While we were waiting for our bags in the Dublin airport, we spent some time trying to figure out how to get to the hotel. Kevin connected his phone to the airport wifi, and a map let us know that we definitely would not be walking to the hotel. The buses and trains seemed overly complicated, like they would require several transfers. We decided that it would be easier to just take a cab, even though it would cost more. Then, as we were heading to the taxi stand with our bags, I saw a map for the Airlift's bus route which went from the airport to a point about a block away from the hotel we were staying at. Score one for me.
Our hotel was the last stop on the bus, which gave us a chance to see some of Dublin as we came in and wound around the city. I was impressed with how modern it is near the docks. There were a lot of new buildings and construction all over the place. Apparently joining the EU has been a real boon to Dublin's economy. Farther inland, the buildings are a lot older, though certainly not rundown. For the most part.
Our hotel was in a perfect location. We were at the end of downtown, on the river right next to the train station and park and across from the Guinness Brewery and Storehouse. The view out of our window was a field full of kegs, which was definitely unique. And our travel agent had arranged for us to have breakfast at all of the hotels in Ireland, which gave us one less thing to worry about every morning.
After stowing our stuff in the room we went out to The Brazen Head, Ireland's oldest pub. It was founded in 1198, making it over three times as old as The USA. That's a long time. Then we went across the street for dinner at a place called O'Shea's. After that the plan was to hit every pub between there and our hotel, but we only came across one that was open. So we stopped in for beers and talked to some locals for a bit. Then we stationed ourselves at the hotel bar for a while to read and play cribbage.
The next morning we got up ready to explore Dublin. We had a huge breakfast at the hotel buffet (this became a theme, breakfast seems to be a big meal in Ireland), then set off to get tickets for the tram and head downtown.
The first stop was Trinity College, where the library had the Book of Kells on display. The Book of Kells is this fantastic, intricately decorated manuscript of the New Testament. There was an exhibit on the coming of Catholicism and, more importantly, written language to Ireland and the development of these books. The best part of the display was the timeline of the church was originally held, which was leveled, burned, pillaged, and destroyed so many times that it eventually stopped listing individual instances. On the second floor of the library there was a temporary exhibit about Brian Boru, who styled himself the Emperor of Ireland back in ~1040.
After that we went to check out the Dublin Castle, walking through the rain and down wrong streets to find it. We ducked into a market for a bit to avoid the worst of the rain, and eventually we came across the back gate of the castle. We walked around it, but we decided that it probably wasn't worth the money to go inside. Kevin remembered being underwhelmed by it the last time he was in Ireland, and I didn't care that much. So we got lunch instead. Then it was off to the City Cathedral and St Patrick's Cathedral, neither of which was allowing visitors inside. We must have arrived during Mass.
Unable to see the churches, we opted for beer instead and went to tour the Guinness Storehouse. They've set up a really cool museum that takes you through the process of making beer, the history of Arthur Guinness and his family and legacy (he had 21 children, which meant that his wife spent 16 years of her life pregnant, as one exhibit pointed out). There was information about the building of oak casks, the transportation of Guinness around the world, and the history of their advertising campaign. There was a lot of cool information here, like the fact that Guinness was the first company to institute paid vacations and that they buy 2/3 of the barley grown in Ireland each year. We also got to learn how to taste Guinness in a rather silly exhibit that had us walk down a dark hallway into a white room to awaken our senses. Then it was time to redeem our tickets for a couple of pints in the circular bar at the top of the storehouse. It was really crowded, but the views were pretty incredible.
Since we had day passes for the tram, we decided to ride it out to the end of the line and see some of the suburbs surrounding Dublin. It gave us a better sense of the size of the city and was the first time I got to see the gas prices over there. Gas cost about 1.55 Euro/liter, which works out to over $8/gallon, which really puts things in perspective for America.
That night we decided to get dinner in the Temple Bar part of Dublin and find some live, traditional music. The place we went to for dinner had live music, but it was all classic rock. The guy was playing songs like The Boxer, All ALong the Watchtower, and Brown-Eyed Girl, and I was the only one in the place who knew the sha-la-la's for Brown-Eyed Girl. We both got fish and chips for dinner, which I was a little underwhelmed by. It's mostly that I'm used to cod instead of haddock, but it just didn't taste the way I was expecting. Also it was served with a green sauce that was so bland I couldn't tell if it was trying to be avocado or wasabi.
