9/6/08

Today I woke up at 11, which would have been fine except for the fact that I needed to be at Saint Stephen's Green for 12 and it was at least 35 minutes away add in that none of my roommates were up and you have a recipe for rush. So I grabbed a shower and I got ready as my roommates did the same. We got ready and then rushed toward the LUAS station where we ran into two girls who are also in IES so at least we knew that we weren't the only ones who were running a bit behind. On the train we seemed to be making great time until we passed the stop that we usually get off at to get to the IES center. We didn't realize that it slowed down as it snaked around corners and had to deal with traffic. I wasn't sure we were going to make it, until our train passed our RA who was walking to where we were meeting. We got off at Saint Stephen's Green and saw this beautiful park, we walked down the street to Grafton Street, which is the fifth most expensive street in the world. Needless to say, it was packed with people. I definitely want to go back and explore it in the future it looked awesome. So we got onto our double-decker tour bus (it was cool we could get on and off as we pleased because other buses made the same circuit), and went off on our tour of Dublin! Right away I knew it was going to be awesome because we passed Dawson's Lounge, the smallest pub in Dublin. It can hold 22 people at a time, and only if everyone is standing. We passed several cathedrals and other landmarks including Dublin Castle which I was to visit at another date. We also passed a jail that held prisoners from the 1916 Easter Rising. All these things seemed amazing and I wished that we could have stopped at them all, but we didn't have all day and there was only one place on my mind...The Guinness Factory! Ever since I knew I was going to be in Dublin I had planned on visiting. We walked in and it was really cool because as we stood in line they had TV's playing past Guinness commercials, ones I had never seen before including one for hurling.
The reason the one for hurling stuck out to me is because tomorrow is the Irish hurling final. Hurling (the fastest field sport on earth) is a huge deal in Ireland, it has been described to me by the locals as ice hockey with no rules. It is a huge point of pride as the teams are fielded by county and the players aren't paid and play for honor.
So we finally got our tickets, the student discount was very nice and we went upstairs to the beginning of the self-guided factory tour. We passed the gift shop area and looked at the 9,000 year lease that Arthur Guinness signed for Saint James Gate! 9,000 years at $25 a year is quite a deal! After seeing the Sam Adams factory last summer I was a little disappointed by the set up because they had you take the tour yourself so it became repetitive and didn't find out anything of any substance. Other than the water for Guinness comes from the Wicklow Mountains, they look gorgeous and I am going to visit them at some point. Some of the highlights were the tasting room (you sampled a small glass of Guinness with half the level of alcohol) the other highlight was the gravity bar, one of the highlights of my trip to Dublin so far. It is where you get your free pint at the end of the tour. It is on the 7th floor and it is enclosed by glass so you have a 360 degree view of Dublin. Not only was it the best Guinness I've ever had, but it was an amazing location and the view was breathtaking, I was beaming. On the way back down I bought a shirt and then we headed back to the bus.
We got back on the bus and took it around to the stop for the Jamieson Distillery. Before we were going to go on the tour we wanted to get lunch so we walked around the area, which was awesome, lots of stores and people and found this place called the Boar's Head. There I had a bacon and stuffing burger and it was excellent. It was especially cool because we were able to watch some of the World Cup qualifiers on a big screen tv. When we were done we decided to do the tour on another day, because at that point we were not only tired, but running out of time and we didn't want to rush the tour. So we walked back to the bus stop and took the bus around the rest of the loop. We got off where we started and took the LUAS back to our stop and headed back to our apartment.
Sidenote- Crossing the street in Dublin is an adventure because I have to constantly remind myself that the cars are coming the other way, and if you don't think about it, it can be dangerous.
This kid who lives in the building next door came back with us and played my roommate Derrick's guitar and it was extremely annoying, after he left we just hung out and watched TV. Everyone is pretty tired so we are taking it easy tonight. Tomorrow we are going to a pub to watch the hurling final with the natives so it should be an interesting day.