Dublin

There are no campsites in Dublin so we stayed on the outskirts of the cities ring road. We didn’t know it at the time, but we think we were staying near the town where Andrew stayed when he was in Dublin. Clondalkin is located west of the city and it was about an hours bus ride into town. We were dropped off right in the smack of it, on Aston Quay in the Temple Bar district. From here we traveled across the river to O’Connell Street to find the tourist office and get a better map. Along the way we passed by the incredibly ridiculous, but also extremely tall (120m), monument to Aran sweaters. They say it is a giant knitting needle with the tip being a beam of light and they call it the “Monument of Light”. The tourist office was helpful and even booked us tickets for the Guiness brewery so we wouldn’t have to queue. We then back tracked over the bridge to make our way to Trinity College and the Book of Kells. We opted for the guided tour offered by students for two euros. The tour was informative and fast, apparently just the other day, our guide was giving a tour and was interrupted by Colin Farrel who apparently has a gorgeous girlfriend in the nurses’ school on campus. No celebrities interrupted this tour though. The book of Kells wasn’t all that interesting, but it is just a real old book. From here we stopped by two churches, St Patrick’s and Christ Church. They were nice enough but we have seen so many impressive churches that we are now a bit jaded. Once we arrived at the brewery we commenced our tour and skipped a large portion of it. It was a self guided tour and the only real reason I came here was to drink “the best Guinness of my life”. It was much better than I remember, but I am still not a fan of the stout. I was surprised to learn that Coors Light has more alcoholic content than Guinness. We were getting hungry now, so we made our way to Temple bar to see about a pub. The pub fare is usually fishy, so we had to search a while before we came across a pub with reasonable prices and a decent menu. There are so many stag and doe parties going on that we see large groups of people wearing the same shirts all over the place. Most are locals, but I did see one shirt that said Paul’s international stag party. It would be pretty cool to go all out and take a trip somewhere for the party. After lunch/dinner we made our way down Grafton Street. Julie is still searching for Irish things. I hope she finds everything she is looking for. Oh, I should say that Julie and I both picked up “Irish” drinking shirts to wear on St Patrick’s Day. Our intention for the evening was not to hang out in Temple Bar (Boo-urns) but to visit Aras Chronain – an Irish culture party where they teach you some Gaelic (like how to order a beer), some traditional dance and they also play some traditional music. However, we did some online research before we stepped out for the night and learned that it is more like an Adult education course, not a party like we were told. So we regrettably did nothing this night either. Two nights in Dublin and no pub crawl. I guess I will just have to head back another time and do it right.