Pionta Ghuinness, le do thoil!

I was going to wait to publish this post until I had all the pictures from the other people who were there, because my camera crapped out, but I decided to just post it. So later you'll get a really weird post with just a lot of pictures of me standing in front of things.

Thursday night Vik made curry and fried fish. It was yummy. He also brought out a bottle of Chartreuse, asking if I’d ever tried it. I hadn’t, so he poured us both a little. I had a tiny bit but couldn’t really handle it. It was good though. And green.

After that we went out into the city. We ran into Julianna and Romina (the girls from work) on the street. They were off to bed. We met Lexy and Morgan, the girls we had had lunch with, at a microbrewery called Messrs Maguire. I had never been to any place like that. It was really cool. I had the house beer. It was pretty good, though I am not a beer person. But when in Rome… (oh wait, that was three months ago). Afterwards we came back and went to sleep. Vik let me have the bed! He slept on the floor. I had had three hours of sleep the night before and had been awake for 22 hours, so I didn’t argue, but I am not going to let him sleep on the floor again.

We saw a place called Eddie Rocket's. I thought that was funny.


At the pub


Vik and myself


Friday morning I got up around nine and by eleven we were in the city center. Vik took me to St Stephen’s Green, and also to this cool little commemorative area to Oscar Wilde.

St. Stephen's Green


I love tulips!


James Joyce!


Oscar Wilde!




We're both pretty saucy.




These pillars had quotes from him written on them.




After that we went to the National Gallery, which is an art museum in Dublin. I checked out the highlights, including a large exhibition on Jack B. Yeats, which was very interesting. I also saw Picasso's "Still-Life With a Mandolin," Caravaggio's "The Taking of Christ," and Vermeer's "Woman Writing a Letter."

After the National Gallery Vik walked me over to Trinity College and then went home.

Trinity College








I went in and saw the Book of Kells. A lot of fuss for a little book, but it is pretty spectacular. Afterwards I went upstairs to the “Long Room” which, as Vik said, is like being in the library at Hogwarts. Sadly, no photography allowed. Thank goodness for Google Image Search!





After Trinity College I booked it to Kilmaimham Gaol. It took me about half an hour to walk there.

On the way I passed Dublin Castle, which I skipped in order to be able to do both the jail and the Guinness Storehouse.



I also passed "Dublinia" which I chose not to experience.




I also passed this shop which I found amusing.



Finally I found my way to Kilmainham Gaol. It’s a prison where many of the leaders of the Easter Rising were kept, including Joseph Plunkett and Éamon de Valera. I took the tour, and it was very enjoyable. I can never say no to a jail-cum-museum!



This is the chapel where Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford were married, hours before his execution.




A cell. These were meant for one person but because of overcrowding they sometimes held up to ten men, women and children, all stuffed in together like sardines.


The Victorian-era part of the jail. They believed that light was essential to reform.


The mural that Grace Gifford painted on the inside of her cell while she was there for six months.


After Kilmainham I practically ran back to the Guinness Storehouse so I would get in before they close at five. While waiting in line, this woman started talking to me. She is a flight attendant from Lebanon, and her name is Rita. We were both traveling alone, so we did the self-guided tour together. My camera started giving me trouble, so Rita took a lot of pictures. I'll post them later. For now, here are the two pictures I did get:



A copy of the 9000-year lease signed by Arthur Guinness.


When we got to the top, we got our complimentary pints of Guinness and drank them while looking out over Dublin. We were sharing our table with two young men, one from Ontario and one from Sweden. We started talking to them (Rob and Mikael) and ended up really hitting it off. At six they told us we had to go, but we could take our pints with us. They meant we could take them down to the fifth floor bar and finish them there, but I guess we didn’t really understand that. When we got down to the coat check, the clerk was like, “You’re not supposed to have those down here but I don’t feel like opening up this door and taking them from you and taking them back upstairs, so whatever.” We ended up just walking right out with them. So now I have a souvenir pint glass stolen from the Guinness storehouse. We didn’t feel like walking around the streets of Dublin with opened containers of alcohol, so we just sat outside the Storehouse and drank them and laughed at the silly situation.

Rita wanted to go to the Temple Bar area, and we were all hungry, so we headed back towards the city center. We stopped at O’Neill’s to eat, a place that Vik told me about where you can get a dish and then as many sides as you want for no extra cost. I got the shepherd’s pie. Mmm. Afterwards we went over to the Temple Bar but quickly grew bored and I herded them back to Messrs Maguire, which is the microbrewery/pub that Vik had taken me to the night before. We just relaxed their in the comfy chairs until we couldn’t even keep our eyes open, and then they helped me find my bus stop and we bid our goodbyes. I’ll probably never see them again, but we did exchange email addresses.

I took the bus back to Vik’s and victoriously claimed the sleeping bag, for a hearty six hours of sleep. Hmmm.

* “Pionta Ghuinness, le do thoil!” means, “Pint of Guinness, please!” in Gaelic.