Day 12 – Travel & Dublin (Wednesday, July 3rd)
Today was an exciting travel day! We spent the morning in Sheffield doing some last-minute shopping (a Made In Sheffield knife) and walked through the Winter Garden & Millennium Gallery. The gallery had a display commemorating 100 years of stainless steel and a great collection from John Ruskin, whom I’d never heard of.
Three us hit the road (Vanessa came to Ireland with us) and drove through the Peak District one last time on our way to the Manchester Airport. Sue found a fun way to chat with security personnel – neatly coil all your power cords & cables, put an apple in the middle of it, and put through the x-ray. Apparently wires & organic matter make them nervous. We had an exciting airport lunch, then flew Ryan Air to Dublin. I think the flight took less time than it took to wait in line to board the plane. A much quicker taxi-ride got us to our hotel in Central Dublin.
We spent the rest of the day wandering around, with Vanessa as our tour guide. The masses were out, Dublin is a city, with all the that goes with it. St Stephens Green is a nice respite from the streets. Back on the streets we headed towards parliament and some sort of protest (they have lots of protests). From a distance we could hear them chanting "What do want?" "mumble mumble" "When do want it" "Now" As we got closer, the best Sue could figure out was they wanted "Stale Crackers." We weren't sure why anyone would protest for stale crackers, or even fresh crackers, but to each their own. When we were really close, and could read their signs, it was clear that they didn't want "stale crackers" but "fair taxes." That made more sense.
After that, we headed to a pub as quickly as we could for a pint of Guinness! Dinner was 'Modern Irish' at the Boulevard Cafe where we sat in the window and watched our server sitting outside smoking and chatting with his friends, instead of serving. We went through Temple Bar to the River Liffey and walked along there until Vanessa spotted a brewpub - J.W. Sweetman - a rarity in Ireland. On our way back to the hotel we stopped in Temple Bar at one of the calmer places and listened to some music.
No pictures from today, the camera was tired and needed a rest.