To and back from Ireland!

We just got back from a great week long trip to Ireland. The north and the south. Took a cheap flight on Ryanair from Beauvais (1.5 hours away from Paris) to Dublin. Here's what happened: Monday April 9th, 2007 Woke up at 5:30am to take the bus from Porte Maillot to Beauvais airport. We flew out at 9:30 and arrived at 10:30 into Dublin. Picked up a nice red Opel Corsa at Hertz. Drove straight out of Dublin, on the left side of the road, to New Grange to see the burial ruins. It wasn't far at all, about an hour max. We were too hungry and tired to visit the ruins right away so we headed for a place to eat first. Walked into a pub/restaurant. The bartender gave us a beer and asked us to have a seat for about 15 mins as lunch wasn't ready. So we sipped away at our beer for quite some time, but the guy still wasn't giving any sign of lunch coming. After quite some time, I went up and asked him if we could eat lunch. He motioned us over to the back, behind the bar where there was a side door to a totally other room. The restaurant! This is what we eventually learned to be quite typical of the bar/restaurants in Ireland. The pub in front and the restaurant in back, or on the side, or whatever might be convenient. Had the buffet lunch, baked potato, mashed potato, carrots and veggies...that was the extent of the vegetarian option...gotta love Irish pototoes. My Irish grandpa ate potatoes atleast once a day! Manu had the salmon. The place was quite nice. Now I see where Canadians get their inspiration for decorating. I wouldn't have noticed this, were it not for living in France and seeing the difference in French and English style. But here, in this little restaurant it was obvious that Canadian decorating is very similar to Irish!! Dark wood, Roman shades, forest greens and dark reds, carpet, wainscot paneling...the whole kit. Went to New Grange and unfortunately tickets were sold out for it. But luckily there are two other options, Knowth and Dowth.... We went to see Knowth. Of course Newgrange is the most famous out of the lot. But, what's cool about Knowth is that it lived through many stages of community use. It's impressive to see the size of the stones they used for the stone circle of the burial mount. Some of them come from 10 km away or more...and the megalithic art on them are individually unique, no mass production here! In the Knowth there are two burial chambers, unlike Newgrange which only has one. If you get the chance to visit this area, it's well-worth it. The Battle of the Boyne. This is also the place where William of Orange fought his father in law King James III July 1st, 1690...does that strike you as weird?! Fighting agains your in law? Well, I suppose it still happens today for some folks.