June 3 - Dublin

This morning all of the members of our tour dispersed to the four winds.  Pat and I are staying in Dublin for four more days to see some more of the sites and to take a guided day trip down in the Wicklow Mountains.

I've come down with a cold and am feeling beat.  Pat has been having problems with her knees and right foot, so today will be a day of rest and give me a chance to catch up on this blog.  Our only task today is to switch hotels.  We are going back to the Mespil where we started the tour.  We finished the tour in the Maldron but it is in a business area of the city whereas the Mespil is on Dublin's Grand Canal and it is a quieter and nicer area.  For those that don't remember it, here is a shot of the Grand Canal:

OOPS ! ! !  Wrong Grand Canal.  Here is Dublin's
 

Not quite as impressive but still nice.  Here is our hotel.

After having eaten out in multiple restaurants and pubs for the last 3 weeks, we have discovered some things about Irish cuisine.  Every meal we have been served has been very good to excellent.  The Irish serve their food very hot, you can easily scorch yourself on the soup for example.  The Irish like their potatoes, quite often we would be served two kinds on potatoes with the meal and on at least one occasion they served three.  They like their chips (french fries).  In an Italian restaurant Pat ordered lasagna and it came with chips.  If you order a slice of pizza in will moat likely come with chips.  Unless you tell them otherwise, you always get a pint of beer if you order a beer.

Everybody here has been very friendly and helpful, even the taxi drivers.  The streets in the downtown area of Dublin are torn up right now as they are expanding their light rail system.

Tomorrow we are going to try to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College.