The place we stopped for dinner advertised a free comedy show that night, which we decided to stick around for. This was a colossal mistake. Not only did the show start a full half hour after advertised, the comedy was horrible and offensive. We ended up leaving halfway through, but it left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the evening. We wandered down the street until we found a pub where we could get seats and caught the tail end of a set of music. The next band wasn't starting until 10:30 and, deciding we couldn't stay up that late, we opted to just go back to the hotel. Where I promptly fell asleep, thus beginning my trend of sleeping about 10 hours a night for the rest of our vacation.
The next day Kevin wanted to go for a bike ride, so I made plans to entertain myself until he got back around 2. I was going to spend some time exploring and reading the park next to our hotel, then check out the museum on the other side of our hotel, and finish with a late lunch somewhere. Unfortunately, the wind and rain drove me out of the park pretty quickly, and the museum proved to be centered on military history which bores me to tears. So I decided to not worry so much about doing something and just relax. I figured out how to hook my table up to the hotel's wi-fi and wiled away the morning browsing the internet, reading in the bath, and enjoying a leisurely lunch. It ended up working out perfectly.
When Kevin got back from his bike ride, we went over to tour the Jameson Distillery. But the first open tour wasn't for two hours, so after buying our tickets we found a bar where we could drink cider and play cribbage. You've probably noticed at this point that we spent a significant part of the honeymoon playing cribbage. We probably played 5 or 6 games a day. It's a pretty excellent way to kill time in a bar.
The Jameson tour was a lot of fun. It started off with a really silly video - a historical reenactment of a NYC journalist interviewing Mr. Jameson about his business. Then we went through the process of making whiskey. The original site of the distillery is just a museum at this point, so everything was a recreation of the original method. It was pretty cool to see, though. Especially when it came to maturing and blending the whiskey. They use three different types of barrels to mature the whiskey, barrels that have previously held bourbon, sherry, or port. Each gives the whiskey its own flavor and they're all blended together at the end. Also, a truly absurd amount of whiskey evaporates in the maturation process. Historically this is referred to as the "angel's share", but functionally it means that the barrels that have been maturing for 18 years are only 2/3 full.
We decided to give the Temple Bar another try for dinner and music, but once again we just didn't have the energy to wait for music to start. Instead we ended up at a pub by our hotel, drinking cider and whiskey and watching trivia game shows with the locals.
On Saturday morning, with the honeymoon approaching the halfway point, it was time to head back to the airport to pick up our rental car and head out to explore the rest of Ireland. Picking up the car was a long and tedious process, but we eventually got it and got on the road to Galway.
Our hotel was the last stop on the bus, which gave us a chance to see some of Dublin as we came in and wound around the city. I was impressed with how modern it is near the docks. There were a lot of new buildings and construction all over the place. Apparently joining the EU has been a real boon to Dublin's economy. Farther inland, the buildings are a lot older, though certainly not rundown. For the most part.
Our hotel was in a perfect location. We were at the end of downtown, on the river right next to the train station and park and across from the Guinness Brewery and Storehouse. The view out of our window was a field full of kegs, which was definitely unique. And our travel agent had arranged for us to have breakfast at all of the hotels in Ireland, which gave us one less thing to worry about every morning.
After stowing our stuff in the room we went out to The Brazen Head, Ireland's oldest pub. It was founded in 1198, making it over three times as old as The USA. That's a long time. Then we went across the street for dinner at a place called O'Shea's. After that the plan was to hit every pub between there and our hotel, but we only came across one that was open. So we stopped in for beers and talked to some locals for a bit. Then we stationed ourselves at the hotel bar for a while to read and play cribbage.
The next morning we got up ready to explore Dublin. We had a huge breakfast at the hotel buffet (this became a theme, breakfast seems to be a big meal in Ireland), then set off to get tickets for the tram and head downtown.
The first stop was Trinity College, where the library had the Book of Kells on display. The Book of Kells is this fantastic, intricately decorated manuscript of the New Testament. There was an exhibit on the coming of Catholicism and, more importantly, written language to Ireland and the development of these books. The best part of the display was the timeline of the church was originally held, which was leveled, burned, pillaged, and destroyed so many times that it eventually stopped listing individual instances. On the second floor of the library there was a temporary exhibit about Brian Boru, who styled himself the Emperor of Ireland back in ~1040.
