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Today is Tuesday and we've been in Dublin, Ireland for the past couple of days. We traveled from Liverpool to Dublin by ferry on Sunday night. It was an overnight ferry - where we had a small cabin with 4 beds (bunkbeds). We didn't get much sleep because of all the rocking the ship did. The wake-up call was 5 a.m.!! We were SOOO TIRED. We got to the ferry terminal in Dublin and of course there were no taxis waiting for us at 6 o'clock in the morning! So, we had to wait around for a while before a taxi showed. We actually ended up sharing the cab with another bloke from Ireland. He was really nice and I think he took pity on us cuz we had so much luggage and we were freezing waiting outside for the taxis.
So, we get to our hotel a little after 7 a.m. and we could barely stand up, we're so tired. But, of course no rooms are available yet. So we stash away our luggage and hang out in the lobby and Jude and Suzie promptly fell asleep! I sat there and read a book for awhile, but even I closed my eyes for awhile. We finally caught a second wind and walked to a tour bus stop.
The tour bus stop was probably over a mile away (or what Dubliners like to say is a 10-15 minute walk). The bus was a "hop on-hop off" bus, so of course the first place we hop off is the Guinness Storehouse! Now, keep in mind it is only about 9:30 or 10 in the morning. So, we took the Guinness tour - which was not as good as I'd hoped it would be actually - and then got a taste of Guinness at the end of the tour. I'm not a huge Guinness fan, but it was fun to see the process of how it was made and have taste test at the end!
We hopped back onto the bus and our next stop was the Jameson Distillery. Ummm, I'm seeing a pattern here!! Jameson is Irish whiskey which is only distilled in one place. This tour was actually better than the Guinness tour in my opinion. We actually had a guide that walked us through the process, unlike at Guinness, where you just read plaques on the wall. The first part of the tour was a video and I swear I almost fell asleep on the spot! But, the tour guide asked the crowd who wants to taste test the whiskey, so of course I shot my hand up quickly! About 8 or 10 people were given a small tube and we went on our way to the tour. The tour was interesting and I learned that Jameson Irish Whiskey is actually distilled 3 times, which makes it very smooth. Scotch whiskey by comparision is distilled twice and American whiskey (like Jack Daniels) is only distilled once.
So, at the end of the tour, everybody in the group gets to have a sample of Jameson. But, the people who were given the "special" tube got to have a taste test of 3 different kinds of whiskey! So, the 8 or 10 of us gathered around a table and we eah had a shot of Scotch, American and Irish whiskey in front of us and we got to compare the 3 different types of whiskeys. The American whiskey was Jack Daniels which I don't like anyway. The Scotch was a blended whiskey which is kind of cheating, cuz they didn't use a single malt whiskey. And then finally they had Jameson to try. We tried all three whiskeys and EVERYONE at the table liked the Jameson the best. The tour guide said that doesn't happen every time. I truly did like the Jameson and from now on, that is the whiskey that I will get! We even got a written certificate of our taste test and that is what our little tubes were for - to carry our certificates with us and it won't get wrinkled or ripped in our luggage! This tour was really fun and at the end it was even better!
More about Dublin and Ireland later.
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