We had some American friends visiting this weekend! Hayley, Melanie, and Philip are here in Ireland to see the sites, and were kind enough to spend a couple of days with us in Dublin. On Friday, we met up with them and took them to Juice Restaurant, which they were very gracious about because they all eat meat! But luckily they liked all the food, and to be honest it's probably the healthiest meal they will eat during their stay in Ireland. By the time dinner was over, they were bushed, so we said good-bye to them and went off on our own.

Saturday morning, they took a tour of Trinity, and then we met up with them to hop on the DART to Howth, which is sort of like taking someone to Gloucester when they visit Boston. It's a cute little seaside town (not nearly as fancy or large as Gloucester though!). We walked along the water, where all the many sail boats were docked:


We decided to take the "ferry" out to Ireland's Eye, a little tiny island off of Howth. When I think of a Ferry, I think of a double-decker sort of boat bus. This was more like just a small motor boat, but whatever works! Here's the gang in the ferry:

Here's a light house we passed on the way:

A sailboat...


There's this cool fort on the island:


Once we got onto the island, we climbed up to the top of the hill, and hung out there for over an hour. Here's the view from there:

There's a cool abandoned abbey down there. In the background of this photo you can see the Galway Hookers. They are the sailboats with the red sails:


It was a beautiful sunny and warm day, so we really got a chance to enjoy the view:


Then we headed back to Dublin and ate dinner in Temple bar at Gallagher's Boxty House, which the visitors had said they really wanted to do. A boxty is a pancake made with potato cooked on a hot griddle, served with fillings, kind of like a crepe, but with sauce on top. Luckily they had a Vegetable Boxty, which was amazing. We left there full and happy.

We decided to show our guests a nice old Victorian pub, but one that wasn't too far, so we walked over to The Long Haul over on Georges Street:

We had a couple of drinks there, and then our tired friends needed to go rest for their big day of driving through the countryside. A long but very satisfying day!