Dublin, this time as a tourist!

We returned to Dublin this weekend for a trip as a tourist. Scott wanted to see where I was working, and I also wanted to see the sights.

We caught a 10am flight on Sat from Gatwick. We got a terrific (wow, havent used that word in a while) deal on flights from Ryanair...36 GBP total for 2! I really hate how they dont assign seats though, so at the gate its chaos as everyone tries to get on first to get a good seat. I fail to see how this makes things faster or cheaper. Anyways, we arrived and headed straight to our hotel on O'Connell street to drop off our bags.

O'Connell Street is the main shopping street on the North side of the River Liffey. We walked down the street and headed down the river pathway towards the Irish Sea. I pointed out my office building then we hit a pub for some lunch. After that we jumped on a Hop On Hop Off bus to get a tour of the city. Yes they are cheesy, but we love them and its a good way to see what the city is all about. The tour around took 1.5 hours, but we got the lay of the land and had a really funny guide. Did you know that the lion at the beginning of MGM movies (his name is Rory) was born and raised at the Dublin Zoo?? Who knew!

After that we decided we were thirsty so we went to Temple Bar (an area of Dublin, not a bar) and found that every pub we went into was FULL due to the Ireland vs France 6 Nations Rugby Tournament. We finally got a seat at a bar and had a Guinness (first of many). We then wandered around and ended up having dinner at Fire. It was a nice restaurant, but the food wasnt as great as we expected. Of course after dinner we were thirsty, so we went across the street to a really cool bar called Cafe en Seine and enjoyed a bottle of wine. An fine end to a good day.

The next morning, being Sunday and all, we decided it was time to go to a spiritual place. We hoped on the bus, past Christchurch Cathedral, past St Patrick's Cathedral and got off the bus with everyone else at the Guinness Storehouse! Its actually really well done, although a bit pricey. We spent about 2 hours going through, taking pics and drinking Guinness (they have a really cool bar made all of glass so you can see all of Dublin from the 7th floor).

After that we jumped back on and headed to Jameson's Distillery. We didnt like this one as much because 1. I dont like whiskey 2. It wasnt the original, it had a bunch of miniature things to represent what it would have looked like, and 3. only 6 people got to do the full tasting, the rest just got 1 whiskey. Scott, thank goodness, knew to volunteer and pretty much jumped out of his seat to volunteer for the full tasting. He got to try 3 Irish whiskies, 1 scotch and 1 American whiskey. Then the group of 6 said which one they liked the best, 5 of them said Jamesons (the obvious right answer) while Scott proclaimed his love of scotch. Nice one, honey!

After that we walked back to city centre and back to the hotel to get our bags. Back to the airport where we enjoyed another beverage or two before the flight home.

My pics are below, Scott will add his later because tonight he is at his very first football match...a birthday present from Ken, John and Christie! He actually gets to watch Arsenal LIVE!! So he will have to post his stuff later.