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Well, I apparently picked a good time to come to Dublin. With the exception of a <15 minute shower on Saturday afternoon, the weather has been nothing but spectacular. I currently doubt the common complaint here that it rains too much, but I’m sure that might change during the week.

Anyway, my plan to take a 2:15AM flight out of Delhi to London and then Dublin worked out, as I ended up sleeping almost the whole flight. I rolled into my flat around noon and set out shortly after to find some food. I ended up at a local Spar, purchasing a chicken pesto sandwich that I ended up eating at St. Steven’s Green:

From Dublin

From Dublin

I then made my way up Grafton Street and over to Trinity College, where I saw the Book of Kells. Although the book itself is impressive and historically significant, I was more impressed with the Long Room – a huge room filled with around 200,000 of the university’s oldest books. It reminded me that if I ever have my own house, one room would be floor to ceiling full of books.

Walking through Trinity College as fun, since students were lying in the sun and teams were playing cricket and rugby. It was the first time I’ve seen rugby in person and it is intense:

From Dublin

I wandered around a bit more before relaxing at the flat and then meeting up with Mariya at a cafe and then dinner at a Cuban restaurant called ‘Havana.’ My first non-Indian meal in two weeks! Delicious!

Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. The only annoyance was that the nearby DART station which Mariya and I would have used to head to Howth was closed today for repairs, meaning we had to take a 30 minute detour to a station further up the line that was running. Since it was sunny, it appeared everyone else had the same idea of heading to Howth to escape the city and enjoy the ocean breeze. We ended up walking quite a distance uphill to get a view of the Bailey Lighthouse:

From Howth

The view was totally worth it:

From Howth

After so much walking, we deserved a delicious fish ‘n chips meal, which was eaten while we sat on the grass and enjoyed the weather:

From Howth

Back in Dublin, we met up with other coworkers and ate Vietnamese food for dinner. Ended up spending 15 euros on pho. I’m still having trouble accepting the cost of living here. Madness.

One thing that’s nice about Dublin and this part of the world is that at this time of the year, the sun doesn’t set until late. We were heading back to the flat around 10pm and it was only then getting dark. It’s really awesome to have dinner at 9pm and still have light outside. Now on the other hand, later in the year it will get dark at 4pm, so that’s not so great.

Pictures from Dublin and Howth are up on Picasa. Time to rest and prepare for a long week of work.