I’m in Ireland, and it is beautiful here.

Colm and Noirin met me at the airport, and brought me to the hotel via the most curcuitous route possible, I am sure. I have a sneaking suspicion that Colm did it on purpose just to confuse me. 😉

It is warmer here than I thought it would be. Noirin and I went for a walk after I got here, and got caught in the rain while we were walking, but it really wasn’t unpleasant. We were heading somewhere to find some dinner, when Colm called and said that Ken was awake and looking for us. I hadn’t pounded on his door because I was sure he’d be napping. So we came back and got Ken, and went looking for some dinner.

On the way, we stopped by the Long Room Library, at Trinity. It was *amazing*. I could spend weeks in that room, I am sure. However, you have to be someone special to actually touch the books. We also got to see the Book of Kells, which was stunning. a 1300+ year old book, and still in very good condition. Very beautiful.

Of course, I couldn’t take any photos of any of this. But you can find many photos online, I’m sure.

We went to The Porterhouse for dinner, and I had Beef and Stout, which was a delicious beef stew that reminded me of my Turi days. Mmmm. Colm joined us a little later. I asked embarrassing questions about Ireland and its relationship to the United Kingdom, and Colm and Noirin set me straight on my ignorance. It’s a great big world, and I feel that I know so little about it.

We all went out geocaching, but it was getting rather cold and rainy, and got colder and windier the longer we looked, so we eventually gave up and came back. I went straight to sleep, as it was about 9pm and I’d been up for 30+ hours.

Today we’ll be meeting to select the talks for ApacheCon, see the venue, and other conference-related activities. Hopefully we’ll have a schedule by this evening, but it may be tomorrow before we’re actually done.