We flew out of Gatwick airport to Dublin relatively early, and arrived in the midafternoon. Once we settled into the bed and breakfast where we were staying, we decided to go look into where JP needed to find information on his family tree - the justification for this whole trip.

We found our way through St. Stephen's Green to the area we needed to go. The first stop we made was at the National Library, where we got a picture of the frieze on top. JP met with a very friendly woman in the genealogical research division, who talked to him for a good long while. As it turns out, however, he needed to go further down the road in order to get copies of the official government records.

We arrived at the hall of records in time to verify exactly what JP needed, and discover that we were too late - they were closing shortly, and wouldn't make any more photocopies that day. JP decided to return first thing in the morning while I went off on my own, since he'd been to Dublin before.

That taken care of, the next order of business became sustenance. Neither of us had eaten much of anything all day, and we were starving. Not too starving, of course, to start off with a Guinness (for me, at least) at Mulligan's, a place our tour book claimed poured a definitive pint. It was indeed a perfect pint, in terms of both flavor (it came piped directly from the Guinness storehouse) and ambience. JP pounded down a hard cider, which surprised me a bit since he doesn't drink. We left Mulligan's feeling rather happy, but still famished.

From there we wandered into the Temple Bar district, the cultural/tourist hotspot of the city. As it was getting rather late, there weren't a lot of restaurants still serving dinner, so we settled on a motorcycle-themed American restaurant called Thunder Road. Nothing satisfies like fajitas, and theirs weren't half bad.

Back to the B&B for a game of "Outrage!" (a game I bought at the Tower of London gift shop, about stealing the Crown Jewels), then JP went out on the town. Myself, I spent a quiet and relaxing evening in bed, watching TV.