Day 2: Dublin

We landed at Heathrow at 6.30 this morning and made it onto our flight to Dublin almost without incident – for a minute there we thought we had lost Grant, but he was more organised than we thought and was already on the flight!

A quick bus transfer into the city and we were at our youth hostel Kinlay House by 11.30am.  They had our rooms ready which was lovely and meant that we could change quickly and freshen up a little before we went to Toscana, a little Italian restaurant for a hearty meal (more than any of us could eat, but very, very tasty). 

At about 2.30 we hopped onto our ‘hop on hop off’ bus tour of the city, which is a great way to see the sites quickly and comfortably, and to keep the kids busy!  Our trip included a quick detour off the bus to see James Joyce’s house so Mr Swan’s English students could take photos of it.  I am surprised that Mr Swan didn’t set a reading of Ulysses as a part of their trip homework!

We returned to the hostel at 4.30pm which gave us time for showers (deliciously hot, but the tiny size of the shower alcoves and the resulting lack of modesty is proving to be a challenging  experience for all of us!) and a chance to unwind.  We have just taken the students out for a light meal; McDonalds I am ashamed to admit, but convenience is necessary when you haven’t slept for over 30 hours, and we didn’t need another hearty meal after our Italian feast.

So now it is 8.18pm and I think I am the only one still up!  I did tell the kids they absolutely, categorically were not allowed to go to bed until 8.30pm, but I think they have all disobeyed me…  Doesn’t bode well for the rest of the trip, now does it?