2 Americans, an Australian, a Slovakian and an Englishman walk into a bar....

It sounds like the beginning of  bad joke, but this was our reality since Friday night in Dublin.  After arriving in Dublin on Thursday night, some of my colleagues from our London office came over to join us on our adventure.  Simon, Ed and Mirko came over and we introduced them to American football.  We had a hell of a time doing it. 

We started our Friday with a tour by some local students, saw the Dublin Castle and ended up in Christchurch Cathedral and the viking exhibition.  Then we went to the Guinness storehouse and toured there, meeting tons of other Penn Staters.  We even got certified to pour our own pints of Guinness, there's a whole art to it.

After dinner while we were waiting to hear from the guys, we happened into a karaoke bar in the local neighborhood we were staying in.  Seeing a bunch of Irish people singing karaoke was rather entertaining.  Everyone was dancing and having a good time.  But, we still hadn't heard from the guys letting us know they were in Dublin.  So we decided to walk back to our place only to find them on the street throwing bottle caps at the windows of our apartment.  And so it began.

We headed out to the area of Dublin called Temple Bar.  It has a similar feel to Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  Bars on every corner, people spilling out into the streets.  Everyone was enjoying the revelry and the excitement was building for the game the following morning.  We had many drinks with the guys, and ended the night the only appropriate way, with some filthy greasy kebab at 3 AM.  The guys working the stand were less than excited to see us, so Simon decided that they would love some artwork on the wall in garlic mayo. 

The next morning we were up around 9 and getting ready for the game.  We walked back down to Temple Bar and commenced the party again.  This time, everyone was super excited for the game, and we met tons of people.  We walked through the town, making our way to the stadium and stopping for beers in every pub along the way.

The game was great, Sarah and I took turns explaining the action on the field to our friends. I don't really understand how a stadium can run out of food before half time.  But, they had plenty of beer.  Go figure, it's Ireland after all.  The game turned out to be super exciting with Penn State emerging victorious on a last second field goal.  Afterwards, Ed, Mirko and Sarah wanted to get some pictures near the field so they walked down to the lower stands.  Apparently, Mirko asked the brand new president of Penn State if he could go get the Lion for him.  I'll have to let Sarah fill that part in as I wasn't involved with this mess, she has the pictures as well.  

The guys really got a kick out of the cheerleaders.  I would venture they were more interested in them than the game itself.

We woke up, the guys took off back to London, and we're currently on the train heading to Belfast, Northern Ireland.  Oh, and if you are planning on taking the train in Ireland, book it online.  It's almost twice as expensive to get the tickets at the gate.  Oops, lesson learned.

We're super sad to be leaving Ireland.  It's a great country.  We had a blast and all that this did was make us fall in love with it and wish to return.  I can't believe we've been gone almost a week.  It's crazy to think that we have 4 more to go.