Dublin May 26, 2016

People talk about not being able to sleep through night because of the jet lag.  However I had no problem what so ever. I was off to bed at 9:30 pm and never woke up until 6:00 am local time.  I often have trouble sleeping in a strange bed but not last night.

Agnes wanted to get a sim card for her phone so we headed off to find a card.  Jos stayed behind to wait for Ken and Sally who flying in today.   Agnes got the card in her phone and almost immediately got a text from Jos saying that Ken and Sally had arrived, but they had left their luggage in Toronto. 

All of us headed off to lunch and wandered into Slattery’s Pub, which is a long standing local pub and server of traditional Guinness Pints.   I had the chicken curry and a pint of Guinness.  It was absolutely the best.  From lunch we wandered down through the down town area.  It was a lot of fun visiting the different sites.  Took our pictures by the James Joyce statue.  Took pictures of the Spire of Dublin which is a 121.2 meter stainless spire. 

Just be for leaving Kelowna I had watched the Netflix mini-series called Rebellion which detailed the events of the March 1916 armed rebellion.  It was a very good series and The General Post Office was the headquarters of the Irish Volunteer Army so we went in there and there is a huge display celebrating the 100^th anniversary.  They even had stamps with the heroes of the revolution.  From there we wandered down to Dublin Castle which was the headquarters of the British forces stationed in Ireland at the time.  There was a whole museum there dedicated to the March 1916 uprising.  Even though the revolution was unsuccessful and all of the revolutionary leaders or at least most of them were rounded up and executed by the British the seeds of freedom had been sown.   These kind of crazy ideas are hard to stamp out and within six years Ireland had been granted independence.   Or at least part of it as Northern Ireland is still under British rule.

We wandered through the Temple Bar area of Dublin which is a large walking area of down town Dublin and is probably the oldest section of Dublin which dates back to 1127 when Dublin was first granted a charter to have its own city council.    It is all a cobble stone street and walking area of the city.  The streets are too narrow for cars.  It is reported to have the highest density of pubs anywhere in the world.

Supper is still up in the air.  Go out for super for fish and chips and Guinness, stay in and cook or stay in and order pizza.  People are pretty tired so I think the order pizza is a leading contender.

Terry