Kiss me I'm Irish!

This past weekend Johanna, Becca and I hopped on a plane and headed to Dublin where even the planes are green.



The entire weekend I kept singing (in my head) or humming all of the Irish songs I know.  This one was stuck in my head a lot.

[caption id="attachment_1352" align="alignnone" width="80" caption="Kiss me I'm Irish"][/caption]

Upon arriving in Dublin Jo and I bored a double decker bus to get into the center of the city.  We bought a three day pass for a hop-on hop-off bus which included a ride to and from the airport.

• You can see in the bottom picture that we are driving on the left side of the road.  Stupid Brits and their stupid influence on the Irish!

This bus was very convenient throughout the weekend because there are stations all over the center of the city (the busses go in a loop) and there is a bus every ten minutes.  This allows you to see the sights faster, skip the stuff you don't want to see, or just get out of the rain.

Becca had plane troubles so Jo and I went out alone on Friday night.

• The downtown area had a more exciting nightlife than I expected, as seen in the photo.


• You can also see our apartment not on fire (more on that later).

Becca arrived early on Saturday and we went out to see the city.  We started at Trinity College to see the campus and the Book of Kells.  You can't take pictures of the Books so enjoy the pictures of Trinity College.



Next we walked to a park in the city.

• Top Left: Dublin has a Duck tour just like Boston!  Well, not quite like Boston.  Dublin's Duck is Viking themed and everyone in the Duck screamed "arrgh" at us when we stood near the hop-on hop-off bus stops (obviously a rival tour company).


• Bottom Left: I was told to do something funny with the statue and since it was not a statue of a person that I could make obscene gestures with, I elected to lick the statue.


• Top Right:  It started to rain so we hopped on the bus to stay dry.

Next we took the bus to Christ Church Cathedral (Cah-tee-drowl according to the tour bus driver).  The church was built in 1038 so it has seen its share of rain.  Somewhere around here my camera battery died so all of the following pictures are courtesy of Johanna.

• On the walk over to the cathedral I noticed that Ireland has labeled the roads for the stupid American tourist.  Thank you Ireland for fighting Darwinism.

After that we headed over to the Dublin castle but the rain accelerated our plans to get to the Guinness Brewery.

[caption id="attachment_1346" align="alignnone" width="288" caption="the castle"][/caption]

• Across the top: The ingredients of Guinness: Barley (a 15'x15'x1' sandbox full), Hops, Water, and yeast is not pictured.


• Bottom Left: They had a whole section of the brewery dedicated to the supply chain.  Jo's internship is supply chain related so she naturally had to get a picture.  Jo love train!


• Bottom Right: Here I am not tasting in the tasting lab.  The tour came with 1 pint of beer (or Coke in my case) and less than 1/4 of a pint in the tasting lab.


• Middle Right: An authentic Irish shamrock.

After the Guinness Brewery tour we headed over to The Old Jameson Distillery (whiskey) but the tour cost much more than we wanted to pay so we headed back to the hostel to shower for dinner.



The next day we headed over to the Museum but it turns out that it does not open until 2 PM on Sunday.  You certainly cannot do anything but go to church on Sunday morning with the intense number of bells that are ringing all morning.

We finished the day by wandering around the city and seeing a few more small sights.  We also went to a couple book stores because it is difficult to get English books in Germany.

• Top Left: Part of the original city wall.


• Top Middle: A Delorean we saw parked outside a very rich looking club.  There were also some old Mercedes in pristine condition parked outside.


• Top Right: Me giving a thumbs down to the pregnancy store (I bought an Ireland Rugby shirt).


• Bottom Left: Alligator!  Go Gators!


• Bottom Middle: St. Andrew's Church

Jo and I hopped back on a plane and made it back to Marburg ready to go to work on Monday.  Eventually I'll try to write a blog post about my internship (since this IS a school blog) instead of just documenting my travelings.