Dublin, Ireland - it's always warm in a pub

Casa Adam and Alix
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Our Ireland trip almost got off to a poor start with Jonno pulling his entire backpack apart at the check-in counter at Heathrow trying to locate his passport, which he eventually found... Once on the flight i was a bit concerned that we would spend the entire trip giggling as the flight attendant gave the safety announcement, ohhh the accent... Jonno was almost convulsing when the pilot said we'd be cruising at '32,000 ft', if he'd said '33,000ft' i think Jonno would have needed restraining!

Daisy had a point to make
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Once in Dublin we were met by Adam and after a quick debrief on where to go in Dublin we were back in town wandering around in the very very cold air, but not before being asked by a reporter and camera crew what our opinion was of some new tax law change - i guess we already looked like locals?! After we hit our limit for cold, we found a nice pub with a fireplace and had our first pint of Guinness in Ireland :-)

Interviewing cows

Perfect weather for lunch in the park
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For the next couple of days we wandered all over Dublin and made the most of the sunny mornings before it turned nasty in the afternoons.  One of the highlights was the natural history museum, a step back in time with hundreds of stuffed animals collected from around the world over a century ago all displayed in old wood and glass cabinets with some very clearly old descriptions! What was even more amusing were the 'scary' poses, even a koala was made to look mean!

We also learnt about the long, complex and often violent history of Ireland from visiting the national gallery, national museum and Dublin Castle.

St Patrick's Cathedral
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But of course we balanced that out by visiting a few pubs and the Guinness factory!

Our hosts Adam and Alix were fantastic and took us to a few of their local pubs and gave us the inside story on some of the strange nuances of Dublin, including explaining the little cupboards inside pubs that had a couple of chairs - they turned out to be 'snugs' the ladies drinking section of a pub that separated them from all the loutish men!!

Dublin was a great city, lots going on and some gorgeous buildings, but it also had a lot of dodgy people that gave it bit of a rough feel.  It was however a very relaxed city, where we saw a cow being interviewed in the main park and also heard the name Bono mentioned by locals at least twice a day!!

Joke of the day heard in Dublin:

What's the difference between God and Bono?

God doesn't walk around Dublin pretending to be Bono.