An Irish-English hodgepodge

So I tried posting from London, but sadly there's no real good way to blog photos from an iphone. Since I'm home now and back to the 9-5 grind, I'm going to have to just give you guys a whirlwind tour of my vacation, starting with the Dubs, before I am late for work. Yikes.

Dublin





A beautiful city - small, friendly and bright. I'd imagined something gray and cloudy, Dickensian, with a fine rain at the annoying brink of needing and not needing an umbrella constantly falling from the sky. The weather, in fact, was perfect - 70 and sunny the entire time, which we were told was miraculous. ("You brought the sun with you from America," - Dave No. 1. My friend Alyssa and I met many a Dave.) One of my favorite things about this city was how intimate it was. I'd say it was a bit smaller than Philadelphia, and equally if not more walkable. There were so many different types of neighborhoods to see, both north and south of the river Liffey, which is supposed to separate the city into a wealthier, more commercial and political South section and a more residential and less manicured northern section. Another favorite thing: how talkative people are and how easy it is to get into conversations with them. Not that the British were totally reticent, but I found they were more like east-coast Americans, not willing to open up too much in conversation, whereas the Irish were extremely friendly and ready to talk. And hand out their phonenumbers. The bar scene was expensive in the touristy areas, but fine in places that were more out of the way. We never got bored enough to spend time getting to the Guiness factory or the Jameson distillery, but in the course of three days we had enough pints to prove to ourselves that the Guiness really is better the closer it is to home.