Dublin - Saturday

After arriving at some crazy hour at the airport, we bust out some early morning Guinness action, so we could compare the English stuff, with what awaited us in the land of true beer related glory. Flight wasn’t too bad, and we all got seats moderately close together, though I spent some insane amount of money on a tiny can of Pepsi. Possibly £1.80. I fear this trip may be expensive.

After successfully not landing in any rivers we grabbed the cheap bus to town and found our hostel surprisingly easily, deep in the heart of Temple Bar. That’s a place not an actual bar I’ll have you know, cobbled streets for miles. Or at least a few hundred metres. Dumped our bags in our hostel, pretty cool we got a whole 10 bed room to ourselves, though only one shower which may cause difficulties in the morning as our level of faffage is high on the Richter scale. Our first port of call was obviously the Temple Bar, which was indeed an actual pub, though named after the area not the other way. Obviously we all got our first Guinnesses in, extremely nice, though rather similar to what we had in the morning, though vastly more expensive at around £5.50 a pint? Ireland is shockingly expensive, and the exchange rate is worse than Arsenal’s current performance. After christening Dublin, we wandered around the local, past a load of kids all on stilts, and searched for a place to eat lunch. When I say searched I obviously mean we dithered some what, though eventually settled on quite a nice place not too far from the hostel. I got some form of traditional Irish dish,  I suspect a stew or a casserole. Dan foolishly had nothing as he wanted to save money and just possibly drink alcohol, so we obviously had some generic Guinness alternative stout, which was just as nice, and nearly as expensive! Rex tells me they also played The Corrs in the restaurant.

After lunch we strolled along the river, which really was quite small and not very spectacular, nothing on the Thames. Though it was a bit grey in general, the sky and the city. Went through town and a shopping precinct, to where we saw a huge spike, that was for some reason, possibly to signify we all survived the Millennium. After which we went over the Butt Bridge (HAW HAW LOLLERSKATES). Tracey and Cory decided to go look at the university while the rest of us aimed for the nearest non stabby looking pub and had an expensive Guinness or two.  We played some form of drinking game, that was a lot like arrogance but involved a culminating bet on a coin toss. Good fun, and the pub was really nice. In our ultimate wisdom we decided to go to a Thai restaurant, which had a cheapish deal for Dublin, but was actually expensive, around 20+ quid for a 3 course meal. Following which we went to a few pubs to try and find somewhere with cheaper beer, and I think we found a Guinness alternative for £4, though maybe £4.50. Afterwards I frequented the Spa before returning triumphant, but a bit poorer, to the hostel for a well earned sleep.