Al and Kathy Visit!

This weekend we had two friends from NYC come and visit. Al and Kathy flew in on Thursday morning and stayed through the weekend. I think it was only 2 or 3 hours before we were sampling Ireland's infamous Guinness.

Getting off the plane after a red-eye flight to Ireland usually takes a shower and a cup of coffee to recover from. Al and Kathy were lucky to have slept well on the plane, so they just needed the shower each before hitting the pubs!

We walked through St. Stephens Green and fed the ducks on our way up to Grafton Street. It's fun to walk around through all the people and neat shops up there in spite of the heavy tourist feel. I'm glad we stopped to feed the ducks. It's something I really like.

We made our way up to Temple Bar area and stopped in for another couple pints in the famed Temple Bar itself. It’s one of the most well known pubs in Dublin… they even named an area of Dublin after it!

Pubs sure are friendly in Ireland. Neil, our bartender, taught us how to balance a pint on it's edge using a match stick. He even offered us some snuff we later found out he picked up from a couple other patrons 20 minutes earlier. Funny place I guess!

After Temple Bar, we walked up to the River Liffey and took some pictures before making our way home.

Karen met us after she got out of work and we headed down to the Canal for dinner. We had reservations on the only river boat restaurant in Dublin, La Peniche. Our house is right on the Grand Canal and the river boat docks about 150m east of our back gate.

They sail every Thursday night and try to go 2 locks east or west. The food was GREAT and it was really cool going through the locks. Not cheap, but worth the expense.

Our cruise was actually boarded at the Leeson Street lock by an inebriated local on his way to a party someplace further up in City West. He was walking with another buddy with a case of Portuguese beer (?) and jumped on board for a minute. They wouldn’t serve him a drink on board though, so he promptly jump off.

It’s so nice to show our new home and city to good friends!