Dublin

Dublin has been on our list of places to visit and when we got an email from Stacey asking if we wanted to go to Dublin for the weekend to celebrate Alex's birthday, we jumped on it.  Nate and I both had meetings in other cities a few days before (me in London, him in Helsinki) so we met up in Dublin on Thursday night.  It was perfect because we were both able to work from there on Friday.  We finished up work in time for happy hour and our first pub of the weekend.  The cab driver I had from the airport to the hotel on Thursday night told me that the Irish love their pubs.  When it's cold and rainy outside they say "Hey, it's too cold and wet to be outside, let's go to the pub."  Then when it's sunny outside they say "Hey, it's too warm out here, let's go to the pub."  The theme being, let’s go to the pub (and you will see this as a theme throughout our weekend there as well).

So anyways, we did happy hour, Nate had his first Guinness of the trip, me a Heineken (or Hoinegen as the Irish would say).  Nate said he probably drank more Guinness in those three days than he had in the last 3 years.  After our first pub we headed towards the Temple Bar neighborhood (which is apparently the place to go for tourists and locals alike).  On our way we stopped at another pub for some dinner.  We finally made it to Temple Bar and it reminded us a bit of Bourbon St. in New Orleans.  It was loud and busy, lots of people in the street and just had a feel of craziness.  That weekend it just so happened to be that Ireland was playing Scotland in a big rugby match at the stadium in Dublin.  So there were lots of Scots in town and they were all dressed in their kilts.  Everyone was so friendly and happy and all around in good spirits.  It was a good time!

After some time we headed back towards our hotel and another pub where we were meeting Stacey and Alex (they came in on a later flight).  We met up with them and finished the night out at the Hairy Lemon.

The next day we were up and about and ready to explore Dublin.  We had a few things on our list and the Guinness Storehouse tour was one of them.  We headed there first and found it to be more like a museum.  It was actually done really well and about 6 stories tall.  It was a self-guided tour that walked you through the Guinness making process, the history and even gave you a lesson on doing the perfect pour.  Because if you didn't know, there is a very special way to pour a Guinness....it's a two pour beer.  As you walk through the different levels, you end up at the very top in the tasting room.  Here you get your free pint of Guinness and are able to enjoy your beer while getting 360 degree views of Dublin.  It was quite nice!

We finally left there, grabbed some fish and chips and then headed to St. Patrick's Cathedral.  Afterall, we figured we should do something non-drinking related during our visit.  St. Patrick's Cathedral is apparently the largest cathedral in Ireland and quite beautiful.  We finished up here and headed off to, you guessed it, another pub.  This time it was to watch the Ireland vs. Scotland rugby game.  The boys watched the whole game while Stacey and I headed over to Grafton St. (the main shopping street) for some shopping.  

After the game and a bite to eat we were off to a stand up comedy show which was recommended by a co-worker of mine that used to live in Dublin.  It was in another pub (of course) in the upstairs portion of it.  The room itself was quite small, with a small stage.  It was all really fun though and it was interesting going to a comedy show in a different country because obviously you aren’t all that familiar with all of the references they make.  But we still found it to be quite funny and it gave us a little more insight into Ireland and its culture.  

We left here and went to yet another pub (are you picking up on the theme here?).  We found a really busy street not far from where we were and went to this pub that was packed and had a guy playing his guitar.  We were having a great time and then it happened.  We witnessed a true Irish pub fight.  The only reason this was kind of cool is because we had luckily moved away from the area where it all went down just minutes before it started.  Otherwise it could have been quite scary.  So between that and a few more pubs, we were calling it a night.

Our flight on Sunday wasn't until 5pm so we had some time for more sightseeing.  We headed to Trinity College to check it out.  It was such a beautiful campus and reminded me of what an East Coast college campus looks like.  After walking around here for just a bit, we were off to the Jameson Whiskey distillery for our tour.  This was a guided tour where you learned all you ever wanted to know about whiskey making.  For instance, did you know that Jameson distills their whiskey three different times (the Scottish only distill theirs twice)?  Throughout the tour you definitely got the idea that they don't think much of the Scottish whiskey at all. At the end of this tour you also got to sample the product.  You had a choice to take your whiskey neat or have it with a mixer.  I am actually not a fan of whiskey at all but decided to try mine with cranberry juice and it actually wasn't too bad. 

Anyways, we had one more pub lunch and then were off to the airport.  Overall I'd say we had a great Dublin experience.  Everyone was friendly and there was this energy in the air everywhere you went.  If we end up going back though I'd definitely like to explore outside of Dublin to experience more of Ireland and its true beauty.