Michelle had a root canal right before we left that got infected and caused her whole face to swell. Luckily it has gotten much better, and hopefully we’ll have no issues over here. We arrived in Dublin 7am local time on Friday. It was COLD (in the 40′s and windy). Our room wasn’t ready for early check-in so we had to venture out into the city.

First we visited Trinity College, a prestigious university founded in 1592, and took a student-led tour. The tour included the library which housed thousands of ancient books with many on display. The highlight was the Book of Kells, a collection of the gospels created by Celtic monks around the year 800. The pages were written on vellum (calf skin) and were very ornate and well preserved (we weren’t allowed to take pictures of it).

Then we went to the National Museum of Archaeology. It had lots of cool exhibits with celtic and viking artifacts. By far the coolest were the four human bodies recovered from bogs (wetlands). Although they dated back as early as 300 BC, they were preserved by the lack of oxygen in bog. You could see skin, hair, and nails (see the gallery).

By early afternoon the jet lag hit us HARD and we were both like walking zombies. We checked in to our hotel and took naps. We ate dinner at Captain America’s, an American food restaurant founded in Dublin in December 1971 (the month Joe was born). The place was decorated with comic book stuff which was perfect for us two geeks.

We started out day 2, which was warmer (but still chilly) by finishing up the National Museum of Archaeology. We could have spent an entire day there, it was HUGE. We hopped on a hop-on hop-off double decker, open top bus which stops at several attractions. We stopped first at Christ Church Cathedral, which was founded around 1028 AD. It was full of tombs. The most interesting thing to us was a mummified cat and rat that were found in a pipe organ. The cat was probably chasing the rat and they both got caught in the pipe. You can still see the whiskers on the cat (see the gallery).

Our next stop was Kilmainham Gaol prison. The prison was built in 1796 and operated until 1923. Prisoners included many women and children (children aged 8 and older could be imprisoned there for something like stealing bread). The prison is a national monument for the Irish people because of the political prisoners held and executed here during their long struggle for independence from Great Britain.

Our last stop was at the Old Jameson’s Distillery, where we tasted some samples of Irish whiskey. We capped the night off with a dinner at Dublin’s oldest pub (dates back to 1198) that included Irish history and folklore presented by a story teller and traditional Irish music. Then it was back to the hotel room to pack up for hitting the road tomorrow (or actually today since it’s after midnight here now). Forecast calls for 3 days of rain, but it’s still Ireland so we aren’t going to complain!