Visitors Go and Visitors Come

Yesterday was "change-over day" for us.  Lyn and Herb departed after a very quick week here - boy did it fly by.  Tom, Sheila, Chuck and Colleen arrived.  Jon remains with us for a few more days although we are seeing less and less of him as he wanders into Dublin by himself to meet up with some Irish friends he has made.

After they recovered a little from the trans-atlantic flight with a brief nap, we boarded the tram to give them their initial Dublin experience. They all look pretty good for having been up most of the previous night.

The first stop was Bewleys Cafe on the lovely pedestrian Grafton Street.  We had a late lunch/snack with Guinness and then wondered into the Temple Bar area to THE Temple Bar to raise a pint.

We moved to the back room to avoid the smoke on the patio near-by and met two lovely young women who were quite lively and quite drunk, but very pleasant.   One of the women (the one with the white scarf below) grabbed the nearest piece of paper (a small white shopping sack) borrowed a pen from Colleen and proceeded to draw us a complete map of Ireland while providing a running commentary on where we should go and what we should see. 

Her strongest recommendation was to go north to see the Giant's Causeway on the northernmost edge of Ireland.  We are now planning an overnight trip there, probably for Monday/Tuesday.

We walked along the river and wondered around for a while taking in the sites then returned to Temple Bar to find a restaurant. We had a terrific dinner of fish and chips, Irish stew and Guinness beef casserole while listening to authentic Irish music.  By now we are all drinking Diet Coke.

Today, Saturday, we sent the four of them into Dublin to do the Hop-On-Hop-Off tour with lots of our recommendations for places to go and where to eat.  Larry and I had a relaxing day at home where I caught up on the blogging, worked on finding a B&B in the Northern Ireland, did some laundry and prepared to cook us all a nice dinner tonight.  It felt good to not be touring for a day.