Dublin

On Saturday, we all piled into a rented car and drove to Dublin. We had planned to stop at three destinations: the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin Castle, and Chester Beatty Library, which houses the world's oldest copy of the New Testament. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

We arrived in Dublin a couple of hours later than scheduled. We went to the Guinness Storehouse first, which was quite a lot of fun. Their displays were very large and interactive. Troy's daughters had a lot of fun playing in the barley... just as I did when I was growing up, playing in granaries. The best part of the eight storey exhibit was an old movie of a man making oak barrels by hand. He stuck slats of wood together, never measuring, which were held together by two metal rings. The wood was then steamed so it would be pliable. He then bent the wood and put the final ring on. The lid was also handmade and this is the first time he would measure anything. After he was finished the barrel, he looked down at it with a blank expression. The narrator of the film said something like, "The pride on the barrel-maker's face is well-deserved, and you can see the amount of satisfaction he gets from his craft." I love dry, sarcastic humour! The barrel factory would produce 10,000 handmade barrels per week! Handmade!

Did you know that hops only grow in two regions in the world in the temperate climate by the equator?

We got some interesting pictures from the Guinness storehouse and we'll put them on Flickr sometime.

After we had our "complimentary" pints of Guinness and meandered through the very busy gift shop, it was 4:30. We did not have time to go anywhere else. Stores and attractions here close between 5:00 and 6:00. Not much is open in the evenings -- I guess everyone goes out for a pint after a "long" day of work.

We spent some time downtown, which was very busy. Dublin had a lot more tourists. The streets were more tourist-friendly than in Belfast.














There were grotesque sculptures of rabbits and other animals on the street.












Yes, that's a rabbit.

(Not a great picture... it was taken from the backseat of the car.)



We ate supper at a 50's diner called Eddie Rocket's. Whoever invented the ice cream float was a genius! The diner was fun... not really Irish, though. Here's something embarrassing: Jason and I haven't been to a pub yet. We hope to remedy that soon!