Another day, another country, just like usual :) On average over the course of the semester I flew somewhere once a week- meaning two flights. A week. It was great. I got very used to traveling, living out of my bag, packing light, being on the go, reading maps, eating on the go, etc. Traveling is as addicting as they say.
Here is day 1 of our Dublin adventure. One of the first things I saw was this trash can. I liked the graphic, that the whole thing was a cigarette. But I liked the British English, calling them "butts", calling trash "rubbish", and saying "bin them" instead of throw them away.
As soon as we emerged from Temple Bar itself, this is what the streetscape looked like. Down the street there was...some official government building, I don't remember what it was. You can see the pub on the corner- there are as many of them in Dublin as you might expect, and they look like you'd expect- all the wood, and gold lettering on the signs outside.
Here was something I thought was clever- they made this building look destroyed. Dunno why. But whatever.
Another interesting architectural...thing. I'm guessing they tore down the building in between the two, and decided that they weren't structurally sound enough to hold themselves up...
Our main plans of the day were to make our way over to the Guinness Brewery, which was like a 20 minute walk from Temple Bar. We were meeting up with my friend Alex and her friends that she was traveling with- they had just been Paris I think, and I forget where they were going for New Years- or maybe that was Paris. They were gonna be traveling for awhile, obviously. I'd rather be home for the holidays.
And here we are. The beginning of four hours of Guinness Brewery things. This is one of the main gates, but to the actual working brewery, not the tourist area. Then we found out we hadta walk blocks around the whole complex to the tourist entrance. I was worried we'd be late and miss Alex, but they ended up being like 45 minutes late- we finally went in without them- what else can you do, when you don't have cell phones :)
Around the block, another entrance. Notice I'm not wearing a hood and hat anymore- thank God. Though it was colder than we expected, at night, windy and stuff- maybe it was humid, cause my friend from Louisiana says humid cold feels a lot colder. Dunno why. Maybe the moisture in the air wicks away your body temperature faster.
Almost there... I'm not the biggest beer guy, nor am I obsessed with Guinness, but its one of the more famous beers ever, and a staple of Dublin/Ireland, so it was cool to be there- so I was taking lots of pictures of the signs and stuff.
Here was the gift shop. Pretty huge. Right by the entrance. Lots of cool stuff. Cool expensive stuff. Dublin is expensive. And so are gift shops at places like this. They had rugby balls and shirts, mugs and other clothing, all kinds of stuff.
Here's the original lease signed by Arthur Guinness for I think 400 years or something, for the land- stored beneath a piece of glass in the floor for all to see.
During the self-guided "experience" (different than just a tour, especially since it was a whole tourist center disconnected from the actual brewery) we got to do a tasting, and they taught us how to appreciate the different flavors going on. Had two or three 1/3 beers here to start it off.
This was a great map. A graphic of the tourist center. It was a bunch of circular floors, arranged around a central open glass atrium, that was shaped like a giant pint glass- and the top of the "glass", where the head/foam of the beer would be, was the 360 degree glass bar overlooking the city of Dublin, with some great views.
Here was where we learned about casks- what they do, how they make them- they had old-timey videos that might have been authentic (certainly looked it) from back in the day, showing them making the casks, and showing their stockyard with mountains of tens of thousands of them. Pretty amazing looking.
Here was the rooftop bar, where we got our free drink at the end of the tour. I think it was the tallest thing in Dublin. Good way to see where we were, where we would be going, what to see, what we didn't know we should see but looked tall and cool, etc.
I think that's St. Patrick's there on the left but I don't remember for sure. Dublin has a lot of churches.
And here was our whole group- Alex next to Tiffany, and her friends- the girl was a high school friend of hers who now lived in London (and talked like it). The guy was the girls friend, and another guy, also her friend, was supposed to come but had his flight cancelled and didn't meet up with them in Paris, and was late in coming to Dublin- so I didn't meet him- which is funny, cause Alex started dating him after that trip, and they're still together, she moved to Dayton after school to be with him, then they both moved to Columbus cause he's starting school there.
And labels. A cool history, and a cool historical study in marketing and graphic design/presentation, etc.
