Off to Germany!

I have mixed feelings about Dublin. Overall it seems run-down and dirty and fairly uninteresting, which explains why several Irishmen had told me to avoid it when I asked around before we left on sabbatical. The best thing is the walkability of the city; we covered pretty much the entire place by foot no problem. Our first day we walked all over town and visited the Guiness Brewery. There is also a beautiful city garden which is the largest urban park in Europe. And to top off the day we had dinner in a microbrewery which had some fabulous beers (but they will not bottle or export them).

But to get a different feel for Ireland we took a bus yesterday outside the city to Trim. Small little place but they have a fairly intact Norman castle that was really super cool (Braveheart was filmed there) and we got to learn a lot of history of the area on the tour we took. For any of you that ever wanted to live in a fairytale castle as a kid, here is a fact for you - they would hang their clothes out at night over the castle latrine because the noxious fumes would de-lice and remove the fleas. Nasty. No wonder the French were all about perfume!!

We noticed a lot of the businesses are painting the exteriors and when we asked, we were told everyone is jumping on the chance it isn't raining. In fact, the weather has been absolutley superb - it is in the 70s and just lovely. If you ever visit Ireland, do it in May!