To catch everyone up on last night's affairs...all we did was walk around the city a for a while, around the Temple Bar area, and basically just getting familiar with the area around where we are staying. That's about it really, we went to bed around 11:30 so we could wake up early this morning and adventure about.

Today was a lot of fun. We didn't exactly wake up as early as we intended...which we didn't mind too much (we will be here for a few more days)...10am...and headed out to the tourist information center so we could buy our hop-on/hop-off bus tickets so we could explore the city for the next few days. Also at the tourist information center we were able to buy our tickets for the GUINNESS FACTORY!!! We jumped on the next bus and were on our way. The bus drivers give live commentary tours as we go along, and the Irish are fuuuunnnny, so we had a few laughs as we rode along. Once we arrived at our first major attraction stop we were very excited to get off the bus. Since we already bought our tickets we were able to skip the Q's (a Q is the name for the "line" in Europe) and begin our tour. We learned a lot about how Guiness is brewed and the science behind it...it was all very cool. The best part however, was going to the top gravity bar and having our complimentary pint of fresh Guinness!! It was awesome...even Leigh liked it!! It was very sad to see all the people that didn't like one of the world's best tasting beers and having half and 3/4 pints poured down the drain...it would make any beer lover cry. After our beer we headed back to the ground floor and looked around the gift shop a bit, then were on our way once again.

Getting back onto the tour bus we cruised around for about another hour or so until we arrived back at the tourist office. From here we walked around for a bit more and stopped at a little side pub and ate lunch...Irish stew and Beef in Guinness. Afer lunch we headed back to the hostel for a few hours before we went out into the city to enjoy the night life. When we finally made it out, we went straight to Temple Bar (it has been open since 1840). Apparently Temple Bar is a pretty famous pub...it has live music and a beer garden. Being a famous bar, they definitely don't have famous prices....wow if you get drunk here you'll be broke by the end of the night. It was a lot of fun though...we had a few drinks each and decided to come on back to the hostel.

Since we are heading to Scotland on Thursday, we need to get train tickets up to the north of Ireland (Belfast) to catch our ferry across the Irish Sea. It turns out the the train ride will last about 2 hours so it would be too bad...except our ferry is at noon and we have to be at the ferry station 1.5 hours ahead of time (so that means we have to leave Dublin around 8am...which means we have to be at the train station at 7:45 so we have to be up and out the door by 7:15 on Thursday morning...OUCH!!) Unfortunately we have to go to the train station to book our tickets so that is one more thing we have to do tomorrow.

Tomorrow's schedule is looking pretty fun so far...we're not going to rush too much to get out the door (we're shooting for 10)...the first thing we plan on doing is going to the Dublin Zoo! It should be pretty cool. After we spend some time there...depending on how long we're there for...we are going to go to the Jameson Distillery (there's always Wednesday if not tomorrow) and then to the train station. Also we'll visit St. Patrick's Cathedral and some other touristy things. It should be nice.

If there is anything that we should take pictures of or definitely go see...please let us know...otherwise the pints of Guiness will continue to flow!! Everyone have a great night! (don't worry, we'll be home in 8 days)