After that we went to check out the Dublin Castle, walking through the rain and down wrong streets to find it. We ducked into a market for a bit to avoid the worst of the rain, and eventually we came across the back gate of the castle. We walked around it, but we decided that it probably wasn't worth the money to go inside. Kevin remembered being underwhelmed by it the last time he was in Ireland, and I didn't care that much. So we got lunch instead. Then it was off to the City Cathedral and St Patrick's Cathedral, neither of which was allowing visitors inside. We must have arrived during Mass.
Unable to see the churches, we opted for beer instead and went to tour the Guinness Storehouse. They've set up a really cool museum that takes you through the process of making beer, the history of Arthur Guinness and his family and legacy (he had 21 children, which meant that his wife spent 16 years of her life pregnant, as one exhibit pointed out). There was information about the building of oak casks, the transportation of Guinness around the world, and the history of their advertising campaign. There was a lot of cool information here, like the fact that Guinness was the first company to institute paid vacations and that they buy 2/3 of the barley grown in Ireland each year. We also got to learn how to taste Guinness in a rather silly exhibit that had us walk down a dark hallway into a white room to awaken our senses. Then it was time to redeem our tickets for a couple of pints in the circular bar at the top of the storehouse. It was really crowded, but the views were pretty incredible.
Since we had day passes for the tram, we decided to ride it out to the end of the line and see some of the suburbs surrounding Dublin. It gave us a better sense of the size of the city and was the first time I got to see the gas prices over there. Gas cost about 1.55 Euro/liter, which works out to over $8/gallon, which really puts things in perspective for America.
That night we decided to get dinner in the Temple Bar part of Dublin and find some live, traditional music. The place we went to for dinner had live music, but it was all classic rock. The guy was playing songs like The Boxer, All ALong the Watchtower, and Brown-Eyed Girl, and I was the only one in the place who knew the sha-la-la's for Brown-Eyed Girl. We both got fish and chips for dinner, which I was a little underwhelmed by. It's mostly that I'm used to cod instead of haddock, but it just didn't taste the way I was expecting. Also it was served with a green sauce that was so bland I couldn't tell if it was trying to be avocado or wasabi.
The place we stopped for dinner advertised a free comedy show that night, which we decided to stick around for. This was a colossal mistake. Not only did the show start a full half hour after advertised, the comedy was horrible and offensive. We ended up leaving halfway through, but it left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the evening. We wandered down the street until we found a pub where we could get seats and caught the tail end of a set of music. The next band wasn't starting until 10:30 and, deciding we couldn't stay up that late, we opted to just go back to the hotel. Where I promptly fell asleep, thus beginning my trend of sleeping about 10 hours a night for the rest of our vacation.
The next day Kevin wanted to go for a bike ride, so I made plans to entertain myself until he got back around 2. I was going to spend some time exploring and reading the park next to our hotel, then check out the museum on the other side of our hotel, and finish with a late lunch somewhere. Unfortunately, the wind and rain drove me out of the park pretty quickly, and the museum proved to be centered on military history which bores me to tears. So I decided to not worry so much about doing something and just relax. I figured out how to hook my table up to the hotel's wi-fi and wiled away the morning browsing the internet, reading in the bath, and enjoying a leisurely lunch. It ended up working out perfectly.
When Kevin got back from his bike ride, we went over to tour the Jameson Distillery. But the first open tour wasn't for two hours, so after buying our tickets we found a bar where we could drink cider and play cribbage. You've probably noticed at this point that we spent a significant part of the honeymoon playing cribbage. We probably played 5 or 6 games a day. It's a pretty excellent way to kill time in a bar.
The Jameson tour was a lot of fun. It started off with a really silly video - a historical reenactment of a NYC journalist interviewing Mr. Jameson about his business. Then we went through the process of making whiskey. The original site of the distillery is just a museum at this point, so everything was a recreation of the original method. It was pretty cool to see, though. Especially when it came to maturing and blending the whiskey. They use three different types of barrels to mature the whiskey, barrels that have previously held bourbon, sherry, or port. Each gives the whiskey its own flavor and they're all blended together at the end. Also, a truly absurd amount of whiskey evaporates in the maturation process. Historically this is referred to as the "angel's share", but functionally it means that the barrels that have been maturing for 18 years are only 2/3 full.
We decided to give the Temple Bar another try for dinner and music, but once again we just didn't have the energy to wait for music to start. Instead we ended up at a pub by our hotel, drinking cider and whiskey and watching trivia game shows with the locals.
On Saturday morning, with the honeymoon approaching the halfway point, it was time to head back to the airport to pick up our rental car and head out to explore the rest of Ireland. Picking up the car was a long and tedious process, but we eventually got it and got on the road to Galway.
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