Week Seven

Dia dhuit! (Gaelic for hello)

Right now I am in Dublin, Ireland and what a wonderful place to be! I will write more about it momentarily, but maybe I should discuss what lead up to this trip.

This week has been quite boring. I had a presentation due Monday, another due Tuesday and an essay due in two weeks. I did not go out at all this week, but simply did homework and wrote papers. Until…

Wednesday we left for Ireland! We all got up around 1 AM (meaning I got about an hour of sleep because I couldn’t get to sleep early and was too excited), got a cab at 2 AM, the cab took us to the bus station where we got on a bus at 3, the bus got us to the airport at 4, and our flight to Dublin left at 6:30. It was quite in adventure just getting to Dublin! The flight was only an hour long though, and once we landed we were able to check into our hotel straight away. That day, despite being so exhausted, we actually got to see a lot of Dublin. We went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin Castle and Trinity College. I didn’t go inside any of them (most of them had no room in the tours) but plan to possibly tomorrow. We got some souvenirs and everyone got some green stuff to wear for the following day, St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patrick’s Day was absolutely wonderful. My day began with picking my boyfriend, Dave, up at the airport. After bringing him back to the hotel, we went right back out for the parade down O’Connell Street. O’Connell street is what I like to think of as Dublin’s Michigan Ave. It has everything you could want and it’s right in the heart of the city. There’s also this very large (and if you ask me, pointless) statue thing called the Spire right on O’Connell… again, just like Michigan Ave and the Bean. It’s a huge pin shaped statue that, as it says online, is 398 feet tall. I guess it was helpful with directions since we can see it from so far away. It was usually our meeting point because it was usually impossible to miss. But as I was saying, Dave and I went to the parade, unfortunately we got there right as it ended and never did see it. But we met up with the rest of the group (9 people) right away and just walked around the streets of Dublin. It was such an exciting thing to see and be a part of. We walked through a sea of green and people so proud to be Irish. Flags waved on every street and from almost every store, and we saw the occasional face in its entirety painted as the flag. Now I know that St. Patrick’s Day has always been a big deal back on the Southside, but this was so very different. The thing I will walk away remembering about that day was the atmosphere. Walking around on the streets of downtown Dublin is a blast on any normal day, but the feeling in the air and the obvious excitement from everyone around was unforgettable on St. Patrick’s Day.

The day after St. Patrick’s Day – today – Dave and I met up with Stephanie, Dawn, Morgan and Kelsey at the Old Jameson Distillery. “Old” because it is no longer is use and it is now made in Cork. I had honestly never had whisky before and was unsure how this tour would go, but we all had a great time. We first watched a 10 minutes video about John Jameson and how he was so dedicated to his work. The tour guide chose 8 people to volunteer to be taste testers later in the tour and Kelsey was one of the chosen few. Then we walked around and saw what each step of the process entails. After that, we went to the bar of course! We were each given one drink, with the option of a Jameson straight, with Coke, with Ginger Ale, or with Cranberry juice. I got the Cranberry and Jameson which was actually pretty good. This was also the time for the taste testers to taste test! They were each given three shots of whisky; Jameson (Irish whisky), Jack Daniels (American whisky) and Johnnie Walker (Scottish whisky). Kelsey said the Jameson honestly was much better than the other two and all of the other taste testers agreed. Our tour guide explained that American whisky is only distilled once, as opposed to Jameson which is distilled three times. Scottish whisky is cooked in an outdoor oven giving it a smoky flavor, as opposed to Jameson which is cooked indoors. Jameson also reuses barrels from other alcohols (ex: Sherry and Bourbon) to give it a certain flavor. I found the whole tour really interesting.

After the tour, Dave and I walked around to some of the things I had seen the other day. It was such a nice day out and we felt like we could just not waste it. We stuck to walking around and will maybe do inside things tomorrow. The only other thing left that I really want to do (other than Guinness which we are doing Sunday) is go to the Leprechaun Museum! It’s a brand new museum dedicated to Irish folklore and mythology. I think I convinced Dave to want to go tomorrow, so hopefully that works out.

Tonight we plan to stop by a pub for a bit, and then go see a band we both love – Mumford & Sons. The venue is right by Temple Bar, which is the hot spot for bars and pubs. The most well known bar is Temple Bar on Temple Bar (very original, I know) and it’s a three minute walk from where the concert is, so hopefully we can go there either before or after the concert.

We stay in Ireland until Monday morning, so next time I blog I will hopefully have some more wonderful things to say about Ireland.

- Lauren