Dublin was a pretty cool place, but I didn't get to see as much as I wanted to because of the weather. The day I arrived it rained for the entire day (as it did the last day as well), and Dublin was the one place I went where the only real reliable means of transportation was to walk everywhere. I tried to tough out the rain for a while, but it was way too cold. :( So day 1 I took a long nap after wandering for about an hour, then I found a really cool pub where I ate dinner that had free WiFi!!! Within 10 minutes of sitting down and getting my first Guinness in Ireland, I was approached by a guy playing Pub Golf (which I gathered was just bar hopping in golf clothes) who told me I was the only woman he'd ever seen actually look hot while drinking a Guinness. That made me laugh a lot on the inside. He was pretty nice, and he invited me to come with them. While that would have been fun & rather interesting, I'd already ordered food, so I had to stay put. :(
The next day, since the weather was actually nice, the first thing I did was take the open-top bus tour around Dublin to find out what there actually was to see. It turns out that there are quite a few things to see that I just didn't have time for, but I was at least able to get a brief history of the highlights from the bus - history on things like St. Patrick's Cathedral, the famous Molly Malone, Dublin Castle, Trinity College (and its Book of Kells), and other things like that.
Here is the River Liffey.
St. Patrick's Cathedral.
The real fun came on day 3, however, when I decided to take a spur of the moment tour into the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough. The mountains around Dublin are gorgeous and really really green! It was an awesome tour and totally what I was looking for because, honestly, by that point in the trip, I was just really homesick and pretty tired of the tourist stuff.
View of Dublin.
One of the lakes (whose name I've forgotten) in the Wicklow Mountains.
See how brown that water is?
It's actually really clean - just full of minerals. And tasty too, I'm happy to report.
It's actually the water they use to make Guinness, which is why they say "Guinness is good for you" - because of the minerals in the water.
Guinness Lake - so called because the lake itself looks like a pint of Guinness because the water is so dark it looks black & the sandy beach on the right looks like the head of a pint of Guinness.
This is the view of an old monastery city near Glendalough.
The best day in Dublin itself was the last day (yesterday) despite the rain again. I decided to save all of my alcohol tasting for last. I started my day with a tour of the Old Jameson Distillery at 10am. The tour itself was pretty interesting since we had a tri-lingual tour group, so our tour guide kept switching languages. Most of the group spoke French, so she actually did part of the tour in French (since I understand it and all) until we were joined a few minutes in by a group that spoke only English and German. After that, she switched back to English.
After the tour, we were given our complementary "drop of whiskey" (read: probably a little more than a shot of whiskey) however we wanted it. I had this:
The traditional Irish way to drink whiskey: Whiskey & Cranberry.
It was EXCELLENT, & I'll probably start ordering it in the US.
And our group got a special treat. Since we were a small tour (only 11) and the first one of the day, we all got to do the whiskey tasting for free! (Usually they have to draw names or something.) We compared Irish (Jameson) whiskey with American whiskey (Jack Daniels) with Scottish whiskey (aka just "Scotch" - I guess I'd never really thought about "Scotch" as whiskey before...it was always it's own variety of liquor in my mind). The Irish whiskey was my favorite (they're not kidding when they talk about how smooth it is), but it was followed closely by the Jack Daniels. I really didn't like the Scotch. Bleh! It tasted way too much like earth and smoke for me to enjoy it.
My tasting spot.
And look! I got a little certificate afterward!
After the Old Jameson Distillery, I went to the Guinness Storehouse. The tour was self-led and actually pretty boring after the ingredients part, but the free pint of Guinness was awesome! When you go, you get to drink your pint in the Gravity Bar at the top of the Storehouse. It gives a labeled, 360 degree view of Dublin, plus you get to chat with fun people. I ended up talking to two German business men the entire time I was up there, which was really interesting.
Storehouse gates...well...one set of them.
In the Gravity Bar with my pint!
Admittedly, by this point I was a little intoxicated because it was right around noon, and I'd already had probably about 3 shots of whiskey when it was all said and done plus an entire pint of Guinness on an empty stomach. :-/ I had a good time afterward though. I just walked around more of Dublin (when it wasn't raining too hard), did a little window shopping, and had some lunch at a really good but inexpensive sandwich shop along the way.
Yesterday evening I packed everything up to prepare for my flights this morning. I was AMAZED at how much stuff I'd accumulated and how much of my clothes that I hadn't worn had managed to get unfolded and unpacked anyway. However, I won the wrestling match with the stuff in my suitcase and managed to get it zipped, locked, and downstairs into the storage area to await the airport shuttle this morning.
I made it to my first flight and through customs with no problems, and now I am waiting out my ridiculously long layover in the Newark Airport.
Almost home!!!
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