Our first stop in Dublin was the Guiness Brewery. We had 3 hours to full in there and the time went so fast. We lunched on Guiness irish stew, and started our tour thru the factory, all very interesting (ho hum) . As we had recently visited the Speights Brewery in Dunedin the process stuff was all very familiar. The factory is huge, it is set on 26 acres of land. On top of that, the Guiness Family built and gifted a number of large old apartments for the homeless that are in the adjacent property. Seems they made a significant contribution to the establishment of Dublin. The building that the tour is in is dwarfed in comparison to the factory. We ended on the 7th floor with the glass windows looking out over Dublin with a free Guiness in our hands. The key for drinking Guiness (well for me anyway) is a dash of Blackcurrant. Interesting really, as A) I don't like beer and b) I don't like Blackcurrant. But put them both together and I quite enjoy it. Without the blackcurrant its like a thick black…errr….tarry cough Mixture. The other thing to learn about drinking Guiness, is that you must wait till it settles after being poured, and honestly that is about 3 -5 minutes. We learnt that skill early in our Ireland travels.

We arrived at our hotel around 3pm and everyone on the bus was looking forward to the fact that this was a two night stop with plenty of free time. We are all feeling pretty tired, running out of clean clothes and travel weary. However, the majority of us were booked on one of the optional excursions to an Irish Cabaret and dinner. So, you rest for an hour, coffee up and off we go again. We certainly weren't disappointed. The show consisted of a 3 course meal in another super old building, we were entertained with dancing groups, (riverdance style, )musicians and best of all an hilarious comedian with an old authentic irish accent. He was so good we ended up buying his DVD and CD. Let me share one of his jokes with you J
"Paddys brother had died and paddy went to the funeral home to see him the day before the funeral. He was disappointed as the Murphy, the funeral director had put his brother in a black suit and his brother never wore a black suit. So Paddy asked the Murphy if he could change him into a coloured suit as he knew his brother would not want to be buried looking like that. Murphy told him he could do that, but it would cost him a bit more. Paddy agreed. The next day when Paddy came to check his brother, he was delighted to see him in a very expensive looking blue suit, with a nice crisp shirt and tie. Paddy was pleased and asked the Undertaker how much he owed him. The undertaker told him that he owed him nothing, he said that just after Paddy had been in the day before, he had another body arrive in, and that family wanted their loved person to be buried in a black suit. So it was simple… he just changed the heads ! J love it.

This comedian was hilarious and it was well noted that whilst he had the audience in stiches continually he didn't need to swear once to be funny. Quite refreshing for comedy.

The next day in Dublin we still had an early start as we were being taken out on a one hour city tour. It was a good tour and getting ahead of the morning traffic meant we got a good look around. We then went back to the hotel and those who were doing the Optional Glendalough excursion (which was us) headed off again after a 15 minute break. We travelled out (well slept) on a 30 minute ride out of the city and wound our way up a mountain until we came to Glendalough. This was a monastery that was founded in around 700AD. Very fascinating, the graveyard, the old churches and the stories we were told we all quite invigorating. The monastery was often attacked by Vikings, but the old massive stone churches and watch towers survived more than one attack.
Of particular interest here, was the age that the people lived to in that area. One headstone we photographed showed a man who was 102, and apparently there were some up to 120. It was suggested it had something to celibate lifestyle and the fresh air and water. It is said that the water in this old bowl carved into the rock, when put onto your face, made you appear 10 years younger. I did it 2 times so hopefully I'm looking really good now. You did have to be pretty focussed to spread it on your face as it was green and smelt like &*##. J

We got back into Dublin early afternoon and whilst the afternoon was free time, in which we decided we might just lie down and do nothing, we somehow found we were running out of time and had to do a frantic rush to collect our laundry, repack our bags and get ready for our Dublin Highlight.

14 of us had decided to go to "Riverdance", which we were lucky to get tickets for. What a perfect place to see this show, in its hometown on their 20th Anniversary celebration. Fantastic. Starting with our pub dinner followed by this show in an incredible theatre, the music, lighting, costumes and story were spell binding and invigorating. The room was pumping at the end with the fast and furious dancing. I have no idea how they can move their legs so fast, and it appears their knees are double jointed. David was basically coming along seeing I'd brought him a ticket. He has never been much of a theatre type person but he admits he totally enjoyed it. As the taxi wasn't booked for another hour after the show, we finished the night with a night cap and we all bonded together and evaluated the show. As someone said, we needed to debrief and come back down from our high adrenalin rush from such an incredible experience.

Im now sitting on the fast ferry out of Dublin heading now to Chester, then onto Liverpool. How typical, it's the first day we have woken to beautiful sunshine since we have been in Ireland and we are leaving! Going to get into the Beatles mania tonight J but might catch a few zzz'z while we can, after getting up at 5.30am this morning….