Day 1: Dublin, Ireland

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Trip Start Jun 19, 2008 Trip End Oct 11, 2008 Next
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  Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
Saturday, June 21, 2008

6/20/08 (Day 1):    Asking ourselves what time it is.
Deciding which meal we are supposed to be eating or not eating.
Walking at ¼ of the pace of normal people. Innocently sitting down on a curb
and falling asleep for a few seconds. Responding to questions 10-15 minutes
after they were asked. All symptoms of hardcore air travel. 5 flights in 4 days
has completely wiped us out. Ryan says that if we were to dig a tunnel from
Maui through the center of the Earth, we would have ended up in Dublin around
the same time as we did this afternoon. Days have blended together, and we can
barely remember our own names, but we are HERE! We arrived in Dublin after a
long long string of flights. We caught a bus (it turned out to be the wrong
bus, but we persuaded the driver to let us off somewhere near where we needed
to be) to the center of the city and found our hostel - The Abbey Court Hostel.
It is...different. We walked in the doors to find a very friendly desk attendant
from Seville/Dublin/Houston. Then we got to our room...and found 12 beds in a
long, college-dorm-sized space. We also found one toilet and one shower. One. Nevertheless,
we cleaned up, stuffed our bags into our little lockers, and hit the streets of
Dublin.

            Feeling like zombies, we picked up a map and wandered our way to the
Trinity College. Founded in the 16th century, this school has a lot of interesting
history behind it. We took a tour of the campus and learned, among other
things, that in the 1800s there was a shootout between the several drunken
students and an unpopular professor in the trinity quad. The professor was
killed and, instead of prosecuting the students, the Irish government acquitted
all 7 people involved in the firefight because it was a "drunken college prank"
that just got out of hand. Wow. We also saw the "Book of Kells." an 8th
century copy of the Gospels, elaborately doodled on by several extremely
meticulous and talented monks. They must have had a lot of time on their hands
in the Middle Ages. In an attempt to fight off jet-lag we downed some espresso
and lounged around a Dublin city park. After our first Irish Guinness and a
couple pub burgers (it really is better in Dublin) we promptly passed out in
our overcrowded hostel room (where Ryan proceeded to snore all night and I was
too far away to even hit him. Haha). 109 days to go!

Post your own travel photos for friends and family Pictures

Getting on our 5th flight in 72 hours	Trinity College Old Square	Ryan at Trinity College	Patti at Trinity College Main Entrance
Jet-lagged zombie Patti at dinner	Bell Tower at Trinity College

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