Dublin Recap - Part 2
Saturday morning was heavenly as I realized when I first woke up, I had no one clamoring for breakfast or fighting with his brother, or no need to be up first thing. I was also glad that a hangover didn't seem to be imminent, so I snuggled closer to Eric and slept for a couple more hours.
We did drag ourselves out of bed (or at least I did the dragging, being he was only an hour off in the time zone difference, he was a lot perkier). After partaking in the hotel breakfast, we headed off for the Guinness brewery. It was a longer walk than I was expecting and the walk/beer consumption of the day before was starting to take its toll. But it was a beautiful day, we were alone together, and heading to a brewery so I felt like I couldn't really complain.
On the way we passed St. Patrick's Cathedral.
We made it!
We got our tickets for the self guided tour and after a brief welcome announcement as we oohed and aahed over the 9000 year lease Arthur Guinness signed with the city we were off to explore. It was a really nice tour, as we once again learned the process for brewing the perfect pint. In the tasting room, we asked someone to take our photo and it ended up being the only one of the two of us from the weekend.
I'm not quite sure why my hair is so red in this photo.
With our tickets we were able to get a complimentary pint, and Eric decided to use his at the 'Learn to Pour the Perfect Pint' station. I got the video of him receiving his lesson and certificate.
Yes, he really did get a certificate.
We shared his pint in one of the many drinking rooms and caught the beginning of a soccer game on the big screen. We then moved along, until we reached the top floor, which was the Gravity bar. It gave a 360 degree view of the Dublin area below. I got my free pint, and being the easily amused drunks that we are, got very excited by the perfect shamrock the waitress made in the foam of my pint. We took a photo of the shamrock, and I posed with it.
We grabbed a table close to one of the windows so we can look out at the view. I was starting to think that this was one of the greatest places ever, and I could spend all afternoon there. But soon we realized that they were playing the same strange Irish country song over and over and after the second time that one of the waitresses got on the loudspeaker to make us sing happy birthday to one of the patrons we decided it was time to go.
Our plans for late afternoon was finding a pub where we could watch the Six Nations rugby game. Eric got into the sport after watching a few games a couple of weeks before. We still had a little bit of time before the game started, so we wandered the city and I pointed out some of the sites I had found the day before.
Hey look, a pub! It's hard to see, but a lot of the pubs had colorful drawings painted on the windows. This one had leprechauns playing rugby.
We also did some more shopping. We had gotten Guinness pint glasses from the brewery, and he wanted to get a Guinness shirt from one of the places out in town. We also stopped by the Hard Rock where I got the super cool city shirt. We found a really nice place to see the rugby game. It wasn't the standard Irish pub, but they had a table and seats available and a big screen so it was all good. We got an order on so-not-Irish chicken wings and ribs and a couple of pints. I thought the game was fun to watch, even if I have no clue about the rules of the game. The place got more crowded as the afternoon went on, and Ireland beat Scotland so it was a good time.
On our way back to the hotel, we walked through St. Stephens Green. It's kind of a fuzzy photo as it was grabbed off my Flip video, but it really was a beautiful place. Spring had definitely come to Ireland already, as many of the flowers were in bloom. Also, I should mention that the weather was phenomenal. After the overcast day before, Saturday was sunny and really quite nice.
We had dinner at the pub that was next to the hotel, and then stopped off briefly at the hotel to rest before heading out again. I was really tired, but I knew it was our last night together so I wasn't going to waste it by going to bed early. I got my second wind at the place we parked ourselves in for the night. There was a pub/restaurant that advertised live entertainment. We were able to get a table right in front of the stage, and had a really good time listening to Irish duo. The crowd was a lot of fun too, as there were the always good for a laugh drunk girls, and a group of Belgians dressed up as leprechauns that took turns hitting on the female Irish singer. They also played some of our favorite Irish tunes, but the best was watching the whole bar go crazy when they busted out "Take me Home, Country Road". Eric said that song is huge in the European bars.
