Dublin Day 2. Four Months in Europe Complete.

(Mon. Dec. 21st)

The last whole day I would spend in Europe for awhile.

The first thing we saw after we left our hostel (and just made it to breakfast in a matter of minutes before they put the food away) was this truck delivering Smithwick's kegs to bars. Dublin loves its beer.

We walked towards Trinity College, cause there was quite a bit to do over that way. This is under some train tracks, and next to them is a brand new building that belongs to the school, had a rec center inside . Looked nice.

And a GIANT climbing wall. Wow.

I think I just took this photo cause it was a good example of typical street front little shop.

We sorta discovered this museum of art, I forget the name, but the building was pretty amazing inside! Irish architects, which surprised me. Almost all white, lots of shapes, especially cubes punched in an out of things. Holes and cuts. That was a walkway overhead.

This was a huge tall wall in the cafe, with cuts going through it. I like it.

Shapes. Cuts. Cubes. At the front is the entry way, which is sort of an entrance box plugged into the larger wall.

Nice wavy wall.

This was a very abstract wall, with a door in it, a window in the door, and a Tiffany in the window.

Another little punched opening with a sorta bench in it.

And a fantastic little toy thing that makes it fun to donate money. You can dump it from dish to dish yourself until it gets to the bottom. Neato.

Some little stairs coming out of a walkway- you can't see the stairs, but you can tell they're there from the underside. I like that, its a little visual hint. We hurried around this place because we had a lot to do, and it wasn't on the schedule, but it was awesome. So we hadta explore it real quick :)

Back outside- typical Dublin. Good stuff. I liked the bay windows and balconies.

Okay. This is funny. Now I don't know whether they sell door hardware or whether its a sex shop, but it really could be either, and that's the funny part. You hafta think they knew what they were naming it. That's hilarious.

Trinity College! Score. Looks like a cool place...its older than our entire country... Nice quad in the middle. Not that big of a school, but pretty big, surrounded by a big wall with a few entrances here and there.

Very odd Brutalist Modern concrete building, with curved glass tube windows. Cool, but weird. And certainly out of place on the campus. Its the library.

The back of the library with a rotating globe-y sculpture.

Here's what most of Trinity College actually looks like. Very traditional collegiate architecture.

I think this is a dorm.

Down to Grafton St., we found hoards of people. Not surprising, since Christmas was near and all. I saw the most amazing comb over EVER, that was actually a comb forward, all the way from halfway down the back of the guy's head forward to the front of his head (so like one foot long hair) and then it was combed back over itself in the front. Unbelievable. I wish I had been able to get a picture. But how do you do that :)

There were also lots of street performers. This, for example- is a real person. Pretending to be a statue, sitting on a box, with a little case for people to give him money. The dog was real too!!! No just kidding, I don't think so.

Here's a guy who was sculpting a dog out of sand...kind of weird to see a pile of sand in the street, especially in Dublin in December. Pretty cool sculpture though!

Another guy pretending to be a statue- much more convincing since a pigeon landed on him!

South of Grafton was this really big, ornate building with tons of balconies all with hanging flowery things. Looked kinda neato.

Then we headed into St. Stephen's Green, Dublin's biggest and best park. Lots to do and see there. One of those big green splotches on the map that I always wanna go check out :) This guy behind Tiffany was feeding birds and ducks and geese. It was weird. She wanted a picture with him :)

What the heck are you doing, dude?

This car is great. I'd never seen anything like it- hadta find out what it was. It was old. And a very nice little shape.

Wow. A Nissan. Weird.

Right-hand drive, all-white interior. I kinda want one.

More walking from here to there, with our sights set on St. Patrick's. I liked these little two-story buildings too.

And these row house/apartmenty things were great, with their little rows of chimneys.

But these one-story ones were the best. Each one had a different colored front door. Awesome. I love color when its used like this...

This used to be a school, it had a little plaque on the front commemorating something about it. It was really old.

I loved the butterfly roofs on these buildings. You don't see that too often- I wonder why they did it like that, functionally, if there's any reason aside from a different aesthetic...

Yeeeeeees. St. Patrick's Cathedral!

Wait a minute, you say its 7 euro to go in? Are you joking? I got into Notre Dame and St. Peter's for free...what is this?? Yeah, I think we'll pass...

At least we got to see this plaque.

