The land of Guinness and potatoes. Well the first thing I did was sample a wee drop of Ireland's finest and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was, especially not being a big drinker of such beers back home. I also went and saw the OLDEST book in the entire world, the Book of Kells is a mere 1200 years old and lives at Trinity College in Dublin, quite fitting that it is in Ireland too, the book I am currently reading suggests that as Europe went into the dark ages, it was the Irish who did the most work preserving reading and writing skills lost to most of the rest of the world. It was in remarkably good condition given its age and the fact its written on calf skin rather than paper like these days. I maintain that if you want to meet local people don't go to a major metropolitan city, there didn't seem to be many Irish around, in fact after the big rugby game that weekend, there were an awful lot of French people around which was good, it gave me a chance to try out some of the new language I've been doing lately. My room mate was also in Dublin alone, and in an attempt to be friendly I asked him if he was travelling with anyone - vous n'avez pas des amis? - literally translated this actually turns out to be "don't you have any friends?" Nice way to make friends, but luckily he didn't take offence. He spoke as much English as I do French (i.e. not a a lot) however we were able to hold a stilted conversation which bodes well for a future trip to France.