Day 17, Thursday August 6th, Dublin, Ireland

After being kept up most of the night by the snoring lady in the middle of the room, I got up a little early to make some noise. I was so glad I still had my ear plugs from the F1 race, plus I wrapped the comforter around my head, lol. Actually, I had to be ready for the tour to County Wicklow by 8:45, so I had to get up early to eat breakfast and get ready. Same breakfast of toast, cereal, coffee and juice, but it's free so what the hay. It was an absolutely beautiful day here, hardly any rain at all and the driver said it had been the wettest summer on record, but I must have worked my sunshine magic again!

Me and 13 other tourists were picked up at various hostels, in a big van, the driver's name was Tom (good Irish name). I believe that the females in my whole family are from Scotland and the males are from Ireland... it's amazing the faces I've seen that look like people I'm related to. Tom was one of them. Any ways, we headed for the hills, it was an 8 hour tour with an hour break for lunch. We stopped on an overlook area, we could see the entire city (all 1 million people of it) and the channel between Ireland and Great Brittan. The green color of the hills was amazing and I don't think my camera did it any justice, just like in other places. We made several little stops during the day, a lake; they are super dark here because of the marsh lands that wash the peet moss into the lake. We stopped at a lake called, Guinness Lake (probably a nick name), it was owned by one of the Guinness family heirs and if you look really close, the water is nearly black and the sand on the banks looks like the foam on the top of a pint of Guinness. It's cool! I hope the pictures post, I have my new Guinness shirt of too! During the drive, we drove through the are where Braveheart was filmed, even thought it was placed in Scotland. We also drove over the little bridge where the 2 main characters from the movie P.S. I love you met for the 1st time. It really was more pretty then even the movie showed. We also stopped to see a waterfall and an area that the locals used to be able to cut out the marsh, make it into bricks and use it to fuel a fire. There are only a few area's they let anyone do this still, but traces of it are all over. After lunch, our last stop was at a village that used to house monks. It was an area that had vikings raid it frequently, but is the only place that the church is still standing today, because they used stones for the roof. We got to walk along a path that went into the forest and again, the colors were breathtaking! The end of the path was a lake area that was also in Braveheart. It was all magnificent and I really wish I had more time to explore Ireland, maybe to see the West Coast... oh that would be awesome. Someday! And that is a threat! lol

I find it funny with these trips that the drivers pick you up on the top of the hill, but drop you off at the bottom. So I walked back to the hostel and just chilled out. I had nothing else to do in the city, other then participate in a Pub Crawl! However, I was told by several people before I left, "do not get drunk and hang out with strangers" and it was only inevitable that the Pub Crawl would be exactly that! So I decided not to do one, darn. So, I went to the little store and bought a few things to eat for dinner instead.