Waking up in the Emerald Isle

I was feeling a bit ominous as the jumbo slowly lined up with Dublin runway.  It was a gloomy day outside and the on-board video camera was wet with rain.  It had bee 17 years since I had been in Ireland and seemed ironic as it rained the day I left and here 17 years later was still raining on my return.
The airport was quiet compared with the rush at Dubai and it felt good to stretch my legs after the long 8 hour flight.  Sharon was excited as finally her dream was becoming a reality. This has been planned for so long now we both wondered if it was ever going to become reality, yet here we were.

The customs officer smiled as he stamped my Australian passport and retorted to Sharon "he can stay as Long as he likes but you will have to go" and he gave her 90 days.  Long enough in my book"" I laughed out loud.  Well we will just see about that came the reply.

We got upgraded to a diesel Ford Mondeo at Hertz and made our way into Dublin City.  It began to sleet as we entered the city and Sharon was amazed as she had never seen sleet before.  Sleet is like liquid ice which bounces off your windscreen a little like hail just not as hard

To say Dublin is an easy place to navigate would be a miscarriage of justice.  The map clearly identified the street names however this did not line up with the street signs which were difficult to read at best. Most are located high up on intersections of buildings and not only small to read but very distorted with age.  Ï dont understand why they have to write everything in both Irish and English Sharon said in frustration after we had navigated Dublin for the third time trying to locate our accommodation.  At this point I was wishing I had spent the extra couple of euros for a GPS.

When we Finlay located Stauntons on the green there was a parking attendant clamping a tourist car out the front.  The lady at Stauntons was kind enough and organised our parking and we were led into a very comfy little room with double bed and en suite.  From here we purchased tickets and got the hop on hop off bus around town.

Dublin is quite an amazing city as it has so much history.  Over a thousand years old and with ancient churches and monuments on just about every street Sharon thought all her Christmases had come at once.

We hopped off the bus at the Guinness factory to do the tour.  It is a really old buiding and you have to view over several levels until you reach the gravity bar on the top floor and with a 360 degree view of Dublin you get a free pint of Guinness to ponder.

After the Guinness factory we hopped on the bus again and went to O'Connell St where we disembarked and walked in the Rain to see the famous Post office where the Irish rebellion began back in 1915. We huddled in the rain under the huge structure along with everyone else as it literally bucketed down.  Later we walked through st Stephen's green and Sharon got some photos of a huge swan with a magnificent rainbow in the background.

Back at the hotel we got out of our wet clothes and I ran a bath for Sharon and we got ourselves organised.  we were both exhausted by this stage and after a glass of wine I crashed and slept straight for 8 hrs which I have not been able to do for a long time.
Ahh Dublin,   off to a good start.