~The Chapman Family~: Dublin

We arrived with our group in Dublin at around 3pm Thursday afternoon. To our surprise we got our own private room at the hostel we were staying at. Barry, our leader, took us on a walking tour of part of the city and then to the tourist center. Shortly after we grabbed a crappy bite to eat out of our backpacks and headed over to "The Teachers Club" to listen to some story tellers. We heard Bat burns, who is a famous storyteller. He was GREAT!
The next day we got on the "Hop on, hop off" bus with Bob, one of the teachers, and three of our classmates (Vanessa, Jenna and Alex). We first headed to the museum. It was wonderful. We were not allowed to take pictures in the museum...bummer, but, it was still very cool to see all the artifacts.

After the museum we took the bus over to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was beautiful! Sadly there was a fee to enter the cathedral, and we did not want to have to pay for it, so we just enjoyed the courtyard.

To end the day we headed off to the Guinness factory for a tour...and a pint. This was one of the main highlights of our trip into Dublin. The factory was HUGE and the atmosphere made it very entertaining. We learned a lot about how the Guinness is made and all the passion that goes into making it. We thought of Brian when learning about the brewing of the beer and thought he could use the info for when he brews his next homemade batch. Once we got to the top we handed the bartender our ticket stubs and he gave us a 'free' pint. It was great! Very tasty, nothing like it tastes in the states. After our pint we headed home for some dinner at "Eddie Rockets" (Very American, your typical 5 N' Diner) and called it an early night.

Tommy took this photo at the Sky Bar. It is the top floor of the Guinness factory. All the walls of the top floor are glass and you have a beautiful 360 degree view of Dublin. This quote was on one of the walls.

The next day we woke up early, had breakfast, and then headed out again with Vanessa and Jenna. We first stopped at Trinity College. The landscape and architecture was incredible. We took as many pictures as we could, but because so many people were there it was hard to get a picture without somebody in it.

After Trinity we headed for Dublin Castle and enjoyed the fine architecture and relished in the fact that we were in the exact same place where Liam Neeson was when they filmed, "Michael Collins". The day before our trip to Dublin we watched the movie and we were excited to see all the places in the movie. Not only that, but the movie was very inspiring and it gave us more of an appreciation for what Dublin stands for.