Looks cool on the outside, but on the other hand, doesn't look like it'd be a lot cooler than Notre Dame or St. Peter's...c'mon Dublin. 7 euro is expensive. And Google Images confirms that its not *that* great inside.

Does look impressive though! Massive, too- like sort of pre-Classical, before they really got that figured out (yknow, using less stone and more windows).

We went from there straight to famous church #2 (which I wasn't familiar with, but friendly-looking graphic on the map made it appear to be a must-see) which was only a ten minute or so walk from St. Patrick's- and actually much more accessible, and in a more bustling area closer to the river, than St. Patrick's. On the right is the actual church, the left is...accessory building. There was an exhibition in there on the history of the Vikings. That cost money. Yeah no thanks- our last day in Europe and we're kinda ready to stop spending money.

Here, just outside the church, were the ruins of the original church on the site- Roman-era walls. Wow. They were excavated at some point.

The inside. Kinda weird that its all folding chairs, though they they were nice looking chairs. Christ Church at one time was Catholic I think but has long since been converted to.....whatever Protestant sect. I forget. The floor was SUPER ornate though- awesome.

In the basement they had a cool exhibition- lots of old church relics, and videos about the history and such, and you could see where the original crypt was.

They also had something they found in the walls at some point... Tiffany thought it looked delicious. Apparently a cat and a rodent of some sort both got stuck and mummified. Awesome. My uncle Tony found a similar looking cat in his barn years ago... The interesting thing is, there's a plaque under it that says that this cat-mouse combo was referenced in a poem...I think Oscar Wilde, but I forget. So they'd been on display for awhile. I saw where Oscar Wilde was buried, in Rome of all places...

The bathrooms in the basement. Tiniest bathroom ever. Yet it still had two faucets, because they came direct from the hot and cold water lines, below the sink, heated by that little tank. Odd.

Some great photos of the church here and there.

This was the walkway connecting the church to the...everything else. These types of things always look so cool, like they'd be fun to build and use, they remind me of tree forts or something.

From Christ Church it was another short-ish walk to the next graphic on the map (and we were making quick business of seeing everything we needed to). We arrived at Dublin Castle, or at least the courtyard and elaborate entrance to it, with a lot of other buildings, and gated old arched entryways that used to be entrances to the castle wall.

The courtyard had the Christmas tree in it, as well as all these giant angels, that were part of some fundraiser thing just like the earths/cows/whatever else animal statues different US cities have painted and put all over the city. Usually different companies or people pay for the object and the opportunity to paint it, and then they all give them back to the city.

Tiffany liked them. Some were cool, some were lame. I don't remember the cause they were for.

These three were placeholders, the real ones waiting to arrive- painted by Uma Thurman, The Edge (U2's guitarist, don't be daft) and some other guy who I Googled and apparently was famous in Ireland...don't remember if he was an actor or a politician or what.

We never got out there, but here's the central gardens surrounded by Dublin castle, as we were getting a tour.

The weird thing is, though it was a castle, it didn't look like it on the inside. Its where a lot of the government is, including (or especially) the Prime Minister. So it looks very traditional and ornamental inside, but not old- just fancy governmental. Look at the carpet.

Lots of gold.

This is, uh, a cool...old...chair...- don't remember the specifics of this tour very well :)

This is the room in which the prime minister is inaugurated, among other things. High ceiling, paintings, flags, lots of blue- great cove lighting.

An outside shot of the aggregations of the castle.

Our tour guide and an artist's rendition of the original castle and walls (and trees).

From the castle it was time to do something I was very excited about- walking down the river and seeing some of the bridges. Every street, more or less, that came up to the river had a bridge taking it across. The river wasn't very wide, so the bridges could be modest, but also were very different one to the next. It was also a lot colder by the river- windy there.

Here was the first bridge, like a butterfly (or a Calatrava bridge). Had a separate part on the side for pedestrians, which was nice.

We'd see more bridges later, don't worry. But this tall building, west by the train station, called my name- I saw it from the Guinness bar too. Looked like it needed to be seen.

And also from Guinness I noticed this scale-version-of-the-Burj-al-Arab lookin building. The Burj al Arab is the sail looking building on the water in Dubai, the world's only 7-star hotel, that has an outdoor tennis court many stories up in the air sticking out into nothing.

Back to bridges. Here was a nice traditional looking one. The water wasn't very far down, either, which made me wonder if Dublin flooded a lot...

That same white bridge from before.

