Long Day - Now Bedtime - Zzzzz

We have had a long day. We arrived in Dublin, Ireland with no problems and not much sleep (for most of us). After we deplaned, we went through an immigration process where we discovered that our officer was from Carlow which is where we are now. We made it through smoothly and moved to claim our bags. All of them were there and so we proceeded to the open side of the airport where William Workman was waiting for us. After he greeted the team, we proceeded to the cash machines to get euros for everyone who wanted them. One of the team members' VISA checkcard did not work even though she and her dad did everything right in setting up the card and informing the bank of when she would be in Ireland. Apparently that information never made to the right person, but with a quick phone call all was resolved. Carl arrive a little later than the rest of the group and joined us with no problems. While we were waiting on Carl, we stopped at the Spar store and picked up various kinds of chocolates and crisps (potato chips). We sampled these on the way to the Forrests' home to see what everyone liked and didn't like. They have some unusual flavours of crisps. Salt & vinegar and prawn cocktail seemed to be the most popular. Everyone liked the chocolate too! We didn't spoil our appetites and were still quite hungry when we arrived. The Forrests had cooked a wonderful lunch with many delicious dishes and followed it up with three kinds of pies for dessert! Mmm! After visiting for a while, we departed for Carlow and our home base for the first week, Urglin Centre. It is a centre on the property of Urglin Church which is quite beautiful and nearly 200 years old from what I saw on the sign out from. (I'll post a photo soon.) We got settled in and then went to Carlow to put up a couple of banners to advertise our upcoming events. Afterward, we went out for a dinner and came back to get cleaned up and get some sleep. It's very quiet here as I type this. No team members stirring (other than me) and only the faint sound of a dog in the distance. Tomorrow we have a day of sightseeing ahead of us. We will go to see the Rock of Cashel (http://www.cashel.ie/attractions/rock.htm) and then come back through Kilkenny which has a castle and an arts centre. It will be nice to have a good night's rest before we go.

Just for your information: this week we will be using a 3G dongle device to connect to the internet. It can be slow and only allows one person to connect at a time. We will stay in touch this week as best we can, especially by posting to the blog from my phone, but just know that our connectivity next week will be much better. Thank you for your prayers and support!