Touched down at 8:45, cabbed to the hotel, and enjoyed a nice breakfast while we waited for our room to be ready. After a nap, we took the 25-minute tram ride to the centre. There is a one-day bus strike going on, so the trams were all full to bursting.
The thing that struck us both is how much Irish we heard on the tram. A group of workers -- guys just knocking off work -- were having a loud and animated discussion at the back. Two teenaged girls standing near us were having and equally animated discussion about something on their iPhones. Other snippets of conversation bounced around the tram and into our ears. But we didn't understand a word!
All the signs are in Irish (first) and English. Even the disembodied female voice announcing the tram stops did so in both languages. Irish is everywhere. It's delightful and mysterious.
We had hoped to go to one of the museums, but the lineups were daunting, the crowds on the streets were awful, the rain was constant, and we were already so tired. So we decided to do our sightseeing tomorrow and the next day.
Took some interesting photos of Sphere Within Sphere (Sfera con sfera) — a bronze sculpture by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. But when we returned to the hotel, I realized that I had lugged my heavy camera around for nothing, since I had left the card in the card reader back in our room.
So the only photos I have from today are a rainy shot of a shopping mall (the view from our hotel) or some stools in the hotel bar!!
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