KILKENNY & DUBLIN

Saturday, September 20, 2003 Dublin and the Farewell Dinner

It was raining steady; we were able to sleep in until 7:15; breakfast at 8 am and on the bus by 9 am. People are starting to share cards with contact information on them. Gayle and Ron gave us back the European plug adapter that we’d loaned them in Galway. Our first stop was in Kilkenny. The Castle was beautiful but the tour we took was very long; so other than a quick photo shot and a stop at the restrooms; we only had a brief time to walk through the town and a quick visit to St. Mary’s Cathedral. The Blessed Sacrament was out for adoration. That should have made the candles that Barbara and Mary lite even more powerful! They both traditionally like to light candles in a church as reinforcement for a safe flight during trips.

After an hour and a half we were back on the bus for the final trip to Dublin and another story by Bernard. We did our survey for Trafalgar this morning. Bernard said he was going to copy Jim’s brother-in-law John’s survey and turn it in for all of us…John wrote in answer to the question “Did you get value for your money on the trip”…he said “yes; my wife paid for it!”

We arrived back in Dublin about 1:30 pm. Jim headed for the Museum while we settled down in the lobby and worked on photos and the computer until we could get into our rooms. Phil went to McDonalds and got his lunch and milk shakes for Barbara, Mary and Martha! Into our rooms about 3 pm we were able to get an early start on repacking for the trip home. I tried to plug in my charger for the cell phone but knocked off the electricity for all the plugs in the room and also burned out my charger. It was not designed to handle the change of watts! I should have used the converter! Called the desk and they sent someone to reset the switch! But, fortunately, my cell phone was still holding a charge and I hadn’t blown my computer that was plugged in the same outlet!

We left about 6 pm for the dinner show. We were all dressed up and ready for fun. The show was a Traditional Irish Cabaret. It is a show designed to give the tourist a taste of Irish dancing, singing and wonderful sense of humor. Plus we had a very tasty dinner ending with an Irish coffee after dessert. By 11 pm we were tucked into bed for our last sleep in Ireland.