Irish cheers

We spent Monday in Dublin, Ireland, and yes, we slept at the airport...or tried to.
Sunday night, we walked half the way to the King's Cross train station to save on cab fares, hailed a cab after grabbing some food, and barely made the next train to Luton, where we flew out early Tuesday.
The airport was quite entertaining actually. You would think that at midnight there would be almost no one around and that check-in would be almost deserted. Not the case.
People were drinking coffee, beer, eating pastries, using the internet, and sleeping on the floor.
When we finally finished planning our day in Dublin, we just joined a line of sleeping travelers on the tile floor and busted out our flimsy airline blankets. We could not check in until 2 1/2 hours before our flight, so no luck getting to some good, comfortable carpet.
People were using luggage as pillows and mattresses, and many had spread out blankets and towels on the floor. The floor was freezing!! Even dressed in a sweater and rain jacket I was not warm enough - not even by a long shot.
Neither of us got very much rest, dozing in and out of light sleep. We got up again just before 4 am and bought some hot chocolate from a cafe nearby to help us defrost.
After we checked in, we found our gate (with carpet!!) and crawled under some airport seats to sleep some more.
When we arrived in Dublin, we ran into a few, uhm, obstacles. First, we can't find a good, cheap map, so we don't really know where we are. Next, it's REALLY cold - raining off and on. Then we can't really see a good place to have breakfast. Then someone tells us that Monday is a holiday, and so most businesses won't open until 1 pm. We arrived in the city around 8 am. Ha, oh geez.
So we stand (inconspicuously, of course, ha) in the back of convenient store chowing down on some goodies from the deli and drinking straight out of an orange juice carton that we bought because cups cost .50 euros, and that's too expensive for our shallow pockets. We head over to a McDonald's to sit with some coffee until the city starts to awaken a bit. We use the men's restroom because the women's is closed for cleaning. You can imagine the awkwardness when an attractive European guy walks in, says "hi" and proceeds immediately into the stall. Apparently he couldn't wait? Well, when you gotta go...!
We pay for a bus tour/coastline trip to Malahide Castle and Howth. We love Ireland already because it is so much cheaper than London! The coastline trip leaves at about 10:15 and I see about 10% of the countryside because I can't even keep my eyes open - I blame the cold tile floor in Luton. =)
But we get out on the way and take some pictures and arrive at the castle soon enough. It was so interesting to see the differences from the Windsor castle, which is much larger and much more elaborate. Leslie and I were theorizing that this might be reflective of the difference in wealth, historically, between the two countries. The Malahide Castle is more than 800 years old and only left the hands of the original owner's family in the 1970's. The last descendant of the Talbots, who owned the property for centuries, actually lived there until she sold it.
We have lunch in the cafe in the castle and head back to town.
Next we get on the bus tour around the city. And stay on. For the whole way around. We were so tired we ended up dozing off in the back of the bus! What people must've thought...
It starts raining while we're cat napping on the city tour bus and we decide we are too exhausted to walk through anything. We need food! But then by the time we get off the bus and eat food, it is time to go back to the airport.
Bummed we didn't use our time very well in the city, but glad we got to see some rolling hills.
We get back to the building where we are staying and still no luggage. We worked on that until almost 3 am. And then we passed out in the community kitchen at the dorms. (We actually took apart the couches and made little beds on the floor).
And thus commenced our Irish journey.