Dublin City - Redux

Dublin City March 14th - 19th - The five of us after bzzf planning escaped into the reality of our past lives. The trip started in my home the night before with laughter, wine, music and dinner from the sandwich shop below. Then the next morning into a grand taxi and hopefully the airport... we entered the taxi and after taking off we started "bantering" with the drive to detour from the route to take us directly to Fés airport... the ride to Fés is a 10Dh taxi ride for each person... the driver insisted on another 120Dhs to take us off the "beaten" track.... Gali BZZZZZF... after 10 minutes of back and forth the price was settled on at 60DHS plus the orginal 60 for a total of 120Dhs.

At the airport as we are about to go through security, they send us back because it is tea time... not just one person the full staff stops working and have tea, even though we are 6 months in country this caught us completely by surprise... I guess we already had left Morocco time behind...but not yet. Security was a breeze once it reopened and within the hour we were air bound to Madrid and freedom.

Madrid Airport - Stamped passport, 2.80Euro beers, cheese and bacon and a deck of cards... we had 5 hours to kill and like children set loose in a toy store we roamed wide-eyed and with smiles from ear-to-ear. Every women looked like Sophia Loren and the three men in the group were amazed at how much we were staring... after 6 months of Moroccan dress were had sensory overload... what a GREAT feeling. Finally we board and head off to Dublin and Guinness.

Dublin City - We arrive in the dead of night, locate our shuttle, check in and drop our bags off and head to the bar in the lobby for food and Guinness. After hours of talking about our day, tomorrow and enjoying each others company we head to our rooms around 2 and fall asleep in a clean, comfortable bed with a hot shower.... mmmmm hot shower!!

Next day after a full breakfast we head into Dublin for sights, food and yes.... GUINNESS. Hoping a Red Tour Bus we see the city and head to the Guinness Brewery (do you see the common thread here...) and a tour and free drink in the 360 degree view bar at the top of the building... seven stories. From there it is back on the bus more sights and finally we stumble onto the Brazen Head Pubs, Est. 1198 (the oldest pub in Ireland) we eat a hardy Irish meal, drink more and relax and smile even more. Back to the hotel for live Irish music... dancing and yes drink. A full day was had and now we are thinking about the parade tomorrow and what it will be like....

The PARADE - it was a beautiful sunny day, not warm but just perfect. We find a viewing area and wait for the parade to pass... great floats, music and entertainment... now it is off to the pub for drink and music and the place we find does not disappoint... we listen to live music and dance and drink until Fun was had (but what happened in Dublin stays in Dublin...wink wink) after hours of drink we must have food... so we five stumble out of the VAT House to locate food, walking arm-in-arm like the crew from the Wizard of Oz... walking around the city at night on St. Paddy's is a sight to see. After a little nourishment we walk some more but finally locate our bus stop and head back to the hotel lobby for wind down, Irish coffee as a night cap and crawl into bed and asleep before the lights are out.

Friday is a day of recovery and quiet... we see more and eat well and drink a lot less. We head back to the hotel stay up all night for our 6:20 flight and get back into Fés around 3 and back to Sefrou around 5.

What a great time with 4 wonderful friends... Thanks Adrienne, Bill, Justin and Lauren... lets do it again next year! Next up is Pisa and Cinque Terre!!