Day in Dublin

My friend S is still in town and we do a great job of not overdoing the fun so we can get in a fair share of sightseeing. Today we are exploring Dublin. What better way than book a hop-on hop-off bus?! We reserve a ticket to see the book of Kells and Trinity College Library this afternoon as well. Luckily we did because it is completely sold out for the day by the time we get there.

We follow the bus around its path deciding we can stop at one or two stops and still make our Book of Kells time. First stop is some historic pubs were we stop to get a snack at one.

We enter into the book of Kells exhibit and learn all about this ancient text. We learn how the colored ink is made and we learn of the meaning of different symbols. The book is basically a book of a couple gospels of the New Testament but in elaborate visual detail.

Next we visit the library at trinity college. They are in the process of removing all the books to preserve them. Fortunately we get to see the library with some of the books still in place.

We take our hop on hop off tour for a little longer and end up on the other side of the river where we come upon the Jameson distillery. Unable to get tickets ahead of time we pop in to see if they talk walk ins and they do. We get a included Jameson drink and start our tour. The tour ends with a sampling. We enjoy hanging out at the bar in the front for a little bit.

Finally we end the evening at the Cobblestone, known for its local Irish music. It is impossibly packed but we wait it out and score two seats. We can’t really view the band but we enjoy the music just the same. I am surprised we stay as long as we do because of the thick crowds but we do have a limit and call it a night.

We have another long day tour scheduled tomorrow. Nite nite.

Guinness Storehouse visit

Sad that we missed out on our previous Guinness appointment due to Delta and JFK airport but we are glad we get a make up session on St Patricks Day. After a bizarre morning we can use some beers in our life.

We decide to head down to the Guinness Storehouse early to eat a late lunch since all the restaurants will be either packed or not serving food near where we watched the parade.

We eat at one of the on-site restaurants. The food is nothing to rave about but at least we are no longer hungry.

The can’t reschedule us for the same experience we had booked because it is totally sold out until my friend leaves and only offered once a day. But they do offer us tickets to pretty much every other experience that they have. We have a scheduled time but they don’t seem to be strict on that as long as you have a ticket for the experience you are in line for.
We soon learn we will be drinking lots of Guinness today. We have three tickets for events that will give us full pints of beer and on top of that we get to have a sample of Guinness.

We start with the learning how to pour a Guinness at GUINNESS ACADEMY. Guinness is not always my beer of choice but I have had enough of them to know there is a special way to pour them. Our beer instructor takes us through a very fast instruction. It is obvious there is something we are missing. We discover that most people arrive here after visiting the complete museum before hand whereas the people at the entrance erroneously told us to come directly to the 4th floor to start our special experiences. We get through our own pours, gain our certificate and decide to take our recently poured beers downstairs to start our way through the museum. This is where we have our first full pint given to us.

Guinness is no longer brewed here but we learn about the history, chemistry, etc.

After the tour we do part 2 of our experience, we have a beer sampling. A guide takes us throw the flavors we experience in the beer.

Part 3 is the STOUTIE experience where we have our faces printed on a pint we then drink. This is pint number 2.

We stop into a bar to watch an Irish band play for a little while. We haven’t heard much Irish music since we’ve been in town. The bars we have visited thus far play mostly covers. We stay awhile to enjoy.

Finally we visit the Gravity bar up top for an additional free pint. The bar has beautiful views of the city. We chat with some former locals who are back in town to watch the upcoming Rugby match. They tell us only tourists watch the St Patricks Parade because it is crap.

We make one more stop and then call it a day. Tomorrow we plan to wander around Dublin and sightsee locally.

The most bizarre St. Patrick’s Day parade ever

I haven’t been to too many St Patrick’s day parades because where I live up parades aren’t a thing on that day; but drunken parties are. My only exposure to St. Pat’s parades are the few years I lived in Brooklyn in New York. Brooklyn’s parade usually starts with local police and first responders and other local dignitaries, then there are bands and other groups but there is one common theme – lots of green. When my friend and I decided to meet up in Dublin it also happened to be the week of St Patrick’s day. What a fantastic thing to celebrate in the land the day originated!

