Dublin Nights

The Temple Bar, in Temple Bar.

Sip. That's what you do.

Yes, we hit a few pubs. I fear the HH's co-worker (from their Oxford sales office) thought we were a little dull because one or two pubs per night was our limit. With a pub on every corner, the choices were many.

Yes, there was lots of Guiness. Here's how to pull a perfect pint.

Pints in various stages of their 119.5 second wait...

At the Ginger Man, across the other side of our hotel, we discovered another delicious beer, Beamish Red.

We were sucked into the TV in the evening. On the slowest channel-flipping TV ever, we watched Irish TV and the BBC. The HH got to see hour-long versions of Top Gear, the coolest car show. And I got sucked into some goshawful channel called True Movies, which showed its best flicks on the weekends. Kinky Boots, anyone? The night before we left they were going to show something with a totally young and hawt Sean Bean but I couldn't stay up late enough for that.

Dublin Days

Since the actual purpose of traveling to Dublin was my husband's business trip, he had to work for three days. Poor guy. So after a hearty Irish Breakfast, he set off to University College Dublin.

Meanwhile, I saw the sights,

either walking or hopping on and off the green bus. I must say, my favorite driver was Eamon, because of his twisted sense of humor.

Inside St. Patrick's

Dublin Castle, St. Patrick's Cathedral , Christ Church Cathedral, Dublinia (a visit to medieval Dublin), Kilmainham Gaol -- here's an old U2 video filmed there:

National Museum of Ireland - Decorative Arts and History I loved this place. I spent hours here. Coins, silver, furniture, scientific instruments, clothing, and even military history! And a room full of stuff, like the worlds greatest antique mall.

Irish Museum of Modern Art. I tried to go here, I really did. But they were unexpectedly closed due to NO HEAT and had no idea when they would reopen. So I went to...

Dublin Zoo. There was some discussion the night before over whether I would see any animals or if they would all be cowering from the cold inside their caves. Although there were only 20 visitors and I felt like I was in a zombie movie, the animals were present and lively. The more tropical animals had glass windows into their enclosures.

The rhinos were active. This bird was walking across the frozen lake. Yes it was cold!

The bus loop went past the Clarence Hotel, owned by Bono and the Edge. So I'll leave you with another video.

The Bus to Guinness

A reasurrance to readers of the previous post: there's nothing yucky in THIS one!

Sunday was rainy, so we decided to take the hop-on-hop-off green bus tour around Dublin.

We rode one whole loop around town, and then decided to get off at...where else? The Guinness Storehouse. Now, they don't actually make it there anymore, but since Guinness has a 9,000 year lease (seriously! it's true!) on the property, they wisely made a tourist attraction of it.

We worked our way through the high tech exhibits of how they make the stuff, and made our way to the 7th floor Gravity Bar. A pint is included with the price of your ticket. Mmmmm, good.

And the view was good, too.


Here's a view of the bar from the other side of the River Liffey, which I took a few days later.


And isn't it funny how everything leads to the gift shop?

Walking in Dublin

We arrived in Dublin on Saturday morning. A friendly taxi driver pointed out the sights on the way to our hotel. Our hotel room seemed huge for a European hotel

After we dropped off our luggage, we headed out armed with a map. I am the official map reader and navigator. We walked around Grafton Street (a pededestrian shopping street), St. Stephen's Green, and went to the National Museum - Archeology. That was very interesting. They had bog bodies. Real bodies that were discovered preserved in peat bogs. After dinner at Hugo's, a cozy wine bar, we walked back through Grafton Street. The Christmas lights were still on, giving it a fairyland appearance.

This interesting shop was on the way back to the hotel. Sorry folks, the knobs and knockers it refers to are the ones that go on your front door.

That's me in the yellow jacket. Here's a sartorial tip for you: Do not wear your bright yellow Costco ski parka in Dublin. You will be the only one in yellow. Everone else will be wearing black or other dark colors. (I was so tempted to buy a black wool coat, but would I ever wear it at home? Nope. Because it was 80 degrees here yesterday.)

This pub was across from our hotel. Note the puddle of vomit on the sidewalk? I unknowingly stepped in it. Someone did a bit too much pub-hopping that night (not us!).

A Hearty Breakfast

There are so many things from our trip that I want to share. But since it's morning, I think I'll start with breakfast.

The "Full Irish Breakfast" is an amazing and large plate of food. Our hotel, the O'Callaghan Davenport, offered a buffet. Clockwise from the left: beans, tomatoes, sausage, Irish bacon, mushrooms, sunnyside up eggs. I had already eaten the white and black puddings.

The eggs were small, with brightly colored yolks and were very tasty. The bacon was meaty, not fatty. Plus a whole tray of toast (the brown bread was delicious). Who could eat that much? We couldn't, not every day. One morning I just had porridge (granted, I had the stomach trouble the night before so porridge was a good thing).

We had a "vegetarian" version at the airport on our way home (no meat, but lots more veggies and potatoes too)...and as they dished up my plate, I turned to the Handy Husband and pleaded, "can't you share this with me? I can't eat all this." He did. He seemed to be satisfied with his larger half.

We're Back!

Except for the plumbing problem 5 minutes before we left the house, the flight delays getting to San Francisco, and the food poisoning (beware of elderly tartar sauce), we had a fabulous time!

Dubin was fabulous. I've got tons of pictures and stories.

And best of all?

I KISSED THE BLARNEY STONE!