September 5th: Dublin, Ireland

On Monday September 5th, was the first full day at the conference and there were many talks I wanted to attend. So the majority of the day I spent in the Dublin Castle, listening to talks, taking some notes, and talked to many new people.

So there were a few talks near the end of the day that I was just not interested in and I decided this would be a good time to go out into Dublin and see a few things. I decided that since I was that far from St. Patrick's Cathedral I should try to see it.

At 5pm I walked the four or five blocks to St. Patrick's Cathedral and I was amazed to see the how big the cathedral was.

There was a nice garden there also but since it was raining while I was out I was not able to really good some good pictures of the gardens.  I walked around the garden and I noticed this plaque near the Cathedral.

"Near here is the reputed site of the well where St. Patrick [baptized] many of the local inhabitants in the fifth century A.D."

I was getting really excited to go inside since the outside of the Cathedral since the outside was amazing.  Sadly when I arrived at the front door I found out it closed at 5pm, it was 5:30pm.  Sigh... So since I figured everything else closed at 5pm I slowly walked back to Dublin Castle to meet up with the rest of my group. When I got back so early to Dublin Castle a few people were like 'what.. why are you back so early?'  When I told them what happened they all mentioned that there will be plenty of time to see Dublin and we went off to find a restaurant for dinner.

There was a large group of us looking for a restaurant in Temple Bar, there was about 12 of us. We were lucky that we were able to find an Irish restaurant that could the 12 of us in just a few minutes. The majority of us ordered some type of traditional Irish meal and an Irish beer. I ordered an Irish Ale and Irish stew with something like a potato cake. I really liked and when I finished it was so full. I had a great time.

When we left the restaurant we noticed a large group of people, we went over to see what was going on.  I noticed a small band planning Irish music and singing and a group of girls dancing.

After a great meal and then a short show I had a great day and walked back to the hotel with the rest of my group.