There is a website and lots of tips around town to tell you the parade route and times. We just had to pick a strategy of where we would stand. We decided on a spot not too far from St Patricks Cathedral. We get there a little early but not as early as one person tells us – three hours early. I am pretty sure at three hours early most of the route would have still been a ghost town. Considering the parade didn’t get to us until over an hour after start time that would have made a very long and uncomfortable wait.

We thought we could pass the wait time with a couple of beers. We don’t know the street laws and asked the nearby police doing crowd control about alcohol consumption and they say no alcohol is allowed to be consumed on the streets *although I am sure it happened when the crowds thickened. We contemplate visiting a bar for a pint and switch off getting a beer while the other saves the spot. That plan soon falls through when we find out the no alcohol before noon rule that I thought only applied to Sundays applies to bank holidays as well. So it will be a dry parade for us. No big deal but it is a long wait for the parade so it would help pass the time. Luckily some pre-parade aerial arts entertainment starts up.

House music starts pumping from the make-shift DJ booth and aerial acts one by one flys around in front of us suspended by a large crane. The performance goes on for a long time, even leading into the start time of the parade. I read the parade pamphlet and it seems like this whole day is an ambitious combination of arts groups. I am expecting a parade with an art flair but I wasn’t expecting it to be only that. Arts is pretty much all we got.

There is the standard grand Marshall, local officials, and police and first responders along with many bands. Most of the marching bands are from high schools and colleges in the USA. We see one or two multi-cultural groups such as Venezuelans and break dancing French but just about zero Irish heritage groups: No Irish dancers, no St Patricks themed floats, and no kitschy leprechauns. All we see is costumed performances of different themes, all impressive in their own right, but none having to do with the theme of the day. The only groups remotely related are the ones that have pagan themed costumes and performances. At least those can be explained as how Ireland was before St Patrick came in and spread christianity (no he did not chase out the snakes….there are no snakes in Ireland).

It is all so confusing and poorly executed that no one really knows when the parade is over. There is no finale float. The last group we see is a biodiversity group and they come by in bicycles nicely decorated. There is no indicator that they are the last group. We wait for a few a few minutes but everyone else seems to leave so we leave too. Perhaps there was more but we aren’t sure. We head off to guiness to get lunch and get ready for our visit time there this afternoon. The parade lasts longer than we anticipated so we are starving.

Dublin, Kilkenny, sheep dogs

It’s my second day in Dublin and my friend is on her way. Her flight gets delayed a little so I get breakfast and get some trip planning done for my next set of adventures (note this morning I accidently book a ticket from the wrong airport in Croatia but more on that later).

We are supposed to do one of the high end Guinness experiences today but we miss out because of airlines. Unfortunately this experience is limited and completely booked during her entire visit. They do work with us and give us tickets for all the other Guinness experiences instead and that is scheduled a few days from now on St Patricks day. More on that later.

I do score us tickets for the Kilmainham Gaol Museum that are hard to get last minute (they sell out a month or so in advance). I remain flexible to skip if she is too tired from her travels. She is up for it so we head out there soon after she settles.

Kilmainham Gaol is famous for holding prisoners during the many conflicts over the years. It is a very unique looking structure and many executions took place over the years.

After prison we head down Temple Bar to get the whole experience. The place is probabably always busy but it is especially busy tonight because it is St Patrick’s Day coming up. We stay for one beer and listen the band a bit. We then head to another historic bar that is way less crowded.

The next day we have a day tour scheduled. First stop is the town of Kilkenny, a very cute town. We get bad advice from our tour guide. She tells us an option is to visit and tour Smithwicks. It is bad advice since not only does the tour start late, the tour guide doesn’t seem to know his stuff and stumbles slowly, and the beer isn’t even brewed here anymore. We don’t even have time to drink our beers at the end because they are too slow to pour. We have to run back to our bus. In our minds it is a waste of our too short time. I will have to come back to stay in the town to truly experience it. We did see a nice rainbow though and learn about some agreement about turkeys.

