Dublin, Day 2

The next day, we woke up and went to get our free breakfast...and since Irish people eat beans and toast for breakfast apparently, we just had coffee. Then we walked out to see Dublin in the daylight.

The Spire

The first Irish danger we encountered was the street...where people drive on the other (a.k.a. wrong) side of the road. Luckily, they must be used to tourists accidentally running out in front of oncoming traffic, because they label the ground.

We walked around for a little, and looked at some cool buildings.

And then we arrived at our first destination of the day: The Guinness Factory. It was so cool.

We found it!

The 9,000 year lease on the Guinness factory property

Waterfall inside the museum

Breaking the rules...behind the bar at the taste experience

Funny Ad

We toured the museum, had a tutored tasting of Guinness, and then Tim poured his own pint. There's a very specific way to do it.

Later, we went to the Sky Bar, and shared another Pint while enjoying the amazing view of the city.

We left there at lunch time, and headed to our next destination: The Brazen Head – the oldest pub (location) in Ireland. The building itself isn't the oldest, but there has been a pub on that location since the 1100's. The owner was really nice, and he talked to us about the Irish language and gave us some cool travel tips. I wish we had an American dollar, because we could have pinned it to the wall like the 5 billion other people had done. Note to self: always carry an American $1 bill when traveling to foreign pubs.

Tim doesn't like this picture, but it's the best one of the front of the building

Behind the Bar!

Another picture of the outside :)

After the Brazen Head, we walked down to St. Patrick's Cathedral, the alleged site of the first baptisms performed by St. Patrick. It was so cold, and we didn't want to pay 10 euro each to go in, so we walked around the grounds.

Tim is pointing to the 1 euro cent piece he threw in the fountain.
It's floating on top of the ice. If you make the picture bigger, you
can see it

Next, we went to Dublin Castle. They wanted some touristy price to take a tour, and we were tired and broke, so we just pretended to want to go in so that we could use the bathroom. We also went to the Christ Church Cathedral, and we got to walk around in the crypt...ooOOoo. It was creepy, but they had a Christmas Market in there, as well, so it made it more weird than anything else. We only got pictures of the outside.

Our next destination was the Temple Bar neighborhood, where we went into the famous Temple Bar. It was built in the 1800's, so it's not that old, but it has some connection to the Knights Templar. There was a guy playing some music inside, so that was a cool experience. We also bought some overpriced postcards at their gift shop! :)

 

The inside, all decorated for Christmas!

 After all that, we went back to the hostel and took a nap! For dinner, we went back to the Celt, and ended up sitting next to a couple from Sweden. We all chatted and ate dinner, and then we went home to rest up for Day 3!