Dublin

Tim and I landed in Dublin in the evening and took the bus into the city. We immediately met a good friend of mine from Mannheim, Tom, who is living in Dublin and working for Google. We bought some drinks and sat along the River Liffey - the central canal that runs through Dublin.

Our first full day, we walked down the River Liffey to the Guinness factory. On the way, we passed the oldest pub in Dublin - The Brazen Head. Established in the 12th century. HA.

The Guinness Factory is more like a museum than anything. To the right, you can see a sculpture of sorts that involved over 20 artists from the area. It's made to look like a pint of Guinness. The dark bottom part (the Guinness) is wood and some kind of metal set into each other and sculpted with hundreds of different scenes. The top (the foam) is hand sewn lace. 

Below, Tim and I took a photo in one of the original ads for Guinness. 

The last part of the tour, we learned how to pour the perfect pint. 6 steps: 1. examine the glass for any smudges, etc. 2. Line up the Guinness logo with the spout and open the tap all the way 

3. When it's about 3/4 full, start to straighten the glass and turn off the tap 4. let it rest for 2 minutes 5. push the tap back to fill it until there is a tiny dome over the glass and 6. serve it to the customer with the logo facing them. 

For the next 2 days, we observed and judged other bar tenders who were not serving Guinness like this. 

 We ordered a flight at one of the microbreweries in Dublin. Met a couple from Pennsylvania and talked with them for awhile.

Trinity College

We went by Trinity College, sat on the grass, got kicked off the grass, and then wandered around campus. We also made a stop at Dublin Castle and spent a couple hours in the Chester Beatty Library - a good friend of mine lived in Dublin for a summer and tipped us off to the library. It is free (!!) and houses hundreds of ornate books - similar to the Book of Kells, but instead of one book, multiple floors. It was amazing. They had a piece of the original scroll from the Book of John, as well as ancient religious texts from Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism.

Day 2 in Dublin, we walked to the Jameson Distillery. Tim convinced me to volunteer to be one of the tasters on our tour. We got to compare Irish, Scottish, and American whiskey. Irish whiskey is triple distilled and in the distilling process, heated with clean fuel (e.g., gasoline). Scottish whiskey is double distilled and in the process heated with peat, and American whiskey is only single distilled. Without being someone who even likes whiskey, it was really informing to be able to taste the difference. I liked the Jameson and Scottish the best. The Jameson has more vanilla flavors, but the smokey flavor in the Scottish was pretty good too. 

The last thing we did was take a bus north to a museum/graveyard to try to track down some of Tim's Doyle relatives. Unfortunately, we didn't have any names past his grandparents who are living in the US, and the records at the graveyard indicated that there were over 400 Doyles buried there since they started keeping records in the early 1900s. The graveyard was founded in the late 1800s though, so there are even more than that. One of the most famous Doyles buried there was a Patrick Doyle (which is also Tim's brother's name) who was killed part of a riot pre-WWI (I think? I'm forgetting the specific dates). We found many other Doyles throughout the graveyard too.

 


 We met Tom for one last drink by the Harp Bridge before heading back to the hostel.














And that concludes the adventure!!! We've been discussing later installments and since I'm not going to be able to have a lot of time off for the next couple years, Nova Scotia and/or Vancouver, BC have been tossed around as good ideas... But I guess we'll see. Thanks for reading!