O'Donoghue's Guest House Dublin

... exhibit but apparently it had moved on somewhere else and some interactive CSI thing had replaced it.. we were a little dissapointed. Back to the hostel for dinner - we cooked for ourselved because, as I have stated before, this place is expensive. After dinner it was off to Temple Bar for some pints and some traditional Iriish music. Didn't really find much of the latter, just a bunch of tourists singing along to Cranberries and Pogues covers. Hopefully we find some authentic music soon.

... enough. Unfortunately, I had no idea of the head/chest cold that was about to hit me. Sick and jet-lagged, I never actually completed the challenge. Given another chance, I definitely would though.

The lockers, only a euro per day, were probably the second best feature of the hostel, proceeded by the free WiFi and followed by the free coffee and tea in the kitchen during breakfast. The self-service laundry machines were a plus as well. Smelly co-ed community bathrooms ...

... Catholic by a huge majority, and there's signs of this everywhere--they're national symbols use crosses and a lot of their streets and parks are named after Saints. But that's pretty much as far as I've seen it extend. From the people I've spoken to, most Irish today are Catholic "a la carte;" they were trained in religion early on and its engrained in their culture, but they're not following every rule or going to mass every week or even ...

... and eat from an era in time. It’s a show were history channel meets food network and is very enjoyable.

Today we leave for England. We have a ferry that will take us to Holyhead, Wales, and then we stay overnight in Birmingham before we leave to take another ferry back to Calais,France. Right now Justin and I are relaxing at a restaurant in the downstairs of our hotel before we head to the port.

The count down for our trip home has started. Four days left.

... at the Lighthouse where I ate my lunch. I then waited for most everyone and found two of the others then we waited and more finally showed up. We then went in to the local town and walked around and a good hour to soak it all up. I found a place that i could change some pounds to euros so i did that getting that neccesary errand done. We then went on to a beatiful castle and had a couple of hours to walk around the castle and the castle villiage. Then it was back to ...

I've visited Dublin many, many times. The most memorable was when I flew in from the States on my way to visit family in the North, and I stayed for a few days in Dublin over St. Patrick's Day. A very fun time, and I found Dublin people to be charming and very friendly.

... areas...and it was brought up that some churches may have mass for only 15 minutes! He said that the most important part of the time at church is really tea and coffee time - when you get to be a part of a community. It is very funny how that is a part of my congregation too and we usually have amazing snacks anytime we gather together. At the end of the service, the Reverend gave some announcements - the last one was about how I ...

... and caught a train to Cork at 11:00 AM. We were hanging out with Limerick #1 at the station before leaving, and we realized that the people here are friendly, but not polite. "Please" and "Thank you" aren't the most popular phrases, and we as Americans have the tendency for smiling where ever we go. We caught our train, saw the country side (which is absolutely gorgeous), and arrived in Cork at 1:30 PM on 1 Jan. More to come soon, Chris

... two days. It rains a lot. After Tom caught his breath, we toured Trinity College, which was a snorefest. We declined to fork over 10 Euro to look at some gospel behind glass, so we just toured the campus and took pictures of Tom pretending to **** when he saw a sign that said "Gas". Finally we got sick of the rain so we hung out in the mall for awhile, which leads me to the second thing we've ...