We started this morning off bright and early at 9:30 am. That doesn't seem that early, however, we were all experiencing a severe lack of sleep and some pretty bad jet lag.
We started the day off by going on a walking tour of Dublin which was pretty interesting. We went to a few different landmarks, but my favorite was a courtyard next to Dublin castle. It had these huge angel statues that were all painted differently. Apparently different exhibits come through the courtyard on a regular basis, so our tour guide didn't know the significance of them, but they were still very intriguing.
We had time to eat lunch on our own, so a large part of my group went to Beshoff's for lunch. It is an Irish "fast food" place that has fish and chips. I had a fish sandwich and chips, which was pretty delicious. Apparently in Ireland it is customary to serve tomato, lettuce, onion, and cucumber on sandwiches. I love cucumbers, so this is fine by me!
Afterwards we had a lecture about the Celtic Tiger, which is the nickname for the Irish economy during the 90's and after. It was doing really well, and they had one of the best economies in the world until it all of a sudden fell in the past few years (I don't remember the exact year).
We had a free night after the lecture so a few girls and I went to the main shopping district in London for a few hours. I didn't end up buying much besides a few postcards. Then we met up with some of the boys at a local pub, and we went to two pubs. The pubs were really cool. We met an Irish guy named Matt at the first bar who was into professional darts and worked for an aircraft engineering company. At the second bar, named Kate's Cottage(hey! that's my name!) there were a bunch of Irish people playing Irish folk songs. They weren't a band or anything, they were just a group of people who brought instruments to the bar to entertain everyone. It was really cool, and they even through some Beatles in for us (the Americans) and the entire bar sang along. It was a really good time, and I drank my first Guiness (yay!) I also didn't get charged for it (double yay!).
Everything here is completely expensive, especially after you consider that a Euro = $1.40. For example, the average pint of beer = 4.5 Euro, and the fish sandwich and chips that I bought = 7 Euro. I think that's ridiculously insane.
Tomrrow is an exciting day. In the morning we are touring an old Irish jail (spelled "gaol" in Ireland), and then we are having guest speakers that are gypsies. Afterwards, we are going on a group tour of the Guinness factory. It should be quite an eventful day!
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