The last couple of days in Eireann

The Internet connection at the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel was temperamental - they required we go through their proxy server, and sometimes the response time was slower than my dial-up connection at home! I think there were about 200 registrants at the gaming conference, so competition for the Internet at night was pretty fierce.

Laurel and I spent the last couple of days exploring the nearby towns of Dalkey and Dun Laoghaire, walking to the one and taking the local bus to the other. We did most of our personal shopping in Dalkey.

On Wednesday, Marty cut out of the conference to come with us to see some of the sights of Dublin. We walked to the DART station in Dalkey, and bought round-trip tickets to Dublin's Connolly Station for three and a half Euro each. The trains are fast, clean, and used heavily by commuters, similar to Sacramento's Light Rail, only much more comfortable.

In Dublin, there are companies that offer hop on /hop off bus tours that make a circuit of the most visited places in the city. We didn't have time to visit all of them, but we did get to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells exhibit and visit the library. Then we hopped back on the next bus and rode around the city to the Guinness Brewery. The self-guided tour was very well executed, and terminates in the "Gravity Bar" on the seventh floor, where we claimed our free pint of Guinness and enjoyed a 360 degree panoramic view of the city.

Our last stop was the Killmainham Gaol [kill MAIN um jail], made famous for housing and executing the rebels involved in the Easter Rebellion of 1916. It gave us all chills - there's no way to explain the feeling you get when you see those cold stone courtyards, tiny cells, and hear the guide's eloquent stories. Marty says his grandmother's uncle, Eamonn Ceannt (b. Edward Thomas Kent) was one of those executed, and the gaol historian invited Marty to sign the "family book" and took a picture of him. (They also said a new biography of Ceannt, "Supreme Sacrifice" is available at Amazon.com, so I ordered a couple copies this evening.)

By the time we finished the Killmainham tour, the hop-on/off busses had stopped running, so we hailed a cab to take us back to the train station for the ride back to the hotel. We spent the evening packing, in preparation for a 4 a.m. departure from the hotel for the airport. Marty had upgraded our tickets to business class, and we rode back to the US in a great deal more comfort.