These Irish Eyes Are Smiling

The next stop on my Fall Break (abbreviation FaBre, in case I throw that in somewhere) after England, was Ireland! What a fun country! The people are extraordinarily friendly and the accents are adorable! The first person we met, our cab driver was so chatty it made me instantly as ease in this new country! And although it was late and we were tired he told us it was unnacceptable to go straight to bed, that it was our first night in Ireland and we should most definitely walk the 5 or 10 minutes to the near by town of Swords because according to him " it was on fire"! Well, how could we say no to that? So we went out, we didn't stay out long, but it was fun to explore a little bit of the town anyway. First thing I found, a store with the name FLYNN across the markee. I mean I knew Flynn was a prominent Irish last name, but I got so excited I simply had to photograph it! After a bit of wandering we ended up in a little pub in the middle of town and ordered our first Guinnness' of the trip. Since Guinness originated in Dublin and is as our cab driver also mentioned "Irish religion" we didn't think it was right to get anything else. Well I don't know if it was just the atmosphere or what, but Buinness tastes different in Dublin. As I am not a huge beer drinker, and especially not a fan of darker beers, Guinness is not my first choice, but in Dublin, its delicious! It's smooth and light and not filling like it is back home. Though apparently, as we were told later, it is not a very lady like drink, as the men sitting next to us laughed at 5 younger women who were all drinking a pint. Well, I guess we showed them, didn't we?
The next day after walking through the heart of Dublin, past the Millenium Spire (a giant steel spike in the middle of town), it was off to the Guinness Factory itself. Being newly 21, I have yet to tour a beer making factory, so this was very exciting for me! It was really interesting to be taken through the different stages of beer production, harvesting the hops and barley, adding the purest water, fermenting it, taste testing and finally bottling and shipping. Who knew so much went into making a pint? I do now! My favorite part of the factory though was the advertising floor. It was full of different bottle types, commercials, billboards and labels of Guinnness since it's creation. It was really interesting to see the progression that their advertising has taken. And lastly it was up to the 360 degree pub for our complimentary pint. While the beer was okay, the view was even better! You could see all of Dublin! It's always fun to get an arial view of a city that you're exploring because you realize just how large it is and how far you've actually walked. And let me tell you, we walked pretty far to get to that factory! But it was well worth it, I'd say!
Unfortunately that took up a large portion of our first day, and all that there was time for afterwards was dinner and some time to experience the Irish nightlife. We were being a bit American though, and ended up at this fantastically American restaurant that had a huge US flag on the ceiling and played songs from Journey, The Police, U2 and Prince. But we figured, we've gotten a whole heck of a lot of Europe in the past few months, whats a little bit of home going to hurt? Dinner was good, but directly afterwards we were catapulted right back into Ireland! WE went to a pub that was reccommended by a friend studying abroad and it was EXACTLY the type of atmosphere that one thinks of when one tries to imagine Ireland! It was dimly lit, full of people laughing and smiling and sharing pints and the best part, there was an Irish band playing! Well, I pretty much fell in love with this band. I love Irish music and this band was so lively and people were so excited jumping and dancing around that it was just an awesome experience. It was probably my favorite part of Dublin! I was extremely close to buying their CD, and I wish I had, because they were fabulous! So authentically Irish it made me smile the entire time we were there!
The next day we walked around more of the different districts of Dublin. We walked through the Temple Bar region, which is full of pubs (one of which we ate lunch at - and I got Bangers and Mash, a typical Irish dish of sausages and mashed potatoes - YUM!), shopping and restaurants. It's a really cute area, and reminded me a bit of downtown Boston, but much more compact. Then we walked down and around the 'old town' portion of the city where there is a lot of really interesting architecture and two important churches, The Church of Christ and St. Patrick's Cathedral. The Church of Christ is really beautiful inside with lots of little chapels and the most interesting portion, an underground crpyt area where there are several burial sites and some really interesting artifacts from Dublin. St.Patrick's Cathedral, probably the most well known in Ireland, is HUGE! The ceilings are immensely high and the stained glass takes up entire portions of the wall! It was beautiful! Even the floor was ornately decorated. And I've found I have a weird liking for these ornately decorated floors that I have found in churches and other large monuments. Odd I know, but they're beautiful, and I can't help it! After St.Patrick's we tried to go to Trinity College to see the book of Kells, but the building it was in was closed, so we just ended up back in the Hostel. We were exhausted and decided to relax and regroup for hopefully another night of Dublin Nightlife, but unfortunately, we got a bit too relaxed and we never made it back out! Something I sort of regret now, as that second night in Dublin was one of my favorite nights of FaBre, but oh well! Traveling makes you tired and theres no shame in taking a night off! Besides, we had to be up early the next day to catch a flight to Edinburgh! I had already seen so much at this point! I couldn't beleive I wasn't even half way done my trip! If the Irish were this polite to us and the country had been so entertaining, Scotland couldn't be much different, I thought, so I was very excited to go! Even if it did mean getting up at 4:30 AM for a 7 AM flight! Oh well! Early mornings and late nights, so is the life of a traveler I suppose!