Rainy Days...

Yup...we're in Dublin. Last time I was here we had a beautiful week full of sunshine. It only sprinkled once. This time around I'm getting the true Irish experience. It's been raining pretty much all day. We checked into our hostel yesterday after a mere 20 hour trip from Tel Aviv (nothing compared to the 40 hour trip from Pittsburgh to Cairo). The only frustrating part of the trip was passport control in Dublin. There was a group ahead of us without the authorization to enter the country. Unfortunately, they were quite adamant about getting in and were spread out to all of the immigration windows. This meant that the rest of us stood in line for a very, very, very long time waiting for an immigration officer to become available. Once we finally made it through, we collected our bags and took a bus to our hostel. Last night was spent enjoying the Temple Bar area. Today we ventured forth into the rest of the city, stopping briefly at the Guinness Storehouse (no tour this time), a couple of cathedrals (St. Patrick's and Christchurch), and Dublin castle. We spent some time at Trinity College where we saw the Book of Kells, which was really neat! (Although, it's only from 800 A.D.- barely 1200 years ago- bah!) We've joked that seeing the ancient ruins in Cairo and Israel have given "old" a new meaning! We ate lunch as we strolled through St. Stephen's Green before coming back to the hostel to change rooms (our beds from last night had already been reserved for tonight).