Getting from Paris to Dublin is an all-day adventure through the chunnel, across England, and then on a ferry (1) to the emerald isle. One little man decided to take me under his wing, getting from the train station to the ferry depot in Holyhead, England. He wore a green polyester jacket with some medals and a white sash, and declared that he'd been taking this ferry ride every month for twenty years to collect his pension from the mainland. Worried that he might turn into a leprechaun at any minute, I pretended not to see the signs and let him guide me to the big boat.

In general, Dublin is a small, industrial city, half covered by the Guinness factory and, just in case the locals forget its presence, the other half is covered with Guinness billboards. The trendy Temple Bar / Trinity College neighborhood is the only green respite from the stout blonde goddess. There, I drooled over the Book of Kells, an ancient, highly ornamental rendition of the gospels. Loved the hornmen sculpture (2) out on the street and the stained glass pub awning (3). Oh, and Knobs and Knockers (4), a hardware store, of course.

With grad school ambitions firmly in mind, I trekked across the city one of the old Guinness vathouses, where MIT Media Lab (5) had set up shop the previous year. Got a tour of the vast facilities, and did a little schmoozing. Later, I caught a couple of hardy Irish boys performing Beatles standards in an outdoor mall, and went to an Alan Ayckbourn play.

Ah, but the next day is when things really got jumping. That's when I met the middle-aged Danes and the hottie bike tour guide (6). I had wandered across a bike-tour (7) advertisement the previous day and talked the company into letting me into an already-full tour for the following day. A group of Danish, Scottish, and Irish ski buddies and their spouses who were evicted from their ski club upon turning forty were now traveling together, and had reserved a three-hour bike tour of the city, which I crashed. Together, we took in some fake castles (8) (this one was just a façade built to impress foreigners), gardens (9), and the courtyard of the Dublin Museum of Modern Art, with its dumpy bagpeople (10). Drank lunch at a pub (11) that practically required a secret password to get in the door.

On the way back to the bike shop, we caught the Liffey Swim (12). Hundreds of fat, pink men (13) in little black speedos swimming the freezing river that bisects Dublin. You know I envied them.

Both U2 and a hee-uge football match were taking over Dublin the following day, so I left the city that evening as dozens of half naked and painted neon orange (Holland fans) or half naked and all green (Ireland fans) took to the streets.

Next: Galway a'pubbin . . .