Ireland: Day 3+4

Hullo faithful readers! Jessica here. Happy Easter to you from Cork City.

I am fortified with Cadbury Creme Egg (better than the ones we have in the States) and ready to update. Better how? To tell you the truth, I don't know. I've been saying it for 10 years - that the Cadbury is better over here - but it's been nearly that long since I last ate a Cadbury Creme Egg, so I really have no idea what they taste like at home. Sugary, I bet.

Anyway, to finish up our Dublin adventures, we did walk to the Jameson distillery and take the tour. Not nearly as cool as the Guinness tour, but I did learn that whiskey and beer are exactly the same raw material up until the distilling happens. You probably knew that already. I managed to snag one of the 8 spots in the "special whiskey taster" part of the tour, which I promptly gave to Timo. He's better qualified than I for that job. Then after a fair bit more walking around, we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.

As previously mentioned, Danielle & Ander booked us for dinner at Chapter One restaurant, and dear reader, it was outrageously good. We did the tasting menu, which was seven little plates of delicious. There was very real danger of falling asleep at the table (chef's tasting dinners are not fast) but it was worth it. We arrived a little early, and were shown to the bar where we ordered cocktails and sat on velvety poufs (yes, really). After a few minutes of looking at the dinner menu, we placed our order for the tasting and were shown to our table. It was lovely and relaxing and I can give a full rundown of the menu to people who are interested.

The next day we were off to Cork. Good train ride through the country, gorgeous hotel here, and a relatively quiet Easter weekend are on the books for us. Any moment now the hotel is surely going to realize that we are not fancy enough to be staying here, but for now we'll just enjoy rolling around the king-sized bed and standing in the heated-floor bathroom.

Here we've caught most of Cork City, both days of the Franciscan Well Brewery Easter Beer Fest, and seen "How to Train Your Dragon" at the cinema. Good times. Tomorrow we make for Galway and the Aran Islands where we just miiiiight strike out into the countryside. That is, if we ever get tired of city luxuries.

Hold on, an Irish tapas restaurant is calling me...