Dublin, Day 3

Statue of James Joyce...
When we passed, we thought it was a street performer

We woke up extra early on Sunday, because we decided that we should at least eat some toast before going to the Old Jamison Distillery (which was our first official destination of the day!). We got there before it opened, so we had to stand around looking like the alcoholics who can't wait for the booze to be uncorked. 

However, it ended up being a great thing, because there were only 6 people in our tour. We got individual attention, and fun tour, and then everyone got to do a tutored whiskey tasting at the end. We even got to touch an alleged piece of the first mill wheel used at the distillery...and touching it gives you good luck FOR LIFE! That was a cool thing.

Different stages of Whiskey distillery-ment

After a bunch of whiskey on a mostly empty stomach, we naturally decided to walk around some more instead of going to get food. We went to the National History Museum, but it was closed. We still took some pictures outside.

Instead, we decided to take the Dublin Zoo up on their offer of entrance tickets for 2.50 euro. We walked around and saw the animals. The dublin Zoo doesn't have anything on the Wild Animal Park or the San Diego Zoo, but it was a lot better than some other zoos I've ….imagined seeing...

The glare makes it hard to see, but this orangatang loved Tim

Hugging a Giraffe

Holding a Zebra

Profiles. 

After the zoo, we walked through the Pheonix Park (which is the biggest city park in Europe...and is also home to this pointy monument).

We headed to Kilmainham Gaol (a.k.a. Jail), which is where they kept many Irish republican revolutionaries during the war times. It was quite an experience to do the 2 hour tour of this piece of history on a completely empty stomach. 

When we finish, we dragged starving selves to the completely OPPOSITE side of the city (it took at least an hour to walk there) and then we crawled into O'Sheas, had some delicious food, and of course, some Irish Coffee. Re-nourished and exhausted, we went back to the hostel and watched a little bit of TV in Irish (all language research, of course), and fell asleep.