Kilkenny with John and Steve was nice. Arrived midday, had a good lunch - hadn't had fried chicken in a month. Kilkenny was a nice, old town... very small, very comfortable and relaxing. Walked to several cathedrals, all of which were over 700 years old. One of them we climbed up the round tower (very descriptive names here... 'Tall Cross', for example) and got a few of the entire town. Then we visited Kilkenny Castle, which was also good. Tour was a bit boring, but still fun. Rain made the day a little boring. All cooked pasta for dinner, then played more cards. Walked around to try and find a pub playing Irish music, but as John put it "it's easier to find Irish music in Boston than it is in Ireland". I was disappointed that I didn't hear any music outside of street performers, but I'll make do.



I'm now in Amsterdam, after a long day of travel.
11:05 bus from Kilkenny to Dublin, delayed, arrived at 2:15
2:17 bus to Dublin Airport, arrived around 3:00
5:20 flight to Amsterdam, delayed 30 minutes
With the time zone switch I arrived in A'dam at 8:30
train from airport to Amsterdam Centraal
tram from train station to hostel
got in around 10:00 tonight.
going to spend a few days here - visit the zoo, the NEMO science museum, the Van Gogh gallery, the city museum, etc.

I like the city so far, architectually it feels very much like home. Many of the streets would look normal in Albany, which is to be expected given it's dutch history. While all the other cities, even Dublin, have felt slightly foreign the other problem with A'dam has been my complete lack of knowledge of the Dutch language.

Copenhagen & Stockholm soon. Read about a really cool museum in Stockholm which focuses on the Nobel Peace prize, and has an exhibit about everyone who ever won, and what they did. I'm looking forward to it.