Ireland Fun Times

Right now I'm in Dublin. Lots of things have happened as usual.

New Years Eve I went out to the London Transport Museum and looked at lots of sweet train things. Don't worry, I won't bore you with photos, I'll save them to show Dad when I get home. That night Esther and I were planning on going to the Thames to see the fireworks, but it started raining and there were heaps of people going, so we sat inside and watched Bill Bailey on YouTube. Hooray!

New Years Day Esther and I went to see Arsenal play!!! Yes!!! It was the best thing I've done since being away and I had the best time ever. Arsenal were playing against West Ham, a nice local London Derby, so the atmosphere was electric. Arsenal went on to win 2-0, so that made the day even better.

Photos of the Arsenal match: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24781&l=ebb22&id=544876388

The next day we left London and flew to Belfast! We got up at mega early in the morning (like 4am) and arrived so early in Befast that we picked up our hire car and drove to the Giants Causeway, which was pretty darn awesome. I've seen pictures of that place, and had aleasy wanted to go there, and I got the chance to! On the way there we went via some cool coast, including finding an old castle on a hill overlooking the ocean that we decided to walk out to. It was a great day.

Photos of the Giants Causeway: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24783&l=a94cb&id=544876388

The 3rd we went to Derry. This is the place where the 'Bloody Sunday' massacre happened that U2 wrote their song about. We looked at heaps of cool murals and went to a museum about the Bloody Sunday things that was situated right on the site that it happened on. We also got a tour of the 'Free Derry' area from a local guy, so it was all an interesting historical day.
Oh yeah, at the end of the day IT SNOWED!!! We had a sweet snowfight with some random Aussies we met at the hostel we were staying at and made a Snow Koala that Esther named 'Titface'. Yes, I know she can be weird at times :p

Photos of Derry: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24789&l=1d24e&id=544876388
Photos of Snow: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24791&l=2ba54&id=544876388

Yesterday we drove down to Dublin. On the way down there we got to stop at a church in a place called Newry which is where some of my relatives come from and got to have a look through their burial records for different things. It was good to see where my relatives come from, and now I have lots of interesting facts to tell my Mum and Granddad when I get home, as they're really into all this Family History stuff. That night Esther and I went out for dinner and had a grand old time. Hooray!

Today was spent looking around Dublin. We tried to get on a walking tour of Dublin, but missed it by 10mins, so we went into Trinity College and took a look at The Book Of Kells and some other books associated with it. There was lots of information relating to how the book came to be, so we ended up spending lots of time there. Upstairs from that is a library which is 65m long and had 200,000 books in it! It was massive. They have a deal where every book printed in the UK they are allowed to have a copy of it for free. Its pretty nuts.
Next was the Irish Museum of Decorative Arts where Alexander and I looked at heaps of old Irish war relics. It was alright, Al liked it heaps more than me and has decided to go back there tomorrow.
From there we raced across to the Guinness Factory! They had a comprehensive look at how it it made and at the end of the tour we got a free pint in their penthouse bar.

So thats me for now, I hope you're all doing well at home!