30 hours in Dublin

Life doesn't always go as planned. I know you might be thinking that such hardships in life do not happen to Kings like myself but that is where you would be mistaken. As I planned to travel to Dublin this weekend fate had its own plan for my journey.

The original plan was to fly to Dublin Thursday night and return to London Saturday night. This gave my friends and me maximum time in Dublin while also avoiding an expensive Sunday flight home. Well then I had to move my flight from Thursday night to Friday morning because I had a conflict with a class Thursday night (a mandatory class Thursday night which is not the usual time slot). Leaving Friday morning was not ideal but that's the way it had to be. My flight was scheduled to leave London at 9:40 Friday morning so I'd be in Dublin around 11:45. As I stood in the airport staring at the screen to get my gate info, instead of saying "go to gate X" it said "Flight delayed till 11:45". NOOOOOOOO! I didn't arrive in Dublin till around 1:15, which started the clock on my 30 hour adventure.

I had the idea to write this blog as if it were an episode of 24 and tell you about my weekend in an hour by hour fashion. However there was a significant lack of hunting terrorists, firing guns, car chases and explosions so I don't think it would really work. (I thought you would enjoy this little note).

When I meet up with my friends at the hostel (this hostel was worse than the hostel in Lisbon) we went straight to the Guinness brewery. The tour focused heavily on the history of Guinness which was very interesting. Now most people will say that the Guinness you drink at the top floor of the brewery in the Gravity Bar, where you can see an amazing 360 degree view of Dublin, is the best Guinness you will ever drink. I'm here to tell you dear reader that these people are wrong. The best Guinness you will ever taste is in the tasting academy. Before you reach the top of the brewery you can take part in a tasting lesson where they teach you how to drink a Guinness. You enter a bright white room where there are cylinders coming out of the floor with vents in them, each giving off a vapor with the smell of a different ingredient of the beer. They encourage everyone to literally stick their heads into the four clouds of vapor to know what tastes we should get from the beer. They then hand out 4 oz. glasses of Guinness and take the group into a darker room (away from the strong smelling vapor) to taste the beer. That 4 oz. glass my dear reader is the best Guinness you will ever drink, because you taste every little flavor of the beer after sticking your face into clouds of the stuff!

Now before my dad comments on this post saying the vapor clouds we were breathing was actually some form of drug, I figured I should go ahead and counter argue that a drug which heightens your senses would in fact make for a better tasting experience. That would actually prove my point that it is in fact the best Guinness you will ever have... but I digress.

My friends and I did as much as we could in our short time in Dublin. They actually had longer because they got there Thursday night. We visited St. Patrick's cathedral, the Dublin Castle, the Jameson Distillery and the rest of the time we spent exploring the city. Unfortunately we were unable to do as much in Dublin as I would have liked but that is just how life goes sometimes. Despite the aggravation of getting there I am truly thankful that I was able to go to Dublin at all. Dublin is beautiful and it’s such a fun place. Though I was only there for such a short amount of time it was worth it.

Now enough of my blabbering on.... I know you want to see some pictures!

The Crew: Will Torres, Dan Scofield, and of course me.

                   

The Tasting Academy is where you learn how to drink a Guinness (don't worry, its not hard!)

As described in great detail above... the best Guinness in all of its 4 ounces of glory.

I even got certified in how to pour a Guinness! I think I'll put this on my resume under special skills.

The view from the top of the brewery. If you look at the mountains the peak on the right side is snow capped from the previous day's snowfall.

I never plan it, but I seem to always find myself in a fantastic location to watch the sunset.

Again: Will, Dan, and me.

If you have ever been to London, the river scene in Dublin is very similar.

We stumbled onto a band street performing who were actually pretty good. We hung around for a few songs. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral: built on the sight of St. Patrick's first baptism.

The Church is beautiful and with all the artifacts inside it sort of feels like a museum. Behind the camera is a gift shop with a cash register and several cases with nick knacks to buy. If I'm honest that irritated me; there shouldn't be a shop inside a church.

This is the last surviving section of Dublin's castle. The walls of the tower are 15 feet thick!

These are some of the newer buildings attached to the castle.

As you can tell the architects went with traditional castle designs when building on to the remaining tower.

The castle had a very artsy garden beside it. There were half a dozen photographers set up trying to take the perfect shot (you might be able to see them on the far side of the grass). I was far less picky with my photos and just used my phone.

The weather was wonderful (except it was a little cold)

The original distillery is no longer in use for making spirits but it is a great place to visit!

The rest of the photos I took while wandering around the city. Not sure what everything is but the architecture is cool and it shows the downtown area.

City hall was just down the street from where we stayed, pretty cool building.

You might be a little confused by this post and my previous post both describing "last weekend". I was slow to publish the Lisbon post which is about the weekend of February 26-28. I visited Dublin this past weekend on March 4-5. Lots of traveling back to back was quite exhausting but worth it! To wrap up this post I thought I would leave you my dear reader with a lovely conversation I had with my grandmother  as soon as I got home from Dublin Saturday night.

Mema: Did you find our relatives in Dublin?

Me: No I didn't.

Mema: Did you go to jail?

Me: No...

Mema: That's your problem. All the Cleary's are probably in Jail.

I haven't laughed that hard in a while, glad to know I come from an upstanding family!

Long Live the King