You know you are in Holland when.....

I finally got my cable hooked up tonight so I was scanning through my 60 someodd channels and low and behold about 6 of those are "adult" viewing! You know you are in Holland when roughly 10% of your cable is adult viewing.....I didn't even order the premium channels! I just wanted to have the North American Sports channel.

I returned from Dublin safe and sound. I had a great time. On Friday I went to the old castle and had a tour, then I went to one of the old churches (everything in Dublin is old) and was able to sit in on an evening prayer service (it was an Anglican church). The next day I got up and went to Trinity college where there was another guided tour. The tour guide was a college student which made it alot of fun. Along with the tour you get to see the book of Kells which are.....old books in what kind of library??? OLD! But the books were fascinating. I then went for lunch at a little place called the Queen of Tarts-I would have gone there just for the name but the food was actually quite good. I then went on a hop on and off tour bus so I could see more parts of Dublin. I decided to skip the Guiness Brewery it was 14 Euros to get in and I didn't have time to do everything I wanted to do. So I stayed on the bus and went to a very old jail! Actually the jail was my favorite part of the trip. We had a guided tour and I learned alot of the history. For being such an old place (I don't know if I mentioned that Dublin is old or not) there is also a very recent history with an uprising in the early 1900's in which about 15 people were executed (at the jail). After I finished the tour I took the light rail about 20 minutes out and went to a fishing village and walked around. It was beautiful-of course it was cold and rainy but I felt very Irish with my wind swept hair! I saw an old abbey and climbed up a hill to look out over the ocean. I should have stuck my toe in to say I had been in the Irish sea!
The next morning I got up and went for a typical Irish breakfast (of which I took a picture). A typical Irish breakfast consists of: bacon, an egg, sausage, blood sausage and something else I wasn't quite sure about. I only ate food I recognized-I'm not that adventurous! I spent the rest of the day walking around, I found a bookstore and of course was in there for hours! All in all it was a great trip. The hotel was typical European hotel, I had to walk up 3 flights of stairs, around a corner up more stairs and down a hallway (I kept hoping to run into Harry Potter!). The room had a heated towel rack-that is when you know you have arrived!

I am off to Paris in two weeks. I was watching the Tour de France Sunday and decided I needed to be in Paris to watch it end! So I booked a ticket and made a room reservation! I am very excited. I am proctoring the Foreign Service Exam tomorrow so I had better get a good nights sleep!

Jamie