January 15, 2011 - Day 2

I woke up in the middle of the night (I don't know what time it was because there was no clock!!!) to pee because I was pretty sure that I would die if I didn't and when I got back in bed it took me a couple hours to sleep despite my exhaustion.

Breakfast at the hotel was great! Eight a.m. came pretty early after I finally fell asleep. We ate a continental breakfast, which is usually adequate and mediocre, but at the Buswells Hotel it was delicious. Especially the blueberry muffin, tea, and marmalade and toast.

We set off as a group for the national library to see the Yeats Exhibit. It was pretty neat to see his manuscripts and especially his occult stuff but I have to admit that I was slightly bored, despite my literary interests. I guess Yeats isn't my favorite...

On the way from the Yeats Exhibit to Dublinia, we walked through St. Stephen's Green. There were birds everywhere, and even if though it was winter the grass and plants were very green and beautiful. 

 

After the Yeats Exhibit, we zipped on over to Dublinia, a museum detailing Viking and medieval Ireland. It was a blast! Everything was interactive, so Erin, Kelly, and I got into everything. We put on tunics, helmets, chain mail, made rubbings of our names in the Viking alphabet, got pictures with the statues, etc. It was so fun. 

 So after all of that foolishness, we went into Christ Church Cathedral. It was very large and holy and there was a stained glass window depicting St. Finbar among many others but...it was Finbar!

We went into the crypt which had some cool stuff you couldn't take pictures of like silver guilt chalices and flagos. Next to the crypt was the "Foxy Friars Gift Shop" which was either a reference to something I don't know or really irreverent.

After Christ Church, we were on our own. Finally. Being with the group can be dead annoying. Kelly, Erin, and I set off for the Guinness Brewery. We stopped at a café along the way and I had fish and chips and a diet coke for dinner. I was really uncomfortably full after that. We walked  in the freezing wind and drizzle down the river Liffey to where we believed the brewery was located. What should have been a fifteen minute walk became an hour-and-a-half trudge because we were lost. I kept up a steady flow of comic relief nonetheless.

We finally found the brewery after asking some guards and it was awkward. We walked a bit more and I was so tired I felt like lying down in the street sludge and dying. We went in, payed €11, and entered the brewery.

It was more of a museum of beer than a brewery. We explored it (following the trail of ingredients of stout). It was really neat. It had seven floors and the top one was the sky bar where you got a complimentary Guinness and a 360〫view of Dublin. It was amazing. The Guinness, however, was sickening. It was so bitter and musky, and when it hit the back of my throat I felt really nauseous and it lingered. Bleck. But the view was magnificent. I was really taken with the Wellington Monument and St. Patrick's Tower ("I'm tired of these goddam snakes in this goddam tower!")

*I forgot to mention earlier that, while we were walking from the hotel to Yeats Exhibit to Dublinia, we saw several key sights/sites of the city. We saw a statue of Molly Malone with huge, nearly exposed boobs. Joyce tried to impress us with her knowledge of the song about Molly, but, unfortunately for her, I knew it too so she is stupid. We also traipsed through St. Stephen's Green, a Dublin city park. It was just lovely: ducks, swans, trees, and such. 

We hauled to get home to the hotel before six so Kelly could change and go to Catholic Church. Apparently, if she misses a Sunday mass it could mean badness for her. But we didn't make it...we were almost sprinting really. My legs were on fire and full of fiery pain but we were still too late. So I took a nap when we finally passed out in front of the hotel. My legs hurt so much (but not nearly as much as they would in the coming days.) At least it's only Saturday...if Kelly can get to church by tomorrow night, maybe her soul will be safe. 

After napping we went to the Duke Pub to begin the "Literary Pub Crawl." We all sat upstairs, most drinking, and waited for the actors to begin. They were pretty funny, Frank and Brendan, the actors. They did a scene from Waiting for Godot and talked about Samuel Beckett. From The Duke, we went to O'Neill's but we stopped by Trinity College along the way to talk about Oscar Wilde (O'Neill's is the "college bar"). After that we went to The Old Stand, formerly known as The Monico. The last pub of the crawl was The Davy Byrnes. A man there kept looking at me creepily. I felt very uncomfortable because we kept making awkward eye contact. It was awful. After the crawl, we were so tired we decided to go to sleep. None of us was intoxicated--I point that out now because it becomes important later in the story. We went to bed and every one else went out to party, even though they had had at least one drink at each pub. Also, I'd like to include that I tried a Harp beer and it wasn't awful.

At Guinness, drinking a diet coke because Guinness is gross. Hence, the sad face.