Last call was at 12:30 which suited us just fine, and again we stumbled back to the hotel.
We did drag ourselves out of bed (or at least I did the dragging, being he was only an hour off in the time zone difference, he was a lot perkier). After partaking in the hotel breakfast, we headed off for the Guinness brewery. It was a longer walk than I was expecting and the walk/beer consumption of the day before was starting to take its toll. But it was a beautiful day, we were alone together, and heading to a brewery so I felt like I couldn't really complain.
On the way we passed St. Patrick's Cathedral.
We made it!
We got our tickets for the self guided tour and after a brief welcome announcement as we oohed and aahed over the 9000 year lease Arthur Guinness signed with the city we were off to explore. It was a really nice tour, as we once again learned the process for brewing the perfect pint. In the tasting room, we asked someone to take our photo and it ended up being the only one of the two of us from the weekend.
I'm not quite sure why my hair is so red in this photo.
With our tickets we were able to get a complimentary pint, and Eric decided to use his at the 'Learn to Pour the Perfect Pint' station. I got the video of him receiving his lesson and certificate.
Yes, he really did get a certificate.
We shared his pint in one of the many drinking rooms and caught the beginning of a soccer game on the big screen. We then moved along, until we reached the top floor, which was the Gravity bar. It gave a 360 degree view of the Dublin area below. I got my free pint, and being the easily amused drunks that we are, got very excited by the perfect shamrock the waitress made in the foam of my pint. We took a photo of the shamrock, and I posed with it.
We grabbed a table close to one of the windows so we can look out at the view. I was starting to think that this was one of the greatest places ever, and I could spend all afternoon there. But soon we realized that they were playing the same strange Irish country song over and over and after the second time that one of the waitresses got on the loudspeaker to make us sing happy birthday to one of the patrons we decided it was time to go.
Our plans for late afternoon was finding a pub where we could watch the Six Nations rugby game. Eric got into the sport after watching a few games a couple of weeks before. We still had a little bit of time before the game started, so we wandered the city and I pointed out some of the sites I had found the day before.
Hey look, a pub! It's hard to see, but a lot of the pubs had colorful drawings painted on the windows. This one had leprechauns playing rugby.
We also did some more shopping. We had gotten Guinness pint glasses from the brewery, and he wanted to get a Guinness shirt from one of the places out in town. We also stopped by the Hard Rock where I got the super cool city shirt. We found a really nice place to see the rugby game. It wasn't the standard Irish pub, but they had a table and seats available and a big screen so it was all good. We got an order on so-not-Irish chicken wings and ribs and a couple of pints. I thought the game was fun to watch, even if I have no clue about the rules of the game. The place got more crowded as the afternoon went on, and Ireland beat Scotland so it was a good time.
On our way back to the hotel, we walked through St. Stephens Green. It's kind of a fuzzy photo as it was grabbed off my Flip video, but it really was a beautiful place. Spring had definitely come to Ireland already, as many of the flowers were in bloom. Also, I should mention that the weather was phenomenal. After the overcast day before, Saturday was sunny and really quite nice.
We had dinner at the pub that was next to the hotel, and then stopped off briefly at the hotel to rest before heading out again. I was really tired, but I knew it was our last night together so I wasn't going to waste it by going to bed early. I got my second wind at the place we parked ourselves in for the night. There was a pub/restaurant that advertised live entertainment. We were able to get a table right in front of the stage, and had a really good time listening to Irish duo. The crowd was a lot of fun too, as there were the always good for a laugh drunk girls, and a group of Belgians dressed up as leprechauns that took turns hitting on the female Irish singer. They also played some of our favorite Irish tunes, but the best was watching the whole bar go crazy when they busted out "Take me Home, Country Road". Eric said that song is huge in the European bars.
Last call was at 12:30 which suited us just fine, and again we stumbled back to the hotel.