Well, we didn’t go directly there… we had a layover at London Heathrow for 5 hours first… which totally sucked because we got the shaft and had to wait in the smallest terminal with only one half-operation café. I was looking forward to setting up shop and getting a drink during the short stay, but it didn’t really work out like that. Oh welllll.
When we got to Dublin we took a bus to the city. Again, we hopped off and wandered around for about a half hour with all of our bags looking for the hostel… we kept getting different directions but we just couldn’t find it. We finally asked a taxi to take us and he loaded up the car, then literally drove 30 seconds to the front door of the hostel – then he proceeded to charge us 6 euro for it. Whatever. We checked in, unloaded and headed out to explore.
We ended up walking around Temple Bar – a really famous square block in the city centre with bars, pubs, restaurants and clubs galore. The streets were just crawling with people and there was a really fun mood in the air. We ended up going to this Persian place for dinner- Zaytoons – for donners and chips. Very tasty and fun to people watch from. The long day of waiting tuckered us out, so we crashed pretty early.
The next morning we woke up at our leisure and had breakfast, then just decided to wander around the city and see what kind of trouble we could wrestle up. We went to the castle first…. Which was probably one of the most unimpressive things I’ve seen these past 4 months. Hahaha. Well, to be fair we didn’t go inside… but I really feel like we didn’t miss much. Afterwards, we walked to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Park,
which was beautiful, then we went to Christ’s Church to take a look. Both were expensive to go into, and lets face it… I’ve seen enough churches and cathedrals to last me a lifetime. We then went to take a look at Trinity College and the shopping districts around there – which we later found out were two of the most expensive shopping streets in all of Europe (Grafton and Nassau to set the record straight). We soon found ourselves souvenir-less and sitting in a random bar with lots of Irish men watching the horse races. We had a few beers and mingled, then decided to head home. That night we made a pizza and watched Braveheart – guess we weren’t over Scotland yet.
The following morning we decided to take a day trip to Wicklow County – an area of mountains south of Dublin known as Ireland’s Garden. Our bus driver was pretty hilarious and kept us laughing the whole time… but the sites were even better. We started off driving to the harbor of Dan Laoghaire; then to Acove where I bought my only scone on the trip; up into the mountains where we saw the glen in which they filmed Braveheart and P.S. I Love You, set right along side the Guinness Estate;
and finally to Glenadough, where we visited the Monastic City with some of the oldest celtic crosses in all of Ireland.
We walked some nature trails and it was so beautiful – I don’t think I’ve ever breathed cleaner, purer air in my life, nor have I ever seen that much green.
GREEEEEEEEN, my golly green.
We got home around 6:30 that night and decided to order pizza in and watch ridiculous movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Pineapple Express. I didn’t really care that we weren’t going out to the pubs and what not… because let’s face it, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of going out and after 4 months of being away from home and almost 10 days of living out of a suitcase the only thing on my mind was relaxing. And relax I did.
The next morning we slept in and then went on the hunt for the bus stop we had to get to Wednesday morning for our flight. We ended up running into Henry Street, one of the best streets for local shopping as we were told by our bus driver. Pete was apparently sick of European food… being there for 10 days and whatnot haha… so he wanted to go to KFC for lunch, which we did. I don’t frequent the Colonel’s turf much at home, but I’m going to go ahead and say it was subpar. And the staff was insane. Oh well, I’m over it.
We then wandered to the Jameson’s Whisky Distillery and dinked around the gift shop for a while. Pete was really into buying whisky or scotch, but for some reason he passed. It was expensive though – I’ll give him that. We decided to forgo the tour and make our way to the Guinness Storehouse, which is apparently the most visited tourist attraction in all of Ireland. I was actually really impressed with the whole thing – I mean, how interesting can it be? VERY! As soon as we started the tour, we saw the 9000 year lease that Arthur Guinness signed in 1759. Yes, 9000 years. He wasn’t joking around. The entire building was modeled to be in the shape of a pint glass, and apparently if one were to fill that it with Guinness, it would hold 14.3 million pints. The first floor explained the process of brewing the beer – roasted barley, hops, yeast and water straight from a reservoir in the Wicklow mountains! The master brewer, although it was pretty nerdy, took the guests on a guided tour of the entire process and we got to try the roasted barley and a little sample of the beer in the tasting lab. The second and third floors explained the history of the company and what makes Guinness so special, then came the history of the advertisments and there was even a display the of original sketches and artwork of the man who designed all the famous images and slogans like “My goodness, my Guinness!” and “Great day for a Guinness.” I guess the only fact I can’t remember is his name… whoops bong. BUT, he even did a series that involved the reworking of Alice in Wonderland images – which made me gasp for air in surprise and it pretty much sealed the deal for me, making the visit totally worth it.
Last stop: the Gravity Bar on the seventh floor, which gave everyone a panoramic view of the city and an opportunity to partake in a free pint of Guinness. Believe it or not, I drank it. At first, it wasn’t that bad… but after the first few sips it became harder and harder to swallow, and the roasted barley was reminding me too much of coffee. So I ended up drinking it in counts – as in I would guzzle it for 5 seconds, rest for a minute and then repeat the guzzling until all I had left was the thick creamy foam.
Then I proceeded to feel sick and threw up in the bathroom on the way out. There’s a reason that I don’t drink beer… and not even the institution that is Guinness can change that apparently.
We spent our last night having dinner at Zaytoons again – I got some hummus which really hit the spot! Then we went home, packed everything, showered, looked up all our information, sent out a few last minute emails and called the ‘rents. I was so excited to be going home that I couldn’t fall asleep until around 2:00. Oh well, that’s what a day of traveling is for.
I’ll keep you all posted on my first few hours back in the States, and how the babies are doing. I know none of you probably care about the latter, but I am now a doubly-qualified auntie who has missed so much in the past few months – so get ready for pics and comments galore come tomorrow!
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