Today has been the best day so far on this tour! We started the day with a city tour with our local guide Phil. She was amazing.....so funny and she had a lot of great history and information about the city of Dublin. We saw all the sites from the bus so it was a great way to do an orientation of the city.  

After completing our city tour, it was off to Glendalough, which means Glen Between the Lakes. This was the site of an ancient monastery which was started by Saint Kevin. This area was absolutely gorgeous! We had Phil give us a tour of the area and the history of the monastery. Most of the buildings are not completely in tact, most are missing just the roof and the wall are still standing. The only building that is completely standing including it's roof is the Priests Kitchen. This building is actually not a kitchen, but a place for the priests to pray. There are lots of grave sites in the cemetery, both old and new. There is a section that contains modern graves for the local people to be buried along side the ancient graves of previous residents. It was so quiet and peaceful there! After exploring for a bit, we took the hiking path to the upper lake and if I thought I had seen beauty and serenity before, I was completely wrong. The lake was beautiful with the trees starting to bud and the green grass. There was one waterfall running already. We spent a little time here just taking in the beauty (and of course, representing NDSU!!) before heading back to the hotel that is located just next to the monastery. After a little refreshment, it was back on the bus for an afternoon of free time in Dublin.

 This afternoon, we hit the Guinness Storehouse. I thought for sure I was going to lose Kayla and not be able to get her out of there! She was in seventh heaven!! You begin the tour by standing in what would be the worlds largest pit glass (the entire center of the building is shaped like a pint glass inside). From there it was off to learn how the bear is made. After learning the hows and whey's, it was time to learn how to properly taste a Guinness. I must have passed the test, because I was on to the next few levels before finally getting to the very top, the Gravity Bar, which has 360 degree views of Dublin and the Wicklow Mountains where we had just been in the morning. We enjoyed a pint of Guinness (OK, I TRIED to enjoy a pint of Guinness, but only made it half way......but I tried!!!!) and then stopped at Arthur's for a quick lunch.  

We decided to take a little rest at the hotel before Kayla and I headed back out for a nice stroll down to the Temple Bar area. On our way back from Guinness, we had a very friendly cab driver who gave us some tips on where to go for a night out that wouldn't break the bank. He also made sure to tell us which pub NOT to go to and he was VERY adamant about it :) So off we went to check out Legends at the Arlington Hotel Temple Bar This was probably the best tip we could have gotten. This place was a blast! We had decent priced beer and awesome entertainment, how can you go wrong?? The band was great, they did a few familiar songs, including our wake up song on the bus, Galway Girl (which had Kayla practically melting on the floor!) and some instrumental music as well. During the band break, we had Irish Step Dancers, some of whom have performed with Lord of the Dance. These people were phenomenal! I got tired just watching them!! They managed to get a few people from the audience to come up and dance with them too.....which was fun to watch because it wasn't us!  
This was a most awesome day and it's now time to sign off.....tomorrow it's off to Kilkenny and Waterford......this could be a very expensive stop!!!!