Dublin!

I left for Dublin on Thursday night. My three friends; Brianne, Kristina, Julia and I went for the weekend. We took the bus at 6pm and arrived in Dublin a little after 10. Our hostel, Jacobs Inn, was about a two minute walk from the bus station so that was nice. The hostel was big, about five floors, with tons of rooms. A lot different from the hostel I stayed at last summer which was more of a house. My friends and I had gone for the cheapest option, and had booked spots in a mixed room. We got to our bedroom that contained 5 bunk beds and the room had men’s button up shirts on hangers drying all around the room. We were a bit apprehensive about our roommates at first realizing that we would be living with four strangers who were men but it turned out fine. We had four roommates. Frankie was from Nigeria but living in Manchester and was in Dublin on holiday… for the past two months. There were also three Spanish guys from Barcelona, Madrid and the Canary Islands who I couldn’t catch their names. It was really interesting talking with them and I did my best to try out my Spanish. I definitely need to brush up. I have forgotten a lot since High School.

                The next day we woke up early for our free breakfast of toast and tea. Then we went on the free tour that the hostel had posters for. You know me and free stuff! It was a three and a half hour walking tour all around the city and I am so glad we went. It would have taken us a whole day to find just a few of the places we went to. Our tour guide, Ali, was great and very interesting to listen to with all his facts and histories about the sites. We learned so much and were so glad to have gone.

                We saw Dublin Castle, which didn’t look much like a castle as it burned down in the 1600’s and was most of it was rebuilt. The Dublin Spire is this huge, needle looking piece of art in the middle of the city that was a millennium project for Dublin. It is the tallest structure in the city, 120 meters high. We went to Trinity College, founded in 1592, that is the seventh oldest college in the English speaking world. They had all sorts of interesting traditions. One was that if a student rode a horse carrying a sword to their finals, the lecturer was required to serve them a Guinness for their exam. The buildings were gorgeous and millions of cobblestones. Apparently in one year fifty-six girls broke their ankles when walking on the cobblestones in heels! We saw the Leinster House that our White House was actually modeled after. We went down to Temple Bar, which is not a bar by the way. The name came from the fact that the area used to be a raised sandbank. So Temple Bar is a whole area that is known for its music and arts. There were lots of pubs with live music playing at night. Down in Temple Bar the Project Arts Center where the band U2 got started, and also the hotel across the street where they used to hang out in and now own- Clarence Hotel. We ended the tour at St. Stephen’s Green Park which was beautiful, full of trees, footpaths and ponds. We were so lucky to have such nice weather. Sunny all weekend!   

                We grabbed some lunch at a pub called Cassidy’s that had great traditional Irish food then explored all the shops down town. We saw a few street performers, one who played the accordion dancing and chasing people around. We got a few recommendations from the man at Cassidy’s and headed to the Porterhouse down in Temple Bar; where we had to try Foley Strawberry beer that we heard so much about. We hopped around to a few other pubs listening to live music. On our way back home we heard “Galway Girl” (a must know song when in Ireland) playing in a pub called Fitzsimmons and ran in for the last of the song. There were two guys playing acoustic guitars and they played all sorts of classic songs that everyone knows.

The next morning we had our free breakfast again. We live on tea and toast over here! Then took the Luis, an above ground Subway, to the Guinness Storehouse. They were celebrating their 250^th anniversary this year. Arthur Guinness signed the lease for the property in 1759 for 9,000 years. Talk about a lot of faith in his venture. They had a seven story self guided tour. The building was awesome with the world’s largest pint glass in the middle that if it was real could hold 14.3 million pints. The tour went through the brewing of the beer from hops, water, yeast and barley. Then there was taste testing, advertisements, and information about the storehouse. It was a very long tour as there was so much to look at but definitely worth going to. At the very end we went up to the top floor- the Gravity Bar, which is the highest bar in Dublin and has a 360 degree view of the city. Up top you turned in your ticket for a pint of Guinness. I got my free pint but I have tried it before and knew I was not fan. I don’t like the roasted barley taste that reminds me of coffee. My friend Brianne loves it so I handed her my glass.

What was really interesting from the tour was seeing the Guinness book of World Records. I never made the connection of the beer to the book. In 1951 the director of the brewery got into an argument over the fasted game bird in Europe and could not find an answer in books. He realized that there must be lots of other debates in pubs all over and no book to settle the arguments. That is where the Guinness Book of Records was created and became the bestselling book of all time.

After we headed back to the hostel for dinner and we played some pool and watched a movie in the common room. We ended up going back out for our last night in Dublin. We went back to Fitzsimmons that had great music the night before. They had two guys playing acoustic guitars again and had great music all night.

We checked out of the hostel at eleven the next morning and caught a bus to Cork at noon. I slept most of the ride and we got home around six.

I am going to try to get pictures up on flickr tonight so take a look!