I spent this weekend in Ireland and it was a blast! One of Laura's best friends, Catherine, is studying in Dublin and it was great to have someone show us around the city. We arrived in Dublin on Thursday evening and met Catherine for dinner at a delicious Moroccan restaurant. Catherine took us to Temple Bar, which is a famous area of Dublin. There is an actual pub called Temple Bar, which the area sort of grew up around. We had dessert at Catherine's favorite gelato place, which I enjoyed of course! Laura and I also went to a traditional pub that had an band playing traditional Irish music.

On Friday, we fought the wind and the rain to tour some sites. We visited Dublin Castle, which was beautiful on the inside. Underneath the modern castle some of the original city walls remain in tact, so that was neat to see. The tour was really interesting, because we got to learn a lot about the history of the city as well. We met Catherine for lunch at a little café called "Queen of Tarts" which you can imagine was very tasty. After lunch, we went to Christ Church Cathedral, which was gorgeous. I especially liked the floor tiles, which were very colorful. The crypt underneath the cathedral is the oldest structure in Dublin, so that was pretty cool. We also went to St. Patrick's Cathedral on Friday. It didn't really compare to Christ Church, but it was still beautiful. After the cathedrals, we toured the Book of Kells, which might have been my favorite part of the trip. The Books of Kells contains a decorated copy of the four gospels in Latin. The exhibit explains how the scribes copied and decorated the text so intricately. The illustrations were so beautiful…I don't even know how to describe them. Unfortunately, this was one exhibit where photography was prohibited. The tour also included the Long Room, which is the main chamber of the old library at Trinity College. It was a long, narrow, tall room with 200,000 of the college's oldest books. It was the coolest library I've ever seen!! After that tour, we went to Catherine's apartment where she cooked us some dinner.

Thank goodness it was not raining on Saturday, but it was still chilly! On Saturday morning Laura and I went to a crepe café called Lemon for brunch. I ate an apple cinnamon crepe which was delicious!! At about noon, we met Catherine for a tour of the Guinness storehouse. Not my favorite tourist attraction, but now I know all about brewing beer! The best part of the tour was the view from the top of the storehouse, which is one of the highest points in Dublin. It was a beautiful view of the city! On our way back towards the city centre, we stopped at St. Augustine's Church for a quick look inside. It was gorgeous as well, with a very intricate altar and surrounding stained glass. On Saturday afternoon, we watched part of a Trinity rugby game with Catherine and her roommates before walking around St. Stephen's Green. For dinner, we went to a cute little Italian restaurant where we got a 3 course dinner for only 15 euro. It was very yummy! On Saturday night, Laura and I just watch a movie in the hotel room, since we had to get to the airport early this morning for our flight. It was a great weekend!