Playing tourist, broken shower

The last few days, I’ve enjoyed playing tourist with my friend Julius who has been visiting me in Dublin. On Saturday, we had breakfast with my friend CJ then in the afternoon we toured the Guinness Storehouse for several hours. Today (Sunday), the start of our day was thrown off due to broken shower… the electric shower pump unit suddenly lost pressure when I was just finishing up my final rinse. It was very poor timing given that this is the first time I’ve had a guest staying with me. However, Julius is also an engineer who is very good at do-it-yourself projects, so in some ways it was lucky he was here when it happened. After some research online to diagnose the problem, we suspected it was a faulty solenoid and even managed to find someone who had an extra part in stock. Unfortunately, this didn’t fix the problem, but we have a good idea of what might else be wrong. If we can’t manage to get it working ourselves, I’ll have to contact my landlord and/or get a repair person to come in to take a look at it.

Despite the shower situation, we still managed to enjoy the day. The weather turned out much better than the expected rainy forecast — mostly clear skies, highs in the lower 60s F / upper 10s C, although very windy. I had reserved a GoCar for the day so that we could get out of Dublin city. First, we stopped by the airport so that Julius could get a COVID-19 test for his return to the U.S. (this is still mandatory for anyone entering the U.S. regardless of citizenship). From there, we drove to the coast and over to Howth, a village and suburb of Dublin on the Howth Head peninsula. We took in a hike along the southern cliffs of Howth with sweeping views of the Baily Lighthouse and Dublin Bay. Afterwards, we descended to Howth village and harbour for an early dinner and then walks along the seawalls at sunset.

Until next time…,