Sardines in a Can

At last we are back at the blog. We are writing this entry from the comforts of Gilberts enormous apartement in Paris, tough life!! The end of our last blog had us on our way to Norman and Elizabeths. We had an excellent few days with them in Shropshire but before we left Manchester for the south we managed to squeak in a magical trip to Old Trafford football stadium. A moment I will never forget for the rest of my life. We were unable to do the full tour of the stadium due to upcoming Genusis concerts, just our luck a band that hasn't been together for 25 years and they decide that now was the time to start it up again. We spent our time with Norman and Elizabeth going to Ironbridge which is a world historic site being the first ironbridge ever built. We also went to the R.A.F museum whcih holds an extensive collection of rare and historic British aircraft from all eras. Quite overwhelming as most things are over here, there is just not enough hours in the day to fit it all in. After coercing Adrian we managed to fit in a swim in Normans pool which was a must, very cold but awakening. Our 2 days in Much Wenlock flew by as we were having such fun. Being the gracious hosts that they were, Norman and Elizabeth offered us a ride to Manchester airport and we were quick to agree to this before they changed there minds. Take into consideration that Glasgow airport had just been attacked so things were not business as usual. Fortunatly our trip to Manchester went without a hitch and Adrian and I found ourselves heading for our first european union stop, Dublin. Ryan Air some kind of airline, like sardines in a tin we were crammed into a plane, with luckily the two of us sitting in the very front with tons of leg room. In what seemed like a flight to Vancouver we arrived in Dublin. Interesting airport with a barrage of Gaelic being spoken, no clue what that language is about. The first person we met was a little old lady, who decided it would be right to freak us out and say,"It's a beautiful city, but we've had a number of stabbings recently,", awesome! Well two nights in a hotel later and no problems on the streets, we checked into our first hostel. Nice enough, a hostel with an innordinant amount of spanish speaking people. Over the next few days we had plenty of rain but still fit in what the Irish are famous for, Guiness. We had a few pints, hit a few clubs, pubs, and enjoyed the street life in a district known as Temple Bar, where the majority of goings on occur. We fit in a visit to undoubtbly the heart and sole of Dublin, the Guiness Storehouse, and took a tour there, you get an unbelievable view from the top. Our stay was rainny but we made the best of it, played some on-line poker in one of the numerous internet cafes and did our own cooking in the hostel kitchen, bringing some of our Canadian flare to the kitchen. Apparantly hamburgers are an extravengent meal, everyone was blown away that we could prepare them, but hey we like to BBQ. The night life was great was the grey skies got a little tiresome so come the 10th we were really looking forward to getting over to the continent, so back on the the plane like sardines for our first stop in a non-english speaking country, sould be interesting!