Return of the Native

Well Graham is home from foreign parts and had a lovely time, by all accounts.
     He and Mike spent the first afternoon in Mulligan's the Dublin pub recommended by the chap who Graham saw when getting his passport (and having to prove he was who he said he was). They sampled the Guinness and also hot whiskey (several times each) and got back to the hotel at around 4 pm. And spent the next 16 hours in bed.
     The next day they visited the Guinness Experience, which has a huge trek through a large building with floors labelled for the ingredients of Guinness such as 'Water', which, if you have never seen water before might have been exciting. The best part for Graham was the floor telling you about Arthur Guinness the founder of the factory and the museum of Guinness memorabilia. But after the long trek through airless rooms filled with crowds of people, Graham was longing to get outside so they missed the top floor, and did not even claim their FREE pint of Guinness.
     The third and last day they visited National Gallery of Ireland, Trinity College Library (to see the Book of Kells) the Museum of Natural History (and saw a skeleton of an ENORMOUS extinct deer) and the Museum of Archaeology which had fab exhibitions of cauldrons and Celtic artifacts such as golden torcs. All of these were free, except for Trinity College which cost them 14 euros each, and Graham reckons if you have ever seen photos of the Book of Kells you will have had a better look at it than they saw.
     Graham says that all the Irish people he met or spoke to, Taxi drivers, waiting staff, even the security people at the airport, were all lovely and friendly, and he had a smashing time. On the way through the body scanner, whereas in Leeds he had had to stand with his arms over his head while he was checked to see if he was carrying anything offensive about his person, in Ireland the security guard told him to hurry through the scanner 'Otherwise the damn thing will go off!'

     He brought me a couple of little gifts, a Lucky Black Bog Cat (made from '5,000 year old black turf from Ireland's deepest boglands' - I am of course quoting from the header card it came with) and a magnetic Frida Kahlo! Well of course, what else would you buy for your loved one?
     And in the great tradition of family gift giving, he forgot to take the prices off, so I took great joy in the telling him that the Bog Cat was 8.95 euros and Frida 4.95 euros.