The day started out with a trip on Dublin Bus to the City Centre. From there, we took a bus tour of the city, visiting about twenty points of interest, including Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and the Guiness warehouse. It was quite cold outside, and there were patches of rain, sleet, and snow. During one of the stops on the tour, we went into this little coffee shop and had some tea and hot chocolate. I had wildberry tea with a little cream and sugar; it was excellent! We didn’t have the opportunity to get off at many of the stops on the tour because it got dark quickly. Seeing the City from the bus was a great experience nonetheless.
On the way back to the hotel, we hopped on the wrong bus. I was under the impression that we needed to take the 41, (and we did), but apparently the 41c is not the same. We ended up having to get off that bus and wait for the 41 to come back to pick us up.
I hadn’t been able to take any photographs because the battery cover for my camera wasn’t on. I usually have the battery grip installed, but the camera wouldn’t fit in the bag with the grip on it. However, I couldn’t find the battery cover before I left home. Once back at the hotel, I realised where I left the cover. There is a little slot on the battery grip for the cover. On the Canon website, there is a little blurb that essentially states that the slot is there so one will not forget the location of or misplace the battery cover. Uh-huh.
Not thinking that it was New Year’s Eve and that most restaurants would be closed, we were relegated to eating at this Chinese place in Swords. It was mediocre, and stupidly expensive, but it filled the hole. One thing worth mentioning is that I ordered a Thai roll for a starter, and that it was not like any roll I’d ever had. Instead of having the usual myriad vegetables wrapped up in wanton paper and fried, it was a gigantic prawn crammed into the wanton paper. It was not enjoyable.
With dinner out of the way, the real fun started. We went up the street to a pub called The Cock Room, but it was very busy so we continued walking. We ended up at this pub–not sure of the name–and had a few drinks to bring in the new decade. They had the strongest margaritas known to man, and the nastiest tequila imaginable. I also had a few sips of a Guinness before I decided that there was just no way. We met some interesting fellas there, who told us lots of things about life in Ireland. After that pub closed at around 01:30, we went with them down the street with them to a club. We didn’t end up leaving that club until around 04:30, and we decided we would walk back to the hotel. It wasn’t that bad of a walk, and the streets were bad so there weren’t many cabs available anyway. Again with the crazy Irish weather, the sky opened up and rained vanilla Dippin’ Dots on us. It was this strange psuedo-snow that I had never seen before. Got to sleep around 06:30, and thus ended New Year’s Eve and started 01 January 2010.
