It’s time to leave London. Steve and I head out to find a travel agent after breakfast. We find an airline ticket agency first and decide to find out what it would cost to fly to Ireland. Since it was last minute there wasn’t much availability and the prices were higher than we were willing to pay – £138. We then hopped on the Tube to the Victoria Station where there was a travel office. We asked the very friendly man at the counter where we should go to find out about trains and ferries to Dublin. He sent us to the rail office at Euston Station. So back on the train we go. The agent at the rail office tells us that it will cost £51/person round trip but we needed to hustle. If we are to make the last ferry we had to catch the 1:05 train. This only gave us a little over an hour to book the trip, get to the hotel to pick up our bags, and get back to the station. We decided that the only way we would pull this off was if we sent one of us back for the bags while the other took care of the tickets. Steve took on the difficult task of getting the luggage. He managed to get back by 12:45 giving us plenty of time especially since the train was late.

The train ride was uneventful. We had some nasty sandwiches on the two and a half our first leg that took us to Crewe. We changed trains there and just barely had enough time to make the second train. We sat in a car with a bunch of guys who were singing most of the way. This leg took us about the same amount of time as the first leg and got us there in plenty of time to catch the ferry.

The boat was huge and very fast. It took both people and cars and the inside resembled a cruise ship. There were restaurants, bars, TVs and video games. During the ride we found out that there was a travel office in the ferry terminal that would book hotels for us. This was a good thing because at that point we didn’t have a place to stay. Unfortunately the office closes at 9:00 and it was going to be close. We arrived in Dun Laoghaire at 8:45 and headed to the baggage claim. Steve’s bag was first off so I sent him to the travel office while I waited for my bag. He made it in time and we booked a room in a B&B that was about a half-mile away. We headed straight over and found it to be a nice place. The woman who greeted us was friendly and the room was nice and clean. After dropping off our bags we headed to the main street to find some Guinness.

We found some at a place called Scott’s. While there we found out that there was a soccer tournament the next two nights and that there would be seats available. We were psyched! After three pints, one of which was free, we headed across the street to Trader’s Wharf for some more of the dark stuff. We met two sisters, Anne and Mariead, while there. Ann was pleasant but Mariead kind of flaked on us because we didn’t know details about our Irish heritage. Last call was at 11:30 so after we finished our pints we headed to a club called Scruples. We had a few more pints and did a lot of people watching. We were amazed at how busy it was on a Monday night. We hung around until about 2:00 and then called it a night.