Here was a small plaza/ice rink lined with these things that were lights/decorations, I guess. I liked the bright colors.

We made a short detour at another graphic-on-the-map, Jameson Scotch Whiskey brewery. Didn't have time (or money, or caring) for a tour, but we walked in and checked out the gift shop and entryway. Much different than Guinness :) Quite a bit smaller and less touristy. Most of their gifts were like wine goblets and golf shirts...and bottles of scotch.

This was an old whiskey cask turned into a bench. Behind it is a giant copper still, which used to be used to make whiskey.

Inside, surprise surprise, they had a whiskey bar.

Then we moved on. To O'Connell Street, via Mary Street (wow, I just remembered that out of nowhere) which was a smaller-scale but still very busy pedestrian shopping street. And there was a posh-looking restaurant that had this weird spiral staircase outside, with I think an elevator shaft in the middle. And red lights at the top. I don't really get it. Cool looking though.

People, shopping. It was PACKED. This is where you think you're gonna get your wallet stolen.

On O'Connell Street, which was huge with a couple lanes of traffic each way, we saw this restaurant/bar, that was apparently the official meeting place of the U2 Fan Club or some such thing.

I don't remember where we finally stopped for food, but we were tired and hungry and chilly and thirsty, so it was time for dinner. Which incidentally, was an Irish breakfast for Tiffany. First she got an Irish coffee...

And I got a Beamish stout, and did a "Belgian Dip". Tiffany thought it was hilarious.

Her giant Irish breakfast (not really THAT delicious, but good, and a lot of food) and my fish and chips. Which were great.

Odd thing is that a few days later, I'd be having fish and chips again...in South Bend at Fiddler's Hearth. Which was weird because the experience was obviously quite a bit different and yet somewhat the same...and lent itself to thinking that I had just been sitting in a Dublin pub days before.

After dinner, which was SPENSIVE!, it was time to finish our evening and power through. We had bridges to see and U2 to stalk.

Bridge 1. Cool.

Narrow random street- also cool.

The "Wall of Fame" which was basically vinyl banners covering windows of an old empty building, across the street from our hostel. It included U2 and Sinead O'Connor. And Van Morrison.

Here's some good U2 stalking. They own this hotel. I'd been wanting to go for years. Why? Cause they owned it. That's it. I knew it was unassuming and gave no indication that they owned it, but that's fine, cause I knew.

Inside, it had a little sign saying no photographs. So obviously SOME people came trolling around here hoping to catch a glimpse of the boys from Dublin... And there was a guy at the door, asking if he could help us. So they were careful, clearly. I said we were going to the bar, of course.

The Octagon Bar. I knew about this too, even used it as a user name back in the day for something.

And it was as advertised. Octagonal. And small! I took this quick photo on our way OUT, so they wouldn't know (as MUCH) that we were stalker tourists when we walked in.

We looked at the menu, sat there for a sec, grabbed some coasters, told em we might be back later, and headed out :) A good shot across the bridge, down O'Connell Street- you can barely see the bright light at the top of the photo- that was top of some metal spire that was tall and pointy, a monument to something, pretty large and round at the bottom, shiny. Like a huge flagpole.

Tiffany stopped quickly to help this fisherman pull in his line.

More bridges. Yay.

Pretty crazy looking but I love the structure of it.

This bridge is inspired by the Guinness Harp, which is also the symbol of Dublin. If there ever was a Calatrava-looking bridge, this is it.

THIS was great. An old operable bridge- it had these giant rockers that would roll down as the main part of the bridge lifted up. Pretty cool contraption, with some huge gears.

Getting closer to the fantastic bridge...

Look at it go.

That lightpost in the foreground is vertical- its the building that is leaning. I don't remember what this was, but that glass space was a big atrium. This was on the north side of the river, east towards the sea- more new architecture that direction, towards the O2 theater.

I thought this was funny because Tim Horton, as far as I know, is only in Canada (which would make sense, given the French on it) and we saw tons of them when my family went to Toronto years ago- like as many as you see McDonalds (or Subway, or Starbucks) these days. This was just a coffee cup on the sidewalk. Hmmm, Google tells me that the SPAR (grocery stores) have Tim Horton coffee/donuts kiosks. Weird.

Another awesome bridge, though this was actually across a little north branch of the river- just saw this bridge when we were walking around that glassy building. Hadta cross the bridge and check it out.

