Dublin Pics - Part 2

Here are the rest of the pics from Dublin.  My first day in Dublin I went to a few clothing stores looking for a leather jacket.  Unfortunately, they were all very expensive and when i went to try them on, even the XL's were really small.  The second day there I started off by walking south to St. Stephens Green, a nice park with a pond.  As luck would have it, I passed by a mall on the walk and saw a sweet leather jacket in a window.  After trying on a few, the owner walked by and help me find what I was looking for.  I ended up getting a jacket that I really liked and enjoyed for the rest of my Christmas vacation.

While this isn't the best pic of the jacket, its all I have apparently.

It was a really pretty park, complete with a mini duck island reserve shown on the right.

 Thankfully it was cold while I was there, gloriously cold.

I don't consider myself a good photographer by any means, but those two pictures capture the peacefulness of the park, at least to me they do.

This gazebo was really neat, I love the moss on the roof.

I think I forgot to post this on the other Dublin pics post. This is my new favorite beer, Kilkennys Irish Cream.  I had a few at dinner my first night, and a few more at lunch the next day.

Later in the day I attended a tour of the old Jameson Distillery and was picked to be a taste tester.  While I preferred the 12 year old scotch over the 5 year old Jameson, they still gave me a certificate.  I preferred the spice flavor of the scotch over the whiskey, but considering the whiskey was much younger, I was pleasantly surprised at how the whiskey was smoother.

Unfortunately my camera battery died when I got to St. Patrick's Cathedral so this is the only shot I was able to get.

Dublin Pics

For whatever reason I haven't gotten around to posting the pics of my Dublin vacation until now.  

The two days I spent in Dublin were great, what an awesome city.  It wasn't just the beer, which was really good.  It was the people, the architecture, the food and the history.  I walked around the downtown area of Dublin for two days and here are some of the pics I took.

That's my hotel in the background on the left.  Nice place with a bar and restaurant on the ground floor.   I was able to enjoy the pipe my little brother got me while walking around.

 

Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity

Guess where I'm heading next

 

My first guinness :)

View from the 8th floor of the Guinness Brewery, the Sky Bar.

My face is so cold

The time has come to say goodbye to my homeless beard.  It was a great comfort and well worth the extra time, effort and money it took to maintain it.  I will miss you my friend.  Before showing yall what I look like now (actually I look just like I used to look, but when you dont see something for a long time, even something very familiar can seem like something very new), I would like to pay tribute to my former beard.  The following are monthly pics showing the rate of growth.

As you can see as of the last few months the growth rate has neared zero and the beard is pretty much not getting any longer.  This is one of the main reasons I decided to trim it.  Without further ado, here is me before and during the trim.

Random Blessing

For as much as i complain about being in this dirty arm-pit of a country, I am incredibly blessed. 

Even if you dont count the biggest and most obvious blessings, i.e., Gracious God, Redemptive Savior, loving family, I get much more than I deserve.

The whole reason I'm here is the salary.  It would have taken me about 7 years to pay off my student loans, but with this salary, I've paid off all my loans but one and that one will be paid off before I leave.  I listened to a sermon while driving this week that pointed out how quickly we forget God while life is going well.  Without something pushing us to our knees, we fail to thank Him who blessed us.  Not to say that when life isn't going well that we aren't blessed, cause we still are.  How quickly we forget that it rains on the just and unjust alike.

Anyways, I thought about that a little while listening to the sermon, and was reminded of it after I found Gorgonzola cheese while visiting the mall last night.  Gorgonzola cheese is my special cheese, not something to be eaten everyday, but like a great glass of wine, something to be enjoyed infrequently, something to be savored.  I had looked in many different grocery stores last year but never found it, and then they just happened to have it at a place i've been many times in the last year and half.

Anyways, it just reminded me that there are so many small blessings that God gives me everyday, its just a matter of opening your eyes and seeing them.  Regardless of how much you are enjoying or not enjoying life at this moment, don't forget to look around.  Life isn't fair.  That is often said by people trying to point out how they've been wronged somehow but in actuality, they should be very thankful that life isn't fair because we are all given so much more than we deserve.



ps - apparently i lied about posting dublin pics, hopefully i'll post them sometime.