Cheers from Dublin!

Hello all! We safely arrived in Dublin on Thursday after a 2 hour ride to JFK, 6 hour flight, and 2 hours through customs, getting luggage, figuring out the bus and walking to the hostel. Our accommodations are wonderful! It's pretty much just like starting your freshman year of college, and since we are old and nostalgic, this is not necessarily a bad thing! There are 8 other people in our room, and they are all very friendly. We went out with the boys from Australia on Thursday night, and last night had dinner with the girls from Illinois. We also met some very nice local Irish men who took us to the REAL hot spots in Dublin, since apparently we had fallen in love with the tourist trap - they played Journey and we felt like we were in Finnigan's Wake again, go figure. Anyway, it was a long night but we had a great time and now we are waiting out the rain to head to the Guinness Factory. It rains ALL THE TIME here. Non-stop drizzle, overcast sky, 65 degrees. I find this to be miserable, so it's a good thing that Dublin has a wonderful culture to make up for it. We have seen the Dublin Castle, National Gallery, Oscar Wilde statue, Trinity College, Irish Parliament, and a bunch of churches. The streets are all cobblestone, there are flowers hung on every building, and the doors are ridiculously cute. We took alot of pictures of these doors because they come in random colors like pink, blue, purple, etc. and the doorknob is in the middle of the door. When I mentioned how odd this was to the Irish guy last night, he said "Well where the hell else would ya put it?" I suppose this is a good lesson in why America is not always right 100% of the time. So far we think the most dangerous thing about this city is crossing the street. They paint "Look Left" and "Look Right" on the street in front of you, but it's really hard to break the habit of looking the other direction. Then we didn't know if we were allowed to jaywalk like we do in Philly, so we've been trying to mimic the locals and do what they do. Alright, it's time for us to head to the Guinness Factory so we will try to post again soon - I can't do it from my phone, so we have to sit at computers in hostels or in internet cafes. Keep checking for facebook status updates, and feel free to email us at noelle.catino@gmail.com and jacobson.abbe@gmail.com! Cheers!!