Lazy Day in Dublin

With a completely free day ahead of us, we headed down to the city center to endulge in some food at the Temple Bar Farmers Market. This market has become quite the rage within our group, and we saw ran into some of our friends at the market. I had a feta cheese and spinach quiche and it was delicious. We sat around, chatted for a bit while eating, listened to the music and then continued on to enjoy the city while we still had the time.

Walking down Grafton Street on the way to Marion Square, we quickly became very distracted. Out of the shadows appeared a Chocolate Emporium which we found was holding a contest: guess how many Cadbury chocolate bars were used to create a chocolate statue in the shape of Ireland. Check this out!

We each tried strawberries and chocolate fondue and were pleasantly surprised with this treat. After walking down Grafton street, another prospective adventure caught our eye: horses! Now being from Lancaster, the thought of horse drawn carriages should not have excited me this much, but after a quick talk with the Irish man who organized the rides, we were sold. The ride was half an hour long and we were able to see some of the major government buildings in Dublin as well as some of the Georgian architecture outside of the city. Our horse's name was Dancer and was a very impressive tourguide.

Here is a line of them all waiting for the tours.

And this is Dancer...what a beauty.

The house of the Mayor of Dublin.

My favorite aspect of the Georgian architecture: the colored doors.



The Grand Canal runs all the way to Limerick!

After saying goodbye to both Dancer and our tourguide, we strolled down Grafton St and took our time browsing here and there. It was very refreshing to be living without a schedule, and we definitely took advantage of that fact. In Kilkenny, a unique store filled with creative, Irish made goods, we couldn't help but have a bit of fun.

Before we knew it, dinner time was approaching and with the temperature dropping we were all a bit cold and hungry. After a quick bus ride we were back at DCU. We couldn't help but reminisce how familiar the bus system had become. On day one, we anxiously stared out the window awaiting the sign for DCU to signal our stop. How neat it is to realize the transformation. Much of this will continue to set in this week as things begin to wrap up, but we are all doing our best for now to enjoy every bit of every day and I would have to say today was another success.