Dublin Round Three – July 24, 2013

          Our lack of sleep caused us to rush out of the door to the taxi in order to make the bus on time. We all made it; Alex, Kelsey, Jake, Abby, and I were all on the way to Dublin for the last time. When we got to Dublin, we checked into the Blooms Hotel and went to search for some lunch to eat. We ate lunch at Brewley’s and it was delicious. The only problem was the incredibly slow service, especially for five college kids ready to see the city!!  The three bean chili that I got was worth the wait, but I still would've rather spent time sightseeing.

          We decided to see the city using the Hop on - Hop off tour. The bus took us to all of the places that we wanted to see, and would give us stories of what we were passing along the way. Our first stop was the Guinness Factory. I had been told that I had to see the factory when I was in Dublin, but since I did not like the taste of Guinness, I was not too excited. To my surprise, however, the Guinness Factory was incredibly cool. With seven levels of the museum, it tells you about the ingredients, how it is made, why it tastes different from other beers, how it is marketed, the history, and how its grown. There are things to touch, see, and play with, and I never once got bored. After learning all about Guinness and then truly having an appreciation of it, one gets a free pint of Guinness at the top of the factory in The Gravity Bar. The Gravity Bar is the tallest bar in Dublin and is circular with only windows looking at the 360 degree view of the city. The Gravity Bar was beautiful and very enjoyable, even though I didn’t get a Guinness and got a coke instead. 

          Our next stop was St. Patrick’s Cathedral. This beautiful cathedral is from 1192 and is chalked full of Irish history. The stained glass was absolutely stunning and the central alter was unlike anything that I have ever seen before. We headed to the National Library after the Cathedral and got a little lost along the way. We ended up at the JFK exhibit that a building next to the library was putting on. The entire time during our trip to Ireland, we had been seeing the ‘Kennedy’ name everywhere, and we finally got to find out why the Irish love JFK so much. When we eventually found the National Library… there really wasn’t too much to see there, only the Yeats exhibit. This exhibit would be completely lame if we hadn’t have studied Yeats’ poetry for the last month. Therefore, it was so interesting to see some of the poems that we studied in Literature class hand written by the author himself. They only let people go into one room of the National Library and you are only aloud to take pictures from the back… therefore, due to the lameness, we decided to move on quickly to Merrion’s Square. Rick Steves said that this public park is beautiful and the architecture of the houses around it was a sight, but we did not exactly see it that way. It was just a regular park and the houses surrounding it looked rather normal to me. Since there was nothing special about the park, so we decided to hop on the last bus home and then completing our Hop On Hop Off Tour of Dublin. We had a wonderful dinner at the Trinity Bar, dessert at Shake’s Milkshake Bar, and a free drink at the bar connected to our hotel, the Vat House Bar. We ended our last night in Dublin with just the three of us, having one last drink, and listening to a guitarist play us the Galway Girl song that we requested. Perfection. What an amazing trip!