This you must read. An old advertisement for Guinness. When they thought it had health-giving properties. Hilarious. It cures what ails you. And here I always thought that was chocolate...
The original harp, I forget how old, but a couple hundred years, that inspired the original Guinness logo (which also inspired the Harp beer that they also produce). It wasn't very large, dark wood. Certainly LOOKED that old.
This I liked very much. The escalator turned into moving sidewalk at the end. Dunno why, don't care, surprised I've never seen this before somewhere else, but it looked cool.
Here is a list and map of where Guinness is sold around the world, by country and continent. Also shows where its brewed, as well, and says which Guinness they sell there- because their domestic draft is actually a bit different than what they sell in the US, because it needs more preservatives or whatever else to last longer for the distribution and all, so they actually have different names. You can only get the real Guinness draught in Europe and oddly enough Africa. Its a very popular beer there. Not sure why.
Another crazy collection of Guinness bottles. Wow.
And here was a great photo. Still at Guinness, Tiffany was trying to take her scarf off I think, and realizing how tangled her hair was in the back from rubbing up against her coat and scarf for days. Gross. But funny. She didn't want me to take a picture. But I kinda had to.
On our way home for the evening, we went through a little neighborhood of tiny houses. Common in Dublin. I loved how short they were! Look at how low the first floor ceilings must be- very quaint.
We wandered into a church where they were preparing for a Christmas event. Great crimson color in there. It was a Greek-cross shaped church, meaning it was short with equal length parts on the sides of the altar.
Also on the way home we tried to do a bit of grocery shopping for sandwiches in the morning. Like I said- Dublin is expensive. But here on the bottom shelf was a package of Ramen noodles. Which you can buy for ten cents on sale, maximum like 25-50 cents, in the US. ONE EURO NINE CENTS. Which is like $1.50! Oh and by the way- I was surprised to find out Ireland was on the Euro. I assumed all the UK was still on the pound. Which my friends who had been to or lived in England thought was ridiculous, that I didn't know that. Yeah, okay, sorry, how would I have known that? It was nice though not to have to get more new currency, though I was sorta looking forward to using pounds for once.
We walked around a bit for the evening, to the shopping areas. There are two of them, separate from one another on different sides of the river, one around Grafton street, on the south side, one around O'Connell street, on the north side, which was larger and lots more cars, more like Michigan Ave. in Chicago, whereas Grafton was more a tradition European shopping area. Pedestrian streets. Me loves.
This I think was O'Connell. Tram, bigger buildings, bright colored lights.
Some cool cell phones. Especially cool since I had one from Motorola a lot like these, but years ago. I loved the design, that it rotated open around the central screen. Still have that phone in a box.
And then we met up with Alex and her friends again, for dinner at some pubby place. I don't remember how we figured out where to meet, since we had just gotten to Dublin the night before. But we managed. Again, expensive. Beer, food. Pricey.
Here's all of our feet. Dunno why I decided this was a cool picture but I still like it.
There was a small band playing live music (they like having bands in pubs there in Dublin) and they were doing some American covers as well as Irish songs. Entertaining! And loved hearing Irish accents when they talked :)
This was a weird sculpture outside of the tallest building around, a very ugly, modern, completely out-of-context bank building right next to traditional, old, small Temple Bar, which is mostly restaurants and pubs. Why would you do that.
One thing you find all over Europe- people still love their kebabs and shwarma and doners (like gyros). Weird.
They were proud of their beers. A good advertisement. The bottom says "If you think our beer is missing something, you're right".
We also enjoyed more live music. They were a pretty good cover band. And they were on the coolest stage I've ever seen. This bar was three stories, with a small central square atrium space going up through it. On the first floor, the ceiling in the atrium was mostly the stage, which was suspended in the space. On the second floor, the stage was just out in the middle, over the railings, and on the third floor, you could look down over the stage. It was awesome, and meant that the music could easily reach all three floors.
Here's a better look, a composite shot (see the messed up corners) and you can see the railing all around, and that in front of/below the stage is the first floor below it...amazingly inventive. To get onto the stage they had to take a couple steps up the staircase on the right or left, and then step over the railing.
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