Dublin Round 2

Daf and I boarded the ferry in Holyhead to head for Dublin on Thursday; we were both really excited for a holiday. We arrived in Dublin Port and got on a bus to head into the city centre, only the bus didn't take us as far as we thought it would, and in an area I wasn't familiar with. We started wandering aimlessly using the tourist map the bus driver gave us. We found Connolly Street, and then I knew where to go. After about an hour and a half of carrying our luggage and walking the streets of Dublin we found Janet's house! I was excited that I could remember the way. We dropped our things, had a glass of water, and headed out to find food. We went to The Bleeding Horse Pub, one of the originals in Dublin for a late lunch. We then headed towards St. Stephen's Green. We wandered around the park, and I was taking too many pictures of ducks (as usual). End of the day Janet came home and wasn't feeling well. Everyone had an early night. Daf and I set out the next morning to see the West side of Dublin including Manning Bakery on Thomas St (ironic because my grandfather's name is Thomas Manning) took sandwiches from the bakery to have lunch in Phoenix Park, past the Guinness factory, Jameson Distillery, Smithfield (new village in Dublin), the oldest cobblestone road in Dublin, the old "Black Church" and then to the pub to watch the Heineken Cup (Rugby) and catch some traditional Irish folk music. Saturday we spent the morning in the National Museum (Daf's first time at a museum and he really enjoyed it!!!), and then went to the Bleeding Horse again for lunch and to watch more of the Heineken Cup and the Grand National (horse races, my first time to watch). The day before Daf and I had both picked random Horse's names (Hello Bud and Joe Lively) out of the paper and his got 5th and mine finish in the top 10…not bad. We also visited Dublin Castle and Grafton Street before calling it a day. Sunday was a lazy day. We headed out to Dundrum just outside the city, had a bit of a walk around, found an HMV and I found Princess Bride on DVD for really cheap, so I bought it! Bingo, cheap plans for the evening. We, and by we, I mean Daf cooked, I supervised, made a nice curry at Janet's (we really did a lot of cooking, you know young kids on a budget, gotta make it work) and watched The Princess Bride. Monday was our day to head back to Wales. So we cleaned up the house, played some cards, had some lunch and headed to the ferry. But this is the best part of the whole trip…or luckiest (Daf says it was a miracle). We set out for the ferry two and a half hours early for the ferry, giving us time to walk across town to the shuttle and have time to check in and what not. Well, we got to the shuttle stop and asked one of the bus drivers to ensure we would be getting on the right bus. He said to take any of the 53 busses. We get on the 53A bus and the driver says we should be on the 53B bus. Dangit! The driver is talking to Daf and apparently he says he will go a little out of his way to get us closer to the port. Already we are thinking, "this is fantastic!" Then Daf asks how we should make it the rest of the way, but the driver insists we will not make it if we walk and will get ripped off by a taxi driver. The bus driver takes us a mile and a half off his route and drops us at the front door of our ferry station!!!! It was absolutely mental!!! And to top it all off, he only charged us one bus fare instead of 2!!!! What a day! Well, we made it like an hour before our ferry departed and ended up sitting around playing cards and reminiscing about how crazy that experience was!