we're here!

Well, two days in Dublin and we've already seen so much! We were pleasantaly suprised to have very nice weather and no rain upon arrival. In fact, its only rained on us once, and that was somewhat light. We only took one wrong street on walking from the bus stop to our hotel, and were settled by noon on Sunday. We showered and cleaned up and headed out into the city in an effort not only to stay awake, but to start our sightseeing.

We ended up at Trinity College and took a 30-minute tour, which included a viewing of the Book of Kells. If you're not sure what it is, look it up. It was quite a remarkable thing to see.

After staying up until the late hour of 7:00, we finally couldn't stay awake any longer. We fell asleep exhausted but excited. It was a good first day.

Yesterday we toured the city on a tour bus, taking the whole tour first, deciding what we wanted to go back and see. We ended up walking through both Christ Church and St. Patrick's Cathedrals. What magnificent buildings! We've decided to talk to Rick (our pastor back home) and see what he would think about flying buttresses for the new church.

We did other stuff yesterday, but mostly what I remember from the evening was searching all over for a restaurant, but finding only pubs that served only drinks, and no food. As we got hungrier and it got colder and I got crankier, we finally ended up at an Italian restaurant eating pizza. It was good, and warm, and filling. Yesterday we managed to stay awake until 9. Go us!

(Please forgive the brevity of this post, by the way. I'm on a weird keyboard and trying to go quickly to avoid crazy prices. The dollar sucks.)

Today we spent the morning doing a little shopping and then headed to the Guinness Factory. They have a great museum, showing the history of Guinness and the process of making the beer. And at the top of the museum is a viewing room, one of the highest points in Dublin. We could see miles of the city. Oh, and we were given some Guinness to try. Still don't like beer.

We the headed into the main part of the city to catch a bus that would take us out to a castle just outside the city. This was a 3-hour tour (no Gilligan on our buss), and involved lots of driving through the countryside. We saw some beautiful spots, and if we had more time in Dublin there would truly be much more to see.

Tonight we're on the hunt for a true Irish pub for dinner, perhaps some more shopping (so far we haven't bought anything), and hopefully staying up until at least 10:00 (jet lag has been hard to get over). Tomorrow we have the morning in Dublin and then we catch a flight to Oslo. Its ineresting, yesterday we went through a museum that outlined the history the Vikings have had in Dublin. Essentially, Dublin itself was settled by Vikings 1,000 years ago. It'll be interesting to head to Viking homelands tomorrow, direct from the places they once conquered.

Hopefully more to come soon!

On the plane, over Dublin. It was 10:15 a.m. here ... but our bodies were thinking it was only 2:15.

Outside the Book of Kells exhibit.