Today was our physical health day. By accident. Mr “I always wake up at 6:30 a.m. on the dot even without an alarm clock” Nolin even slept in until 10 or so. Of course, I was hardly about to complain. A dreadful little voice-stealing, congestion-causing cold has caught me in the past few days, and it was worth missing breakfast at the hostel for a few extra winks.

Our little sleeping-in accident forced us onto the city streets to find an alternative source for breakfast, quickly leading us to a bagel shop just across the river Liffey. On the way, we took an alternate route just for the heck of it and crossed a bridge which opened up near a quaint stone-arch alleyway. My curiosity took charge, as it so often does, and we headed through the alley. Little did we know that on the other side laid the formerly undiscovered (by Nolin and I) stone and brick pedestrian streets of Temple Bar. For those who don’t know, Temple Bar is actually the area where our hostel is technically located, but we had never actually gotten around to seeing the rest of neighborhood. Temple Bar is lovely, and includes the original Temple Bar (which the area is named after), the Botticelli homemade gelato shop (just like the one in Malahide), an outdoor used book market, and some small shops and cafes. It was a fantastic find, all thanks to an accidental over-sleep and a series of coincidences.

part of the Temple Bar area:

Besides our little adventure this morning, we pretty much came back to the hostel and fell asleep on the couch in the lobby of our hostel. Or rather, I fell asleep while Nolin read the book he bought at the market. That’s one of the cool things about the Ashfield house (our hostel). You can always find people around, and that includes at least one person asleep on a couch in the lobby pretty much at all times.

So as you saw in the title, that was pretty much our day. Sleep and exploration. And then more sleep. Hopefully our rigorous schedule of sleep, vitamin C, tea, fruit, and cold medicine will knock out whatever has decided to crusade against my immune system these past few days.

Tomorrow we’re planning to skip town for a few days before Josh gets here. That was our plan for today, but that obviously didn’t happen. So hopefully tomorrow we’ll be a little more successful. We’re thinking about these three little towns in Southwest Ireland, but we’re going to talk to the people behind the front desk in the morning in case they have any recommendations.

Things are all well over here, across the pond.

Love to all of you back home.