Dublin! You amazing city…

I’m sitting on our bed in the Hostel eating blueberries & raspberries wondering where to start writing, so much happened today I could easily write an essay! So i’ll try to keep it short & sweet.

We woke up fairly early as we had booked early bird tickets for the Guinness Store house tour, which meant we paid less but had to arrive between 9.30 - 11.30am, & seeing as were always running late I told Nathan we had to be there for 10am. Which was lucky as we didn’t leave the hostel until 9.40.

This was the first time either of us had stayed at a Hostel, not quite sure if it counts as hosteling though as we have a room to ourself but shared two toilets with three other rooms?

We stopped off at a cafe on the walk there for some food, we got two full Irish breakfasts, which was the same as an English breakfast but came with black pudding! First look I wanted to throw it off the table across the room, far, far away, but we decided that we probably wouldn’t come back to Ireland. Nathan dove straight in & tried it whilst I cut off the smallest slither & slowly put it on my tongue. It tasted like burnt mince meat, but all I could think about was google’s description of it, which went something like this: ‘Black pudding, also known as blood sausage, is a pudding made of curdled and boiled pigs blood, mixed with chunks of pork fat.‘ Which I didn’t tell Nathan until after eating it... hehe.
The rest of breakfast was great, free tea & coffee refills & freshly squeezed orange juice. We head off to check out the Christ Church place right in front of the cafe on our walk, wasn’t too exciting so we plodded on our way. We stopped off at a small convenience store on our way & whilst in line there was a lady in front of us with a cute little baby staring up at Nathan, he was fixated on Nathan as he stroked his beard. She turned & said ‘sorry I don’t know what’s wrong with him’, not that there was a problem & Nathan’s response was: “Sometimes they just want to pull on it” It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking about his beard, it could have easily been taken the wrong way & it was. She turned her back on us & shuffled away.

Luckily we had aimed to arrive for the Guinness tour at 10am because we didn’t get there until 11.15am. It took us over an hour & half to do a 22 minute walk. Typical.

The tour was amazing, I was excited because I’d never tried Guinness before & everyone had raved about how good it was in Ireland. It had 7 levels, at the bottom was information about how its made, followed by a taste tester. In the first room there were four steam podiums each with a scent from one of the ingredients, so the group walked around inhaling each different scent. They smelt a bit odd but together made the room smell incredible. We were each given a mini pint of Guinness, they were adorable & then taken into a second room, where we were shown how to drink a Guinness pint. You have to have your elbow up high, as if you were really proud to be a Guinness drinker, inhale the smell as you bring it to your lips, suck the liquid through the forth & let the beautiful taste sit on your tongue. Enjoy the sweet and bitter on your taste buds. Nathan was first, “Mmmm, that’s incredible.”
Me: *Shudders* “ergh, I need to clean my tongue”
As we left I kept asking Nathan if it was ok to steal the mini Guinness glass as it was so adorable, but I felt guilty just thinking about it so I decided against it as the tour guide had just said not to because they reuse them. Next thing I knew it was in my pocket as I innocently crutched past the tour guide smiling sweetly.

We went up to the next level where you could learn how to pour the perfect pint. With every tour you get a free pint, you could either pour your own or have it poured for you up the top. We had originally gone up the top so I could sit down but it was so crowded with no seats. We had a quick walk around the Gravity Bar & enjoyed the sight of Dublin. It was beautiful but it was very grey. So we head back down the stairs, I was in a bit of pain with my leg though every step I took the muscles seized up & the pressure was intense. Felt like my leg was going to pop! We had to rest, but I was impatient so we went to que for the Guinness academy to pour our pints & receive a perfect pint pouring printed certificate. I didn’t care about the beer at this point I just wanted to do it for fun, which it was. The tour lady went into great depth about it & Nathan was all like: I’ve done this hundreds of times before!
Oohhhhh!
Absolutely great experience, I could write for hours about everything we did & learnt, definitely a must do in Ireland & I didn’t even enjoy the Guinness, if you enjoy it, brilliant!

After leaving the tour we sat outside for a bit, right in front of a horse & carriage, I was so keen to get it to take us to our next adventure, but couldn’t quite justify spending 20 Euro’s on something that would take us 5-10 minutes to walk. Plus, the horses didn’t look particularly happy or comfortable, one of them looked a fair bit underweight which made me sad.

We stopped off at Subway for lunch, Nathan was on a mission to try every take away overseas to see if they tasted the same. I think he’s just a fatty & heart & uses that excuse to justify it, although Subway’s not to bad for you. It did taste quite funky thou, made us both home sick for Australian Subway!

Next stop, Viking & Medieval Dublin, we weren’t to sure if it was going to be worth our 16 euros but we went ahead anyway, we were both so intrigued by Viking history.
It was definitely worth our money, there was 4 levels, it went on & on, but in a good way.
We learnt so much, there was history on the first Viking invasion in Dublin, we got to pick up axes, swords & weapons, full body chain mail & tried on the head chain mail which weighed a tone! Maybe I should walk around with it on my head for a bit to stop me from getting any taller!

There was also an archaeology part, which was quite interesting, we saw human remains with items they used to burry themselves with for the after life. Vikings believed that if they were killed in battle, which was an honorable way to die, they would be feasting with Gods in a place called Valhalla in the after life. Rich people would often take slaves, horses, weapons & treasures with them to their grave.

Last part was 96 steps to the tower which overlooked Dublin, I’d done close to 500 steps today so I soldiered on. Wasn’t quite worth it, again because it was very grey & to be honest cities don’t do a lot for me. Dublin is amazing & there is sooo much to do, but it’s noisy & dirty & dull! Trying to sleep last night was awful, sirens went past every half an hour & church bells went off at ridiculous times, road works right under our window & we could hear every conversation. That was until I realized the window was open, I fell asleep fairly quickly after shutting it...

We head back to the hostel for a bit of a rest before going to check on the car, which we’d left in a car park for the two days were here. As there is absolutely no parking on the streets here, it was the safest & by far cheapest option. Thankfully, it was fine & not broken into, as we had left the Gopro & $800 camera there... oops!
We had managed to spend 31 euros on food today for breakfast & lunch so popped into Tesco’s & spent 17 euros on dinner & breakky for tomorrow, winning!
On the way back we crossed the bridge & saw a group of swan’s... swimming? cruising? sailing elegantly towards us, they looked so majestic I just had to stop & take a million photos!
We stopped off at Dublin Castle on the way back to have a quick look around, I love castle’s, they’re so spectacular, however we have seen so many recently that this one was a bit of a flop. We only walked around the outside briefly as it was closed now, half of it looked very modern & the other half was hidden by newer buildings & lots of cars around the edge. I think that other castle’s we’d seen were surrounded by colorful landscapes which made them look amazing.
We got back to the hostel & Nathan said he’d seen a sign for a smoking area on the roof of the hostel, we went up simply to check out the view. We climbed three floors & were comforted with a tiny, almost hobbit-like door, which was half a meter off the ground. There were two park benches up top, it wasn’t a big area but it was a nice area. Except for the empty Fanta & vodka bottles, obviously someone had a party last night! I leant over the edge to take some photos of the high streets, I hate heights so I quickly snapped a photo & even quicker jumped backwards to anchor my feet firmly on the ground.
Now we sit in our not so peaceful hostel, planning what to do next in Ireland! I’m no where near ready to go back to work & reality.