So…  Night one.  Dublin

It was raining.  I can’t expect you would imagine any different.  I didn’t.  I brought an umbrella, but with the loss, I really didn’t have a rain coat.  John brought a light weight jacket.  I’m not sure how he wasn’t freezing to death.

We walked around the non-trendy shop area, and I bought two sweaters and a belt at Oasis.  I was surprised what a good shopper John is.  He is totally patient, let me look and try things on and well, it was nice.  He even offered opinions. 

After more walking, we stopped at the Arlington Hotel, where they had traditional Irish food and dancing.  That was special.  I had lamb stew, too much brown bread, a TON of butter, and even more tea.  The dancers were incredible.  Actually, for my first time having lamb, I thought the meal was pretty good too.  It was here I found out that John will eat most of what is left on my plate.  I wasn’t super hungry, so when I had my fill, I just gave him my lamb.  It worked out well.

We stayed at the Fleet Street Hotel, right on the edge of Temple Bar.  Honestly, not the cleanest, not the most comfortable, but for the price, it worked well for our needs.  Of course, I used the extra blanket.  Poor John.  Little heat machine.  I’m sure he didn’t like the extra blanket, but he didn’t complain once.  We got a little sleep.  Part excitement, part jet lag.  But we were up and ready for the task of being out fairly early.

We had breakfast at the hotel on Saturday morning.  It was decent.  Not great.  Just decent.  The tea however, was YUMMY.  I drank a ton of tea in Ireland.  If it was on the menu, I drank it.  (The habit has now followed me home)…  Then we were off to the hop on get off tour.  Actually, we missed most of that tour.  We got off at Guinness…  Got back on at Guinness, and then it dropped us, and I’m not sure where.  We ended up shopping again.  I know, I know…  I’m a shopper.

We had Italian for dinner.  A little place.  John had this dish with mushrooms all over it, so I couldn’t taste it.  I ordered garlic bread, which was like a pizza with cheese and garlic on it (and just as big).  And I had gnocci or risotto, I can’t remember.  I’m really wishing I had blogged this at the time.  Then I would really remember.  But all this is part of the story.  And you have to hear it all.

I can’t remember what we had for lunch.  I know one day we had pub food, at this place that John has a picture of at his desk.  O’Neils, that’s it.  But I’m remembering that on Sunday.  I could be wrong.

We tried to find a pub to hear live music on Saturday night.  We were not successful.  It was so crowded everywhere we went.  We found lots of drunk people, and puke in the streets, but no where to sit and give a listen.  I got John into one place, but we couldn’t move, and he looked irritated…  We left, got some ice cream, and went back to the room.

At this point, I think I had found crunchie nuggets.  Yes, I had.  At the airport, Heathrow.  In a machine.  I am remembering that I now had a bag of crunchie nuggets that we found in Ireland.  Ice cream, crunchie nuggets and some other candy…  What a sugar high I was on!