our final pub was right on the side of OConnell bridge and we had hot Powers. It was good. Rather like tea--hot whiskey with lemon and cloves.

We weren't drunk at all though. Too much time walking around trying to find other places, or cheaper places, so we came back to Maynooth expecting to be able to buy something from the 24hour Tesco, but they stop selling alcohol at 10pm. Bummmmmer. Instead, we cooked. Julian made tortilla espanola. It's like a potato omelet. It was good.

Another late morning. Breakfast was very successful though--Irish sausages, eggs, and fried potatoes. We decided to open a breakfast for dinner restaurant someday. We took the bus to Trinity college to see the Book of Kells and the Long Library, but it was 8 euro, and that was too much apparently...so we walked to the Guinness storehouse again. It's kind of cool over there--it reminded me of The Jungle cause the road you have to walk down is just big tall stone warehouses on both sides. We poured the perfect pint and got a certificate. They spelled my name wrong even though you write it down yourself. The Galaxy bar is pretty cool too. It seems a lot taller than it is. It's only eight stories, but most things around are only three.

We had a lot of time to kill before the bus for the airport left, so we got Irish stew at a pub and watched this guy sing karaoke for a few songs. Walked around. Sat on a bench along the Liffey for a bit. Baileys coffee is really expensive, but it's delicious. I saw him onto his bus and that was it pretty much. It was a lot of fun, and it was really good to have a friend here.

Today was boring. It was hard to wake up this morning even though I fell asleep pretty early, and I'm super tired even right now.

I'm going to be in Rome on Wednesday. That's a ridiculous sentence.