Malahide

This past Saturday Brian and I joined the girls for another train-trip to a town in northern County Dublin - an area I still haven't left from since arriving in the beginning of September.  The destination was Malahide, the purpose was to see our first castle.  

This is Malahide castle

And this is the group reacting to the sight of it.

The tour itself took about as long as it will take you to finish reading this post, and was a bit unorthodox.  It consisted of you and a random group of tourists walking yourself about the 8 room "house" as a voice recording continuously told you random facts.  The biggest letdown was the forbiddance of any flash photography, sorry guys.  You'll just have to take my word for it when I say they had some pretty intricately carved mantles back in the 1600's. 

Compensation for the lackluster castle was provided by the beautifully green, wide open area surrounding it.  There were hundreds of yards of untouched field capable of inspiring even the manliest of men to frolic.  Unfortunately though, Bryan has a bad knee that is aggravated by damp weather, so we were forced to settle for a jubilant stole in order to not make him feel left out.

Although our wanderings started out aimless, we ended up at a really amazing playground complete with a 40 foot slide, a really tall jungle gym that Jeanine and I conquered (seen below), and a huge tandem zip-line that made the entire trip seem worthwhile.

We also met an American couple from the East coast who just moved to Dublin no more than a week ago.  It seems the girls may be baby-sitting for them in the future - cha-ching! - but I'll let them tell you all about it.  Until next time, I'm Adam Kepa and you've just been updated.

  

Last weekend before this weekend

It's a slow Friday morning here.  Derrick and Brian are still asleep, compensating for the hours spent at a birthday for someone in our program,  and Joe left  for a  complicated trek to Amsterdam late last night.  Complicated because he had to catch a train from central Dublin to Belfast - where he was flying out of - only to kill 6 hours in the airport waiting for his plane to take off...I wonder how he's doing.  Anyway, before the activities of this weekend put me further behind in my updates, I thought I'd catch you up on the happenings of last weekend.

Saturday was a big day, and if it were a sit-com episode I think an appropriate title would be "Adam and the estrogen" because it consisted of me and 4 women parading around Dublin for the better part of the afternoon.  Starting from Kayleen's front-door, we walked to Dublin Zoo, where we were greeted by a sleeping lion, shy tigers, and phantom zebras.  

I can't say it was the best trip the zoo I've ever had, but it was worth it to see the Californian sea lions swimming around and yelping for no apparent reason.  I think we just came at the wrong time because it seemed like every animal was either being fed, or corralled inside for the night, but we still got some good views...

If you want more animal pictures, check National Geographic.

On our way back from the zoo, we stopped into The Brazen Head - Dublin's oldest pub - for much needed refueling before making the long walk home.  It was a nice, quaint place with a history so rich, you could smell it when you walked in and taste it in your Guiness.  Though it wasn't live (as the sign out front suggested it would be), it was the first time I had heard traditional Irish music being played in a pub since the first week we got here when my roommates and I sang with an Irishman.

  

In total, we clocked 9+ miles on the day, so you can imagine how excited we were to get home, heat up some food, and huddle around a laptop to watch the season premier of The Office!  The perfect way to end the day.