The Marian Guest House (where I am staying for my first two nights in Dublin, until my study abroad program starts) is awesome. Located in a kind of run down part of the city, you really wouldn't know it was there unless you happened to walk right in front of it. Brendan and Catherine, the couple who run it, are the definition of gracious hosts. Every time I've seen them coming in or out of the building, they ask how I am. Catherine calls everyone "sweetie," and told me to "have a nice time today" when I left to go exploring. My room is small and smells like cigarettes, and the bathroom is down the hall in a room small enough for me to stand in the center and touch all the walls. But I don't care. I'm not spending much time there anyway.
I set out not really knowing where I was going, other than knowing more things would be happening the direction I was heading. As it happened, I ended up on Dublin's main drag, O'Connell Street. It's famous for the Millennium Spire, which Brendan described as "a waste of time and space," as it was meant to celebrate the turn of the millennium but wasn't built until 2003. It's really just a big metal spike.
After meandering down O'Connell Street, I headed to Trinity College, which really reminded me of UO, if UO had been built 300 years earlier. Most of the main buildings (the ones tourists visit) all make you feel like you're living in medieval times, even though this is still an active college. Part of the old feeling you get is due to the Book of Kells, a text written sometime in the 9th century. It's done with all sorts of colored dye and gold filigree on calf-skin pages, and documents four Gospels of the New Testament. On display when I saw the book was a random selection of the Gospel of John, and the first page of the Gospel of Luke. I don't think I've ever been in the presence of something quite that old in my life. Really cool.
After Trinity College, I found myself extremely tired. Maybe because I still hadn't slept yet. So I naturally decided to visit the Guinness Storehouse, because nothing would work in this situation besides alcohol! (Except sleep, which didn't sound as tasty.) The Guinness Storehouse is where Guinness was first brewed, and is much farther away from everything than everyone would have you believe. Granted, nothing in Dublin is all that far apart, but this was by far the farthest away.
The best way to describe the experience of the Storehouse is that if you didn't think Guinness was the best beer in the world when you went in, you KNOW it is when you leave. The first floor is dedicated exclusively to a detailed examination of all Guinness' ingredients, including a moving tribute to water. You then move up the building , which, as you realize when you reach the 5th floor, is centered around a giant pint of Guinness. Along the way up, they go to great lengths to explain the painstaking process by which Guinness is made. (At least, it used to be painstaking. Now they have machines to do it all) You even get to taste a roasted grain of barley which was actually quite good. And, of course, included with your admission, is a free pint of Guinness in their Gravity Bar. The Gravity Bar is a circular room that serves as the 7th floor, and provides a 360 degree view of Dublin. Yes, I drank Guinness 7 stories up, staring out over the city. Quite amazing.
Then I got some fish and chips in a tiny little shop, ate them, and then almost fell asleep while walking back to the guest house. Hooray Day 1!
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