Apparently Ireland is still bitter

After spending a weekend in Ireland, I have learned a few very important things. The most important of which is that the Irish still do not like the British. Yes. Even though they have been their own free and independent state for some time now, the Irish have quite the load of negative feelings and things to say about the United Kingdom. Do not even think about mentioning Queen Elizabeth I if you want to order a Guinness any time soon.

Ireland was a fantastic experience. I arrived on Wednesday night late so I went straight to bed. The next morning, Cassie and I went out to this great crepe place for breakfast. After spending the last couple of months surviving off of two pieces of toast for breakfast every day, apple Cinnamon crepes have never tasted better...I can promise you that much. Cassie had class, so I went ahead and did a 3 hour walking tour all by my lonesome. The tour was great for a few reasons. First of all, it was led by the most stereotypically looking Irish guy you could possibly imagine. I am talking red hair, pale white skin, thick Irish accent, sharp wit and an apetitie for beer like you couldn´t imagine. Additionally, I was able to go through all of the main sites in Ireland and learn a brief history of them. This included Dublin Castle -which really does not look that much like a castle-, Christ´s Church Cathedral, Trinity College, the Viking area, the Temple Bar district, the City Hall and the main park in the Town...St. somebody´s green...I am thinking Nick...but that sounds wrong. Most importantly though, the tour was free!

The tour however, did end up being about the only thing you could get for a low price in Ireland! That afternoon, Cassie showed me the book of Kells which is one of Ireland´s national treasures. Basically, this book has survived since AD 800 and is a beautiful manuscript of the Bible that was written by about 25 monks and took several years to complete. It was pretty cool. Also, we got to see this really long library that Trinity College is famous for. In Star Wars Episode 2, George Lucas modeled the Jedi Academy after this room. I was very tempted to pull out the lightsaber application on my iphone and start an all out duel!

Afterwards, we headed back to Cassie´s place, cooked some dinner ourselves...aka Cassie´s boyfriend Max cooked for us...and then went out to a bar. We didn´t go out too hard that night because we were of course anticipating the arrival of Brent Costa that night!