Things I learned today:
1. Dublin is cold. Good! No sweating.
2. My bag is really heavy. I need to get rid of bag #2 (stupid tripod idea, I'm not carrying this everywhere).
3. Ah, prices. $1.45 = approx 1 Euro.
4. I'd rather starve than pay a lot for food.
Bought a Dublin City Pass for one day. 31 Euros, includes a 7 Euro (worth) one way trip to the city centre and free admission to over 40 different tours and tourist traps around the city. Sounded good, let's see what we make of it.
Standing in line, I look behind me and see this old Irish man with a wicked moustache and smoking a ... pipe!? I couldn't resist asking to take his photo.
On the way in to the city centre, I couldn't help but notice that I couldn't figure out where I was. There aren't any street signs anywhere. WTF? After stopping off, I realized that the street signs are plastered on the buildings, really high up. It's hard to read from the ground sometimes, and sometimes they don't even have signs on the buildings.
Well, time to be off. I'm starving at this point since I hadn't eaten anything for hours, so I make my way down south and then west to find Gruel, a tiny cafe restaurant thing. Not having a clue what to get, I ordered some kind of meat on a roll, which is a fancy way to say sandwich. Bottled water please. "Sparkling?" he asks. "Uhhh... regular," I respond. "Oh you mean still!" Oops.
The sandwich is some kind of salted beef (the color makes it look like ham), a radish concoction and some onion jam. Overall, the meat was decent, and the jam gave it a hint of sweetness. A bit dry, but with the bottled water it was wolfed down well enough.
Back outside, I head across the street to Dublin Castle, which isn't much of a castle left, more of a palace since it was burned down/destroyed so many years ago. Included with the City Pass is the tour, so I put myself in for the next one, and wander about for a bit before the tour started. I'll just let the photos tell the story.
Upstairs, a view of the rear courtyard. Looks like a bunch of swirls in the grass.
The swirls turn out to be snakes.
After the tour is over, I head on over to the Christ's Church Cathedral. It's something wondrous to see such an old building. The design of the interior is spectacular. So much detail in the ceilings and floors.
Out of the cathedral, I'm heading to the much anticipated James Gate Brewery where the Guinness Storehouse is at. It's odd, the further away I leave the City Centre and closer I get to the Guinness Storehouse, the ghettoer it seems to get. Graffiti, cramped housing...
Finally, to the top of the Guinness Storehouse where I get my pint and a 360 degree view of Dublin, Ireland. Yummm.....
Things I saw today:
Dublin City Centre
The Spire
Christ's Church Cathedral
Dublin Castle
Guinness Storehouse, and a complimentary pint
Blurry, somewhat spinning Dublin. Thank you pint.
I present to you, Evolution Guinness:
Here's the Flickr series
Got back to Suz and Matt's place at around 7:30. Jet lag hitting me. I fell asleep and leaned against someone on the bus, like three times. No internet at their place =( It's OK, I'll find places like here in the city Centre where I can do things. Bit expensive though. Posts will be sparse and infrequent. I wish I could write more, but I'm cheap. Sorry! I'll write more when I get to Kilkenny and the internet is free. Whee!
Anyone who sees my mom and/or dad, please reassure her that I'm safe and doing well. I let her know already, but it can't hurt and will just put her more at ease, hopefully.
And now, for the photos... Flickr time!
Next, more of Dublin and it's nightlife.
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