Dublin

We took a train across the country to Dublin. It was a really nice way to travel for several hours. We could just nap and watch the countryside, cows, and sheep go by.

When we pulled into the station the first thing we saw was the St. James brewery where they produce Guinness. There is a tour of the old brewery facility. It's great! They show you pretty much how they make Guinness from the ingredients, to the processing, brewing, packaging, and marketing. There is no guide, it's all media as you go up and up into the building. At the very end there is a bar where they pour a pint of "perfect" Guinness. Eoghan thinks it should have had more love in the pour, but it was pretty tasty and you can see his glass is empty. The view was amazing. The bar was set up with the Guinness in the center, and a 360 degree view of the Dublin. It was a beautiful circular room entirely walled by windows.



We left, found the U.S. embassy where Eoghan would have to go renew his Visa early the next morning (it's a really tacky building that looks like a beach-side motel 8, circa 1972), dropped our stuff at the B&B, and found Lizzie. The B&B had a nice view of the colored doors we saw all over the city, as well as the Palm Trees. Did you know Ireland was a tropical island?

Lizzie was a lot of fun! She showed us some nice pubs in the area, and she mostly told stories and her and Eoghan caught up.

The next morning, after a meat-fast downstairs, Eoghan went to the embassy to do his thing and I walked off to Grafton St. I past St. Stephen's Green on my way. We had a chance to see the lights on Grafton the previous night, and they were beautiful! Thousands of tiny white and blue lights spell out holiday wishes in Irish, with a strob-ish light mixed in ever so often. Grafton St. has great shopping and is completely pedestrian.








After some shopping we moved on to see Trinity College, founded in 1592. Eoghan studied there after high school, and it's a beautiful campus.






After Trinity, we did some more exploring and got some lunch before heading back to the west side of the country. Some fish and chips, then back to the train!