Jon is amazing. Neither of us slept well on the plane over from Canada, but the excitement of being home again just cancelled out any fatigue. We weren't fagged at all (to borrow a phrase). We breezed through the airport to baggage claim and waited until the very end when our lone piece of check-through luggage finally rolled out onto the carousel. I was long-past the point of believing we would ever see it and was resigned to living on the clothes in our carry on bags when Jon spied it.

I followed him through immigration and out onto the street. He led us to the bus, checked with the driver to make sure we would end up near our hotel, and bought our tickets. We missed our stop, but it was a nice day for a six-block walk. The weather today was sunny and warm. My jacket was almost too warm in the sun, but in the shadowed shopping streets and protected lanes of St. Stephen's Green it was just perfect.

After dropping our bags at the Charles Stewart Guesthouse on Parnell Square we walked back along the route we had so recently traversed. The irish Tourism Office is always our first real stop in Dublin. We have made it a tradition to grab tour brochures and sit upstairs with hot chocolate and a scone. We booked the Giant's Causeway tour for Monday. Then we decided to just walk around Dublin.

All around Dublin.

We went up and down Grafton Street. The buskers included everything from the statues that suddenly come to life at the drop of a coin, to a man creating giant soap bubbles. A three-man jazz ensemble played accompaniament to the pedestrian traffic and around the corner a lone keyboarder picked out a tune with two fingers.

And we saw Hugh Laurie.

Jon wanted to go back to a book store we visited on our first trip to Dublin. I swear he has the city memorized because he took us right to it. We had lunch at Bewlies. We ate out on that balcony you see in the picture. It was narrow, more like sitting at a bar, but we faced the street and had a perfect view of the crowd.