Now that Timmy and I are back from our two week Dublin vacation (we got back yesterday), you can expect to see a lot of vacation photo posts. The first six days of the trip we used our
Dublin Passes, so, we did a lot of indoor touristy stuff, so, I imagine the photos will be quite boring to most of you; however, after the first six days we did a lot of fun outdoor stuff, and I think the photos are incredible, so, hopefully those photos will be more interesting.
We left for our trip on Saturday, July 6th at 4:00 pm and arrived in Dublin on Sunday, July 7th around 5:00 am. The flight was only about seven hours, however, Dublin is six hours ahead of Chicago. You can view my post about
our flight here. Going through Irish customs was amazing; it was basically a quick look at our passport, a smile, and an "Enjoy your holiday." I was a little worried about how long it would take as when I visited Vancouver (Canada) about a decade ago, it took a couple hours to get through customs; since passports were not required for US citizens visiting Canada then, that may have been why it took so long (I imagine passports speed up the process since background checks have already been done).
Anyway, by the time we got through customs, found our luggage, collected our Dublin passes, took a bus into Dublin, and a short walk from the bus, we arrived at our hotel, The Paramount, around 7:00 am. Check-in time at our hotel wasn't until 2:00 or 3:00 pm, so, we were quite early. Before our trip I e-mailed our hotel asking if we could check in early (around noon was my estimate), and they said they couldn't guarantee it because the hotel was full and guests had until noon to check out; additionally, they wanted to be able to put us in the back of the hotel since it is quieter and we would be staying two weeks. They advised us that we could drop off our luggage, so, that is what we were planning to do. When we got to the hotel though, the desk clerk said she could give us a room at the front of the hotel, which is a bit noisier, if we didn't want to wait for the other room; she said that if at anytime in our trip we decided it was too noisy, we could move rooms, so, we took her up on the offer. They let us check in 7-8 hours early for no extra charge! The room did end up being really noisy on the weekend, however, I don't think any of the other rooms would have been that different since the hotel is in the Temple Bar area; you can view a
video of the noise in the area on a weekend here.
Originally Timmy and I were wanting to go to the GAA Leinster Hurling Finals the first day we were there, however, we were not expecting to be able to check in so early, and we didn't think to take a nap when we were able to; since we didn't sleep on the flight, we were exhausted after breakfast at
Eddie Rockets, and a visit to
Dublina, and
Christ Church Cathedral.
Eddie Rockets was okay, nothing really spectacular; the burgers were decent, not great, the milkshakes were great but how can you screw up a milkshake? Dublina didn't allow photographs, so, I don't have any. I am not really a museum fan, so, it wasn't highly interesting to me, but it was nice to learn more about Dublin's past. I love looking at elaborate churches, even though the hypocrisy of it is ridiculous, so, I enjoyed the visit to Christ Church more.
The first day we also made sure to stop at
Queen of Tarts, as it was one of the things I was most looking forward to about Dublin (a bit silly, I know); we went there several times on our trip. For lunch/supper we stopped at
DiFontaine's Pizzeria; we went there many times on our trip for the €5 slice+pop (about $6.50) as it was right around the corner and delicious. After that, Timmy and I went back to the hotel and crashed quite early.
Sorry about the excessive amount of information; I wanted to write everything down so I won't forget any details later.
Below are the photos from our first day in Dublin. You can view all the blog entries I write about our
Dublin vacation by clicking here.
Timmy after I asked him to do a happy-to-be-in-Dublin dance or pose.
Timmy standing in front of our hotel.
Photos from the pedestrian bridge connecting Dublina and Christ Church.
Photos from inside Christ Church.
I forgot to take photos of the outside of Christ Church that day since we entered it through Dublina, so, here are two photos I took a couple days later. It is so huge that not even two photos shows it all.