Ahh, Guinness. We woke up early Saturday morning, leaving enough time to clean Melanie and Flo’s apartment and get breakfast so that we could head out to the airport. Flo had left us directions on how to take the metro to catch the “Les Cars France” to the airport- basically a shuttle. It was incredibly easy, and the last few days in Paris made us feel like we had become pros at the metro system. We got to CDG a good three hours before our flight and waited in an incredibly long line to check in. We then spent too much money on crappy food, because we hadn’t planned ahead and packed food- oh well. Where is a McDonalds in an airport when you need one?!

Our flight boarded at 3- we first all crowded onto a shuttle bus which then drove us to our plane. It was about an hour and forty minute flight to Dublin, and everything went fine. I had written down what bus to take to O’Connell Street and then how to walk to our hotel from there, all of which was also very easy. We found the Fleet Street Hotel and went to check in (it now being about 5pm, as Dublin is one hour behind Paris) only to find out that something was broken (we couldn’t understand what the H the guy said) and they had to put us in two single rooms rather than a double room. Welcome to your honeymoon, here are two twin beds on Valentine’s Day in rooms down the hall from each other! ☺ Um, AWESOME. Martin, of course, was perfectly calm about it and I laughed about the situation after getting out some much needed swearing. I got room 103, Martin took 107.

(Martin would like to point out that Staci was eager to attempt to sleep in the same bed together, and while demonstrating how easy it would be, Staci violently fell off the bed, which immediately gave Martin confirmation to sleep apart for the night).

We headed out to find some dinner. Being Valentine’s Day, most restaurants were either packed with singles listening to loud live music or barfy couples eating fancy food by candelight. We opted for a calm pub named Fitzgeralds right near our hotel and enjoyed shepherds pie & fish & chips along with a pint of Guinness and Kilkenny. Yum, yum! After dinner, we stopped at a convenience store and bought Baileys, some candy and yes, I chose a bag of chips with the flavor “Firecracker Lobster”. Who knows why I chose those ones- they were the weirdest flavor. Of course I hated them, and Martin ended up eating them all after getting a good laugh out of the fact that I chose lobster flavored chips. We relaxed in the hotel for awhile and then went back out to try to find a cinema we had heard about to see an Irish film, but couldn’t find it. Instead we figured we’d get some more beer, since that’s always a good option in Dublin.

On our way to a pub, we saw this guy push an old man violently, and since the old man was with a big group of friends, they all reacted and luckily, there were police right there. The police ran after the guy and tackled him to the ground, as he was pushing more people- for what reason, we have no idea. Sweet, police action within our first few hours in this country! ☺ We each had a pint of Guinness at a nearby pub before retreating back to our hotel room for the night. Martin even tucked me in before heading off to his own twin bed in his lonely room.

This morning we packed up all our stuff again, as the hotel staff will move our belongings into a double room when it’s ready today. We just took a walk through part of Trinity College’s campus and are now at a coffee shop called “Insomnia” enjoying coffee, muffins and wifi. Today’s plan is to just wander around, see some sights and do some shopping. Tomorrow we’ll hit up the Guinness Storehouse and hopefully the Kilmainham Gaol. Much love to all!

(actually, the internet did not work at the coffee shop, so now at 1:35, we are at a burger joint, hopefully getting internet access)