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We drove into Dublin late on Friday and camped out at our hotel room for the night – Jury’s Inn – but it is pronounced Jew Ree’s Inn. It was nice enough, and the hotel was right near the river liffey about a mile from the port of Dublin where the ferries would come in from England and a few blocks away from the downtown area, so we were well situated. Unfortunately, the baby doesn’t sleep well in hotels, so Sally slept while Ryan and I walked around early the next morning to find an ATM and some breakfast. Within walking distance we found McDonald’s AND Burger King and we felt “spoilt for choice”. So we had McDonald’s for breakfast and then hit the streets to see the sights of Dublin by foot. We managed to walk down Grafton street which has street performers and beggars (Gypsies with Babies asking for change who cast a spell on you when you tell them you don’t have any change. Just as well, I was kind of lying when I said it, so perhaps I deserved the spell. I did have change in my pocket after all, I just didn’t have any for her.) We saw some entertainers from London playing electric violins that sounded really neat, and some guys trying to pass off their beat box and bad dancing as music and theatre. All in all, it was quite an experience, lots of shops and lots of people everywhere. We walked around for a while until we found St. Stephen’s green. Sally’s eyes lit up because it is a three story mall with some great shops inside.

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Afterward, we walked around the park the mall was named for, or maybe the other way around, and were really impressed with some of the monuments and gardens within the park. Some pictures of it are attached to this email. Once our legs got tired, we went to a bar to get some fried foods, and were rewarded with cheese sticks, chicken nuggets, and little salty sausages that looked a little scary. We watched a couple of people order Guinness, which is to be prepared a special way by the bartender. Apparently, it works up a fair amount of foam on the top when he is serving it, and the Irish will wait patiently for the top of it to settle and the bartender will then fill it to the top. The American’s however, have been well trained by fast food service which has your food ready before you order it, and the “Yankees” will reach for the glass before it is ready and the bartender shakes his head and tells them it isn’t ready yet and then mutters something about tourists.

From there, we walked over to see ChristChurch cathedral, which was amazing and we will tour next time, and then on to St. Patrick’s cathedral and the Dublin Castle. Obviously, we were most impressed with St. Patricks because they had a beautiful grounds and a place to sit and play with the baby and it was relatively warm. Attached are some photos of the baby there. Apparently St. Patrick did some missionary work and baptized some heathens there in the fifth century and the cathedral has been improved ever since with taller spires, and bigger halls and stained glass. It was very impressive.

All in all it was a very nice day. Our feet were sore, and we had a four hour drive home, because the speed limit is 30 miles an hour for most of the drive home through some very small villages. Dublin was a bit warmer than Galway and we look forward to another trip to the big city whenever friends come to visit. There were lots of shops that we decided not to go to this time, like Captain America’s which sells burgers and has paraphernalia from different musical bands, the ChristChurch cathedral, Dublinia – a medieval tourist trap, Kilmainham jail which was once an English prison, the post office where the Irish Revolution began 88 years ago Easter weekend, the Dublin Zoo… the list goes on.

Easter was nice – we spent dinner time with some friends from Church. The church was rather crowded as there were a grand total of 52 members in the branch – an all-time record for this town. There was another church that had booked a room next door and they were obviously revivalists who played very loud music. We are going to need to rent a generator and an amplifier next Easter just to compete with the group that was there this year. Maybe next year the branch will have their own building and we won’t need to rent a room in a hotel.

We love you all and hope you had a wonderful Easter.
Love,
Rusty, Sally, and a very well photographed Ryan.