Much more of the tour is hey look out the window at this thing while we drive past it fast. This is the number one thing that bugs me about bus tours, number two being ridiculously short stops. Here are some things I saw really fast.

Photo stop at the Wicklow mountains.

We visit an old monastic sight in glendough founded by St Kevin, we try to find the trail to view the nearby lakes but again after bad advice or directions we never find the trail start. We waste our time going the wrong way and staring at some sheep. I get some greasy fish and chips that I soon regret. I am already tired of fried foods.

Something about putting your arms all the way around. I can’t remember.

Finally we reach the best part of the day, the sheep dog trails in Wicklow. We watch border collies round up sheep like it is in their nature to do. We also meet some lamb. Another day making it harder for me to not be vegetarian. They are so adorable.

We head to dinner, both wanting to avoid fried food, and stewed food, we find a place that has smoked salmon. I am a enjoying my salmon on Guinness soda bread.

Tomorrow is St Patricks Day so time to rest up for another long day.

Arrived in Dublin

I check out of my hotel in Belfast and head to Dublin today but first I head out to see the peace wall that I missed earlier. Thank goodness I still wake up very early so I can go out and sightsee before I need to leave. My sleep schedule is not so great for pub visits but opportune to seeing sights during the day.

The peace wall is the barricade that separated the two fighting groups of Ireland in the middle of Belfast to help foster “peace”. Before the mid-90’s this country was torn in pieces by constant violence. I am going to try to simplify it and I’ll probably get it a little wrong but basically it is between the British loyalists or Protestants (Ireland used to be ruled completely by Britain) and the Irish Separatists or Catholics. Ireland was technically declared independent in 1922 but I guess Britain wasn’t totally out of the picture and it caused factions to form. Northern Ireland remained loyal to the crown for the most part while Southern Ireland wanted to remain independent. This morning I walked down to the peace wall, which still exists, to see the art and written messages promoting peace and unity. There is talk of bringing the wall down but this particular wall is still up for now; perhaps so they never forget the past and they don’t repeat it. I learn later that I should have booked a black taxi tour to get a real feel for the history. I have another reason to return.

I had planned to take the 20 something minute walk to the train station to catch my train to Dublin but then it starts raining, then it develops into sleet and snow. I take an Uber instead. The train is on time and even the basic car seat I purchased is pretty comfortable, although it was never quite clear if I am in the right class. I have flash backs of getting kicked out of first class in Spain. I don’t get comfortable until we move and I see train staff walking by not caring about which ticket I have.

My hotel is a little distance from the train station in Dublin so I Uber again (Ubers are taxis by the way). It starts pouring, sleeting, and snowing just like Belfast. The weather has seemed to follow me here.

After hotel check in I decide to waste no time and sneak off to an last minute tasting at the distillery around the corner. The triangle shaped area I am staying is called “The Liberties”. It used to have the highest concentration of Dublin whisky distilleries. Irish whiskeys where thriving in the 19th century, people couldn’t get enough of them. Three things happened in the early 1900’s to change that: Irish independence, prohibition in the USA, and the Irish ignoring new technologies in the industry. All the existing distilleries closed in Dublin by the 1970’s (some moved operations elsewhere and stayed alive). In 2015, Teeling Whisky Distillery became the first new distillery to open in Dublin in 125 years. A distant relative once had a distillery not far from where the current location is so basically whisky is in their blood. I purchased the tasting where I try 3 different whiskies. Each had their own merits. My favorite being Single Grain Irish Whisky. The other tasting included a special cocktail that I also want to try so I purchase one at the bar after our official tasting. Now that I am all liquored up I decide I need dinner.

I wander around town in the evening. I go by all the temple bars. I notice teenagers lining up for blocks for some concert of a band I have never hear of. They seem to be wildly popular though.

I make reservations to try boxty – a local dish.

I get to the area early so pop into a pub where a person is performing Irish tunes and contemporary covers. I remember to order half a pint this time. Seems to be perfect for me lately for a quick drink.

Boxty is ok. I was expecting a life changing experience but it was just good. The meat was more tender than I expected so I liked that.