Ireland Trip (19/12-23/12) report Day 1

Anura, Kavitha and I flew in to Dublin from Stansted and met up with Adrian who flew from Manchester. So the weather appeared to be worse than in England – gloomy skies and strong winds which almost blew all of us away. After leaving our luggage at Barnacles (which btw was quite a rip-off IMHO), we headed to Dublin ‘castle’ but our timing wasn’t right and the tour has already started so we moved on to Christ’s Church Cathedral instead. Met Yiu Ti and Pal outside afterwards and we went for lunch somewhere in Temple Bar. Gosh, stuff in Ireland is so much more expensive compared to France and the UK (although Adrian did manage to find the cheapest Chuppa Chups ever!). And the euro has just decided to do a ‘1 for 1’ with the pound.

Next stop was probably the highlight of our stay in Ireland – the Guinness Storehouse. This place was amazing, and Guinness did taste slightly different here. There was chat about me opening up my own brewery soon as well, we’ll see… Pal and Yiu Ti accompanied us to Old Jameson Distillery where we continued our boozing while they went home.

Now the next destination was truly weird. Who would have Bram Stoker’s Dracula experience in a health club? We probably had to pass through the health club, a bar, some people playing pool and a rather odd looking receptionist to get there. Did you know that Bram Stoker’s wife was going out with Oscar Wilde at some point? And that Bram actually knew people like Tennyson, Arthur Conan Doyle, etc? I wonder if Kavitha still remembers his address…

It was raining by the time we got out of that place. After a quick dinner, we took the bus back to Barnacles and called it a night. So much for Purty kitchen!