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My first 2 days in Dublin have been super busy!!! The weather has been stereotypically Irish, very rainy and cloudy and slightly chilly. On day one I made the mistake of not bringing along my raincoat because it was only misting and my regular coat is good for that but later on it rained quite hard and I got very wet, but I remembered to bring my raincoat today!
Besides the necessity of a raincoat at all times, we also made some other realizations about Dublin yesterday for example, Dublin does not seem to believe in the necessity of street signs- they're never labeled! One of the reason for this is they change names every block or two, so I guess they just got tired of putting up signs. Also our tourist maps are incredibly inconsistent which led to a few misadventures.
Anyway, aside from a few directional and rain-related problems I've been having a great time here. Yesterday we went to Kilmainham jail, which was really interesting. It was built in the late 1700s and played important roles throughout Ireland's history, I learned so much from the tour! I now feel that I have at least a working knowledge of Irish history, very cool.
Then we went to the Ireland Modern Art Museum that was housed in an old military hospital. The grounds had a couple super old cemetaries with burials dating back to the 600s! I honestly enjoyed the grounds more than the museum itself.
After that we headed over to the Guiness storehouse. It was neat to see where Guiness is made, the storehouse has a 9000 year lease! I'm not a big Guiness fan but I did enjoy the view of Dublin from Gravity Bar where we got our free pint of Guiness.
We then returned to our hostel and made a gourmet meal of microwave fishsticks and rice, mmmm. After which we went to a nearby pub and watched some live traditional celtic music. It was sooo good! It was very amusing when they played a cover of Folsome Prison blues and You Shook Me All Night Long, probably the greatest cover I've ever heard, at least the most original!
Today was just as busy! First we went to the Dublin zoo and discovered that pre-teen girls are always annoying even when they have awesome accents (we got caught up in what seemed to be a field trip for an all girls middle school)
We then journeyed to the decretive art musuem to get some free postcards that came with our Dublin pass then went on to the Jameson distillery. It was very interesting to learn how the whisky is made, they had a guided tour which showed much more of the process than the Guiness storehouse. Dana and Kristi volunteered for whisky tasting and it was fun to watch them trying the differnt types of whisky.
Then we went to Dublin castle, which was super cool! It was originally built in the 1200s but was mostly destoryed by fire in the 1600s and was destoryed. It's been used as the headquarters for Irish government under the British and under independent Irish rule. I had no idea Ireland had been served for 3 terms by women presidents, so cool!
After that we came back to the hostel for supper and then headed out to the Bram Stroker's Dracula museum. I did not know Bram Stroker was from Ireland or that most of his novel took place here so that was interesting but all in all it was not really worth the tremedously long walk it took to get there.
All in all, it has been 2 very full and very fun days, my legs and feet are killing me! Hopefully the toughen up soon. That's about it for now, I should let Dana use her computer, more to come later!
:.)
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