Ireland- Dublin

Flying into Dublin, even the ludicrously early hour we had to wake up couldn't dim the excitement! I squealed in delight walking through the airport at all the bilingual signs, english and Irish Gaelic! So cool! We knew what bus we needed, and vaguely where the hotel was, so off we went to the bus stop. As luck would have it, waiting at the bus stop was another American, and not only that, he was from San Francisco! Small world eh?! Trying to get on, he didn't have any change, only "bills" (silly American, don't you know they say notes in the U.K. and Ireland?!) and they only take exact change (weird right?) So he was sent off to find some place to get change, but the woman behind him, who was Irish, bought her bus ticket and then realized it was the wrong bus, so she chased after him to give him her ticket, which I thought was very cool of her! Sitting on the bus, we knew, in theory, what stop we needed to get off at, but we didn't know when we would be at that stop, or what it looked like, but luckily, because I talk so bloody loud, the old woman in front of us heard and let us know when we got to that stop, which was literally right around the corner from the hotel we were staying at (for free, thank you Paul and Aunt Isobel!)!







We get into the hotel, which was right in the thick of Dublin, and very charming, and I walk up to the front desk to address the woman sitting there. She was very attractive, blonde, nice smile, indeterminate age. I asked for Isobel Boyle (my friend's aunt who had arranged the rooms) and she just looked at me and said "No one by the name works here" and I just said "What?" and she repeated it and I thought for one horrifying second that we had the wrong hotel, and then she started laughing and I said "You're Isobel aren't you?!" and she just said "You must be Becca" we had a good laugh, and then they showed us to our room, which had 4 beds and a pretty neat view of Dublin. Christabel opted for a quick power nap, while Lauren and I decided to poke around a market we had walked by on our way to the hotel. There was jewelry and brightly colored scarves, odd clothing, old books and records, even a palm reader. My stomach was growling rather ferociously at this point (as it so often does) and the smells from the cafes and bakeries were too much. CHRISTABEL! Wake up lovey! Once Christbel was awake and functioning properly again, we headed back to the market and a little cafe we had scoped out before that had reasonable prices and exceptional smells! Having fortified ourselves with paninis and soup, we were cold and under-dressed! So we headed back to the hotel for heavier coats, and made the mistake of sitting down! I was chomping at the bit to get out and see the city, but after discussing it, we decided a little rest would be appreciated later on, so we napped for about 45 minutes, and then decided to head toward the Guinness Storehouse! What better way to revive the spirits than with a pint of guinness and a gander through the museum (I do love my museums!)! I had a small freak-out in the lobby because I found a flyer for an opportunity to win tickets and airfare to go to the British an Irish Lions rugby tour in South Africa! All you had to do was spend over 50 pounds in the gift store and fill out the form, piece of cake since everything would be hugely over-priced anyway, but once I stopped freaking out and read the fine print that said you had to be a permanent resident of the UK, I was sorely disappointed. The British and Irish Lions tour has the best rugby players in the world playing against one another! Brian O'Driscoll, Richie McCaw, Ronan O'Gara, Ma'a Nonu, Schalk Burger... the list goes on!!!!! I digress though. The Guinness Storehouse continued- There were multiple levels, and you received a little map and leaflet to guide you, but other than that you were on your own, to move at your own pace, and eat the barley from the barley exhibit, should you so desire, as Christabel and Lauren did. I must admit to playing with the barley though. It was like a giant sandbox, but filled with barley. How do you walk past without sticking your hands in?! You don't, you sit on the edge and shove your hand in there, trying to feel the bottom of the display. Moving on, there were TV's for many of the exhibits, with a narrator explaining the various stages of the brewing process, and signs and placards to read. There were also exhibits on the various advertising strategies, a really cool one on how the old casks were made. The music in the background of the video was definitely the Chieftains, or songs the Chieftains play, I'm pretty sure one of them was "Changing your Demeanor", don't remember what the other one was called. We also got to sit in Arthur Guinness's chair! Once you reach the end of the tour, you can go up to a bar at the top that has a 360 degree view of Dublin, and if you hand them your entrance ticket you get a pint of Guinness! Or if you don't actually drink Guinness, a coke or soda of some kind. I, of course, had a pint of Guinness.



After the Guinness Storehouse stomachs were growling again and it was getting towards dinner time, so we headed back toward the hotel and got some food from the store across the street, opting for an impromptue picnic in our room. We then decided to head out on the town in search of live music and crack, as the Irish would say (not the drug of course haha). We went to a few different bars, but my favorite was the last one we went to, in the Temple Bar area. It was literally bursting at the seams! And there was live music! People were dancind and drinking and singing... basically it was a good time! And everyone sang along to one particular song, the only reason I knew it was because one of the Irish rugby players insisted on singing it at the parade celebrating the 6N Grand Slam, I don't know what it was called the line that everyone seemed to know was "Her eyes they shone like diamonds, her hair hung over her shoooooouuulder, tied up with a black velvet band" Then it was off to bed and up not too early to catch the bus to Cork!