Trip Report - Finally

Because we have been home for almost a week and I have yet to report on the rest of our trip, I thought I better get something on here before the news is any older. I'm not going to give a play-by-play (I know you are all thinking "Phew!") but here are a few highlights:

Dublin really was amazing. If you ever get a chance to go, do it. It was cold and cloudy most of the time, and it rained quite a bit, and the wind never did stop blowing, but in spite of all that it was beautiful and we had a great time. Phil loved eating in the pubs and I loved hitting all of the little shops. The history and the architecture was amazing. Here are a couple of pictures from Dublin:

Notice the shops that Phil was most interested in.

His first stop really was the butcher shop and his second was a bakery. That's Phil! Outside at Trinity college - it's been there since the 1500's.
As I mentioned in my last entry, pictures don't do Dublin justice. This building had a sign on the front that said Dublin Hospital. It was one of my favorite old buildings.

This is the 12-year-old boy coming out of Phil. We ate at this sandwich shop mostly because Phil and Norm thought it would be funny to turn in a meal receipt to BYU from a place called nude. You would never guess that the whole reason for the trip was so that they could present their research at an academic conference.

Malahide Castle - built in the 1100's.

In spite of the complete misery that we experienced in getting to the University when we arrived in town, my cheapness won out and we ended up taking a bus back to the airport instead of a cab. It was raining and I think that Phil wanted to strangle me by the time we got there, but he eventually got over the irritation. Good thing we saved a few bucks on the airport trip, because after thinking that Ireland was expensive, once we arrived in Paris we quickly realized what expensive really was.

I'm going to have to finish this trip report tomorrow because I am falling asleep as I sit at the computer. Tomorrow's report will be all about PARIS!!!!