Another crazy looking building. Lots of colored lights at night around this city.

This was a glass box built basically on the sidewalk, next to the river- I think it was like a tiny danceclub/bar thing...couldn't tell, but it had a door...very mysterious.

The O2 Theater.

The O2 theater is one of the main places to play bigger shows in Dublin (unless you're U2, then you play at Croke Park, the big Dublin stadium where I think they play rugby and soccer, where ND will play Navy in 2012. I wanted to go see it later, but it was a hike south down a branch of the river, and it seemed like a dark quiet area, and it was getting cold and late at that point, and I didn't wanna get mugged either. That was after we finished all our other stuff and were ready to go back to the hostel anyway. You can see the old original building in front and on the sides, and then up top and in the back is the big glassy blue new building. Sweet.

We happened to walk by a bus station where all the double-decker buses were parked. We shoulda ridden one. Oh well.

We were still making our way east, checking out destination points, with the goal of getting to U2's recording studios, which I knew were relatively unassuming. On our approach we found this whole artsy area of theaters and stuff which looked pretty cool and quite interestingly lit.

I don't even KNOW what this was, but it looked like someone's house- but it was like on a float in the river (the south branch, I guess called the Grand Canal, going towards Croke Park) and it was just sorta docked...confused. But if its a house, its awesome. It looked awesome.

More theaters and lights, Grand Canal.

The blue house again, and the bridge going by it.

And finally- walking down some tiny quiet dark sketchy street, we got to the low shanty buildings that were the studio (apparently). Lots of graffiti from fans on the building and the buildings across the street and the fences, and the street itself even :)

The cool thing recently is that I saw "It Might Get Loud" a documentary about The Edge, Jack White (of The White Stripes) and Jimmy Page (of LED ZEPPELIN) and there was a shot of Edge playing his guitar messing with pedals, and you could see out the window the canal behind him, where we were standing taking pictures.

Here's that glassy building again from across the river. After standing by the studio for long enough wondering how I could possibly get inside or the band would suddenly come out, we decided to be on our way.

Apparently this whole little area was up and coming. New condo buildings going up too. Loved these triangle balconies supported by the column.

ANOTHER great bridge!

And like I said, when it was late enough and we were cold and all that business, it was time to go back to the hostel and get some sleep. We hadta get up at like 5 when it was still dark and dead in Dublin and catch the bus shuttle to the airport to head back to domestic soil. Which was a weird thing to think about doing.

But the weirdest thing was after getting back to New York and then I think flying to Atlanta, we got on our final flight back to Chicago, and ran into friends, who were sitting in our same row even! Kristi lived in Tiffany's old apartment before Tiffany did but Tiffany's roommates were still friends with her, so we had gotten to know her too, she was on her way back from...somewhere, with her boyfriend. It was pretty random!

This was the 9000th photo taken on my camera, that I had bought last August just days before I left the country. 9000 photos in 4 months. This was my final touchdown in Chicago for the first time in four months.

The funny thing is that our adventures and plans didn't end with getting back to the US- thankfully. Or I would have gone through withdrawal. We were headed downtown, immediately with our bags, to meet up with my friend and old roommate Matt and his Japanese girlfriend Shuko, who were in Chicago for only one more day before traveling elsewhere- her first time to the US, and obviously our first time to meet her. They got engaged not too long thereafter and then married because it was much easier for her to get her VISA, and they're having the US and Japan ceremonies this fall! Crazy.

That concludes my 4 months in Europe. I'm a little sad to be done writing about it and re-looking at the pictures...

Dublin. Guinness. Speaking English!

(Mon. Dec. 21st)

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.

I actually wanted this picture, I think. Sweet. Guinness.

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.

Here was our drinks settling for us...

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.

Here was a small model of the whole plant. Pretty ridiculously massive.

And all the different bottles they've used over the years.

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.

Our beers and ciders. Full to the BRIM.

Lots of Irish Whiskeys up on that shelf. Or at least the boxes from them.

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 :)

Someone got a flight of beers. (Not me).

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.

This looked interesting. What? You just stop in for a quickie? It was a storefront on the street...

One thing you find all over Europe- people still love their kebabs and shwarma and doners (like gyros). Weird.

We found a bar that one of their guidebooks recommended, a microbrew, and sampled their wares.

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.

And here's a great shot of Temple Bar streetscape to end the night. It was a good fun day, that was much warmer than Prague. Thank God. Again.