Day 5

Three days up all at once, can you believe it? I'm in Dublin now and the room actually has a phone through which I've hijacked some sort of internet connection. I fear I will end up being charged for this but my internet adventures have been so insane here that I don't care -- at Ashford Castle they had some terrible Web TV thing that didn't really work so Cindy unplugged the internet jack from the tv and plugged it into my computer... then in Belfast I was actually emailing from some sort of internet phone booth -- and in Dromore I had to ask the host of our b&b to use her personal computer. At any rate, it took me a while to get the entries up. I'd put up more pictures but I might be being charged per minute here and I don't want to try to upload them all on dialup... sorry!

Anyway! We left Sylvan Hill House this morning -- the hosts were wonderful though I think they thought we were freaks. Within about five minutes of arrival (with all our luggage drama) Marianne started asking them about the sheep colors which turned out to relate to their mating. So we walk in with enough luggage for a two-month stay for one night and start talking about sheep mating. Excellent. Anyway from there we attempted to drvive to Newgrange tomb -- but when we got to the site they said you have to come in through the visitor's center, wait for a shuttle which will take you back here -- and the visitor's center is 20 minutes away and the shuttles leave every half-hour. That sounded completely illogical like many other things in Ireland, and a pain in the ass so we skipped Newgrange, though Marianne did jump out and try to take a picture of Knowles Tomb and got yelled at to leave and go with the tour group. Sigh.

Anyway -- we then went to the Hill of Tara which was FREEZING cold but pretty. Lots of sheep you could walk right up to which meant an obstacle course of sheep dung; I felt very far away from LA, I'll tell you that. Anyway from there we headed to Dublin where we arrived at Grafton Guest House which is fantastic so far! And it's in a great location, we're right in the middle of everything - Temple Bar, St. Stephen's Green, Grafton Street, Trinity College. We walked all around and did some shopping. We went to dinner at a cafe and then to see Bloody Sunday Inquiry at the Abbey Theater as part of the Dublin Theater Festival. As a woman with a B.A. in Theater I have to say what a waste of a stage. If you want to know why, I can tell you in person - too much to try to describe here, but while informative, its dramatic value was definitely questionable. Anyway we're back in the room now, getting ready for bed -- it's weird to think it's only 3:30 PM in LA.

Tomorrow we're seeing the Book of Kells (are you excited, Asa?) and Trinity College and more of Dublin. Not exactly sure when the next upload will be cause I don't want to spend ALL my time hunting down internet connections! So hope these few entries will be entertaining enough for a day or two... Thanks for all your comments, btw, I love them! Miss you all...