May 22nd

We were both hungover today after the pub crawl and were fairly slow to get going. Check out time was noon and we didn't get out of there much earlier. They let us store our bags so we could see a bit more of Dublin before moving to our first B&B. We made an attempt to upload some of our photos to Flickr but our internet time ran out before we could get the batch loaded. We managed to get one single one up - one of me looking tired "La Med." We ended up forgetting the camera cord in that room at this point and that is why you are getting all these posts without any photos. We also at this point still hadn't figured out how the power converters worked... We set out after our failed photo upload attempt and hit Trinity College. Steve wanted to go on the tour, I didn't really. We took it anyway and it was actually very well done. The tour guide was an undergrad at the college and was very very humorous. The personal annecdotes she added to the history lesson made it all that much better! Turn out Trinity College was built on a river/swamp by absentee architects who had neither been to Ireland nor knew the climate. Most buildings had to be replaced at least once if not twice. The highlight of the tour is for most the Book of Kells. The book was pretty fascinating even though it was a bible. Can't say much for the scripture but the illustrations in it were amazing - especially considering the ingredients that were used for each color and from how far all around the world they had to be imported. One particular color for the book can only be obtained from a certain type of beetle and ONLY when they are pregnant (guess this means a lot of bored monks had to sort through beetles to find the special ones - what a job!). I think what Steve mostly wanted to see what the original Harp that is the basis of the symbol for Guinness. We weren't allowed to take pictures but it was stored in the upper part of the Old Library. Interesting to me is that the library was initially built on stilts to protect the manuscripts from the damp climate. Also very interesting to know is that the books in the library aren't sorted by any sort of system ressembling the Dewey Decimal, nor even by alphabet or numerically... the books at that time were sorted by breadth, width and length. So the big ones on the bottom and the teeny tiny ones on the top and unless you know those three specifications - good luck checking the right one out.

Our next stop of the day was the Guinness Storehouse. We walked here as well and made it inside just before it started pouring rain. Steve took photos of absolutely everything so prepare yourself for an "interesting" slideshow." The fellow at the front asked why we were visitng and we told him it was our honeymoon so he loaded us up with free drink tickets as you get a complimentary drink at the very top of the structure and the end of the exploration tour. The Gravity Bar is the highest point we will ever be at in Dublin. Unfortunately for me all they serve at the Gravity Bar at the top is... Guinness. The view was spectacular but was spoiled by the rain and clouds and some of the viewing points weren't visible. We brought sandwiches today but not umbrellas so we were lucky it stopped raining by the time we were done. In the interest of getting to our B&B somewhat on time we took the bus back into the city. The moving of our luggage to the new place was only moderately painful. We arrived at our new place the Autumn Leaf B&B without getting lost at all. Our new hostess suggested some places we could walk to for dinner but we decided to eat our leftover sandwiches instead and then to take a nap. The nap turned into us sleeping the whole night. We still don't seem to be adjusted to the new time.