Lubbin` Dublin

9/8 5pm Arrival in Dublin
We arrived in Dublin and headed to our hotel by bus since we decided to cut back on expenses. The hotel we stayed at I managed to find on Expedia...so I didn`t expect much. Well...for 140 bucks a nite we managed to stay at a 5 star hotel in a beautiful suite with all the trimmings including breakfast. Radisson Blu St. Helens was a lodge that was refurbished into a hotel(around 150 yrs old.) We were very happy with the service, room and all the trimmings which helped to make up for the nightmare flight from hell...
9/9 Sightseeing in Dublin
Started out the day with some exercise at a beautiful park(Stephens Park) in the city for Zach. You can see in the pics that Zach got a little close for comfort to one of the swans at the park(see above pics). Afterwards, we walked along the beautiful shopping streets and then headed over to Trinity College. For those who don`t know, Trinity college was founded in 1592 and is the oldest university in Ireland. It also houses the Book of Kells, an important manuscript for Catholics and Christians alike - it contains the four gospels of the New Testament and dates back to the year 800...
We made an executive decision to walk to the Guinness Beer Storehouse and exhibit...45 minutes later we finally arrived. The timing was good, they were celebrating their 250th anniversary...wish I could say that I love a good pint `o Guinness, but I don`t so it wasn`t all that impressive for us. The way that beer is made is fascinating and the fact that kept insisting throughout that the beer`s water came from clean mountain streams did raise some suspicions...
Hung out in the downtown area waiting for an 8pm reservation at Chapter One, a restaurant I found out about thru a magazine we read in Atlanta...
The food was good and the service was iffy-still it was nice to know that decent fine dining was to be had in Dublin....
9/10
Happy Birthday Mom and Kenchan
Chilled at the lovely gardens at our hotel until our rental car(Volkswagen Polo) arrived.
After dealing with all the rigmarole with getting the paperwork together, we were on our way to Waterford(home of the eponymous crystal). Why Waterford? Well the genesis of this idea came from a conversation with our server the nite before at the Chapter One restaurant. Just so happens that she was from Waterford and recommended that we stay at the Waterford Castle...so we said sure....why not!