Hello!
This is your weekend update.
Friday: Flew into Dublin and cabbed it to the Kinlay house.
My cabbie was from Korea and had an Asian/Irish accent - whoa.
Friday I spent the day checking out the sites and getting a feel for the place.
Friday night I spent trying to find live Irish music?!?!?
Found it! At the Ha'Penny Bridge Inn. The music was "frantic" as one patron
put it and I'd have to agree. Each song was faster than the last.
(I've never seen a button-box player sweat before.)
Now it's 3 AM and I'm feeling the effects of my flight so back to the hostel
I go for a few winks of refreshing sleep...

Saturday Morning Bright and Early:
Now that I'm feeling native I start walkingaround to look for things to do.
As I'm walking I stumble herself, The Tart With The Cart
(that's her behind me)


I also visited...
...the National Museum of Archeology - a brilliant display of
viking lore, medieval dig findings and a wonderful retrospective on all
the revolutions that made the Republic of Irelandand the Irish people what
they are today.
...Trinity College where one of the professors gave us a colourful history
of the college and its alumni like Oscar Wilde and Samuel Becket.
After which I dutifully ran to view the Book of Kells exhibit and was, indeed,
awed by the sheer magnitude of the detail of work - not to mention that all
that copying must've been a b*tch without the use of white-out.


But the highlight of my day was back at the hostel when, as I was coming in to
change into my evening attire I did here a tenor voice and acoustic guitar
making celticy sounds from the dining hall. I was about to take the stairs to my room when I heard said voice declare he would "sing a song from Cork about a hard cider".
I couldn't pass up an opportunity to play Johnny Jump Up and so grabbed my
mandolin and went in to join him. That's all it took and Danno (from Derry) and I
spent the better part of the next 2 hours regalingthe students and faculty of
UW-Whitewater. After which a few of us (student and faculty: Hi Linda, Lynn and Will!) went out to a local pub to here an honest to goodness Irishman sing Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond covers. What a night!