Days 1, 2 and 3

Day 1 was my travel day from Austin to Dublin. Since I like you guys, I won’t bore you with the heartache of that story. Just to sum it up-There was a lot of hurry up and wait. 23 hours after I left my house, I walked into the lobby of my hotel in Dublin.

Day 2- when I landed in Dublin, the weather was warm and sunny, so warm I panicked because of course I’d brought a bunch of long-sleeved shirts and a sweater. I was wearing the only short-sleeved shirt I had. But the sunshine was just glorious after so many hours on planes and in airports. As I stood waiting for the taxi to my hotel, I lifted my face to the sun and let out a sigh. I was here, I was safe and now my vacation could truly begin!

Of course, it was 4 in the afternoon and I was tired, so I went to dinner with my friends who had arrived before me. We walked around the streets by the hotel to find a restaurant. We found one that looked interesting, or maybe it was the name-Druids. Young locals hung outside drinking, smoking and laughing. Young, I say. They were probably college age. My friends and I went into the restaurant, but they had just opened and didn’t seem to care whether we stayed or not. They gave us 2 menus (there were 3 of us), told us to pick a seat while waving us off and the food was overpriced. So we left. On the walk back, we stopped in a store for some candy-gotta love that candy! My favorites are Mars bars (or glorified Milky Ways as I’m told) and Smarties (glorified M & Ms). I don’t care what other people think. If you haven’t tried the chocolate from England, Ireland and Scotland you can’t possibly understand the ecstasy of good chocolate! We ended up eating in the hotel, which was when I had my first Guinness in Ireland. And my 2nd. After, 2 of us went to the bar for a few more pints and to get caught up. After all my traveling, I made an early night of it.

Day 3- Today all the other people on the scheduled tour started to arrive. It was still warm, but I wasn’t too hot with my long-sleeves. In the afternoon, the tour went to the Guinness factory for beers in the bar that overlooks the city. Wow! What a beautiful view and the sky was so clear! I didn’t pay much attention to all the history of Guinness. Quite honestly, I just wanted my free pint and a chance to shop in the store. I was disappointed with the T-shirt collection and didn’t want to buy something just for the sake of having a T-shirt to wear in the abnormally hot weather. So I settled for a shot glass with the Guinness label.



After the Guinness factory, we went to the Old Jameson’s whiskey Distillery. We had a welcome drink of the good stuff as the official start of the tour. Then we watched a video about the history of the distillery. After, we had dinner and entertainment! The food was excellent and the entertainment was even better! We had 3 guys playing instruments and playing Irish drinking songs. We had a competition between the 2 sides of the room. Sadly, even though I and my lovely voice joined in, my side did not win the competition. We also had Irish step dancers there. They were phenomenal. Our table was right by the stage. The dancers brought tears to my eyes they were that good.




Toward the end, they pulled suckers out of the audience to teach them to step dance. Now that was funny! I thought about volunteering, but I didn’t have the nerve. As soon as it was over, I vowed not to miss an opportunity like that again. I would suck, but it would be so much fun!

And so ended day 3 of my trip.