busing about

the joy of the open top bus
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again, a truly brilliant start to the day was cooking as i got up from my camping bed - bacon sarnies all around was the order of the day!

so off the drink and back to the culture, visiting Ireland's premier education place, Trinity College, with a central location and some grand looking buildings, amongst which was the grand library and mini-museum, which was holding the original copy of the Book of Kells! after passing the displays of the history, you got to see in this shifty darken room the original material and then on to the Long room, which was this spectacular library, filled with statues and original manuscripts from famour playwrights such as Jonathan Swift; a library not disimilar to the Wren library in trinity college, Cambridge. what was amusing is that our tourguide managed to miss out on all this fun, and didnt go up to the long room, so she had to rush back in to get a peek :)

Who can discover a city properly without going on an open-bus tour

trinity college
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Who can discover a city properly without going on an open-bus tour; and Dublin was no exeption. However, we had done already arguably the best attractions already which include the guinness experience, Johnnie fox's and trinity college as well as having a general wander around town. however, we hadnt done this to the background of humourous sarcastic comments and anecdotes, and it was for this reason that we got on one of these tours. The drivers are supremely talented , driving and giving the aural tour simulataneously, surely this is illegal in the Uk, but anyway, you thus got comments about other drivers and road users, as well as him saying bye and thanks to everyone getting off and indeed on :) nice to rest the feet for a bit.  After some weaving around some sites, which i mainly forgot the significance of, we came to a part of town which was appaling jammed with traffic, and under the sound advice of the driver, we reluctantly got off knowing we wouldnt have such hilarious one-liners commentary on the next bus.  We headed toward the destination of Ryan's pub as this was suggested by the driver, and a nice pint of guinness was on the cards, as the pub probably had a pipe connected from the nearby brewery...

Irish Coffee
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As a holiday of pure consumption, we also ordered lunch all of us perched around one small table on really high chairs which however hard i tried, i couldnt get comfortable on.  When it came, it was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle with the generous portion, and i was contently stuffed with an Irish stew, which i chose following the enthusiasm Lia showed for this dish :)

Got the next bus by running to the bus stop, and got off after a less inspiring robotic tour guide at the jameson whiskey distellery (notice a alcohol theme in the attractions!) but werent in time for another tour, so we went to  a 1840 bar nearby for a sumptuous, or as Elaine would say: Gorgeous Irish coffee. it was tasty indeed as we sat watching Wales lose horribly to Slovakia...

Notable attraction on bus tour
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It was back home for half of us to freshen up whilst Marco and Al stayed in town to watch the scotland game and we watched ENgland draw dissapointly with macedonia...anyway, dinner was at Shalimar curry house, which came well recommended by Elaine. decor was nice and i went out to get some cash  after i ordered food...even after disappearing for a lengthy time, in which they though i had got lost, it was still at least an hour after i returned, that our food arrived; and although we knew that they were understaffed, it was rather frustration.  However, luckily Elaine's evil eyes seem to work and the food that arrived was excellent although some of us completely lost our appetite and Marco YET AGAIN was trying to pawn off food to us!!

met up with Kate; who's that guy behind me??
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anyway, off to the infamous Temple Bar, home of alcohol-induced, tourist-driven carnage strip of restaurants and bars, with street-performers stag do's and teenagers being lary...not a great scene and we promptly left for quieter pastures without even having a drink. we met up with Elaines friends, including Kate, whom i first met in Vietnam of all places...had a few guinnesses though i was getting extremely full.  The place was McDaids and was a cute little place with little room for standing drinking or chatting, but we played musical chairs and things.

Marco, our resident dance animal, pushed for us to go to some sort of club, but it still wasnt our scene, so Elaine came up with an awesome plan to go back to cafe en seine, which would be much busier than the first day and have an actual dance floor to cater for marco's needs...

Queuing up, Nia was being weird, darting off into doorways to just blow her nose!! but we ended up having a few more drinks from our kitty and getting onto the dance floor with some ok-ish music though it was really busy... Tim's flight was pretty early sunday morning, so had actually brought his luggage into the bar with the intention of going straight to the airport and sleeping there until the flight, and he duly left to our goodbyes and handshakes at around 2am...

the rest of us left soon after, and we past a few hilarious "street-dancers" who were pissed out of their heads, on the way to the nite-link bus home. though i was fortunate to sit near some guy who wanted to vomit. i promptly got up to sit somewhere else, forsakening any sociabillity. he apparently duly chundered out of the window. nice.