Luck of the Irish: My Computer Works and You Get a Post

MY COMPUTER IS RUNNING AGAIN! (now back to your regularly scheduled programming)

My trip to Ireland has come and gone and it was a great time. I was in Dublin March 12-17 and enjoyed pretty much every minute of it. When I stepped out of the airport there was a steady rain, but after riding on the bus for about 10 minutes it stopped raining and the sun came out. To my surprise I was greeted in Dublin with a big rainbow in the afternoon sky. How about a welcome to the land of the Irish?

My first night was really interesting. I spent the night at All Hallows College in the northern part of Dublin. My mom and dad slept there when they were in Ireland a few years ago. On my walk there I was completely taken back when I was walking on the left sidewalk and cars were passing me from behind. I walked 3 blocks before I noticed everyone driving on the other side of the road, crazy stuff. I went with Fr. Bob, an extremely nice person, to a small St. Pat's party they had at the school. There are several international classes of adults studying there and so I was treated to entertainment from Africa, China, India and several other countries. I even contributed, singing the Mizzou alma mater, which everyone enjoyed.

Thursday was an early morning. I had breakfast with Fr. Bob and then caught a bus to City Centre. The thing that caught my eye after getting off the bus in the middle of downtown was the fact that everything had a older feel to it. If you discount the Millienium spire, which kind of comes out of nowhere, everything else had a cool old feel to it. Like the other European cities I've been too the architecture was very cool. I especially loved the old time clocks that were on a ton of buildings downtown. After I met and walked around with a couple girls from Canada for a while, I went to the train station, bought my one-day DART train pass and hopped on board for the approx. 45 min trip to Greystones, 25 km south of Dublin.

Greystones was just an absolutely cool little town with beautiful scenery. I walked up and down the beach as well as the main drag in town. It was a nice change from the big city feel of Dublin, like two different worlds. A very delicious lunch of lentil and ginger soup and soda bread capped off the nice time in Greystones. Since I was at the end of train line, I went back towards Dublin and stopped off in Bray, the next stop. There is an awesome point on the train where you come out from behind a line of rocks and all of the sudden a beautiful sight of beach, rocks and the vast Irish Sea opens up in front of you. I spent the entire train ride both ways glued to the window. I enjoyed the town feel of Greystones more, but Bray's scenery was unbeatable. After chilling on the beach of rocks for a while watching the waves crash, I climbed the mountain (big hill, whichever you prefer...a long hike non-the-less). I was extremely hot upon reaching the top and lucky for me the rain started to come down. Typically I'm not a big fan of rain, but it was so cool so just stand at the top of the mountain, with the rain and wind in my face, and take in the scenery. Just a cool experience overall! I spent a while on the mountain soaking everything up, then decided it was about time to head down and make my way to Howth, the complete opposite end of the rail line. From what I've heard Howth is just as beautiful, but I got there as the sun was going down and so I didn't have much light to explore. Howth is a big fishing port and I had an excellent dinner of Smoked Wild Irish Salmon. I walked around a bit before my dinner reservation and it seemed like a really cool town like Greystones, only a little bigger because of the fishing industry. For my one-day DART train pass I got one hell of a day, riding the complete line. This was without a doubt the best day of the trip.

I met up with my high school friend Greg late that night and spent the next 3 days staying at his place in Dublin. Friday afternoon I had my first pint of Guinness in Dublin and an absolutely delicious lunch of Beef and Guinness Pie. Think of shepherds pie, but with the beef cooked in Guinness and instead of mash potatoes it was a flaky pastry top. One of the better things I've ever had. After lunch, Greg went grocery shopping and I headed off to the Guinness Storehouse Brewery to see how it compared to A-B. It was a cool self-guided tour in the storehouse which has only been open since 2000. I especially liked the section devoted to Guinness advertising, which ranks right up there with A-B. At the end of the tour they give you a pint of Guinness up in their 360* glass bar. So I enjoyed my pint while catching a great view of the city and surrounding hills and things. That night we went to a cool bar called Messrs and had a really good time.

Saturday's weather didn't fare so good as it literally rained the entire day. I know we throw that phrase around often and it actually isn't true most of the time, but this time is actually is true: rain the entire day. So we chilled at Greg's place for a while and then went out to another bar, the Woolshed, to watch the Ireland-England rugby match for the Six Nations Cup. The place was packed with fans and although I had no idea about the majority of rugby rules it was a great time. Futbol and rugby are the things in Ireland and they are pretty passionate about both. Ireland ended up getting killed, but the next game up was show. France - Wales were playing to decide the winner of the tournament and there were plenty of French fans on hand. In one of the cooler things I've ever seen, the entire portion of the bar we were sitting in broke out into thunderous (it was very loud) song for the French national anthem. It was one of those things that you get chills at. The night ended at The Bleeding Horse, my favorite bar of the weekend. It had a really ornate front bar and a nice local feel to it even though there were a lot of young people.

Sunday's weather could not have been any better: clear skys and not really cold. I decided to go down to Marion Square for some of the St. Patrick's Day festivities. Half of it was a St. Gabriel's school picnic and the other half was a cultural performances and kids activities. I watched about six different shows, walked around for while, grabbed all the free food I could and then went home. One of the more interesting shows was what looked like an Islamic religious dance. The main dancer in the middle spun around in circles for what had to be at least 10 minutes. You've got to be good to do that and not get sick, it was impressive. They had these two crazy mascots for the festival and as you can see I had to get my picture with them.



That night we went back to Messrs and enjoyed a few more pints of Guinness. Man, is that stuff good! I can't drink a lot of it because it's so heavy, but just watching the beer mix after it's been poured is worth the money. Since I woke up early Monday morning and headed to the airport there isn't much to report there so in the spirit of Guinness then I'll leave you with a nice final picture. I never knew that the correct way to pour it is to go 3/4's, let it settle then pour the rest.



As I wrote this blog I listened to "Galway Girl" by Mundy on repeat. It's my new favorite Irish song that I picked up while I was there. Check it out yourself!