Magically Delicious.
I've started a new post like 17 times over the past weeks but can never really come up with much. No words, you know? Which is kind of funny because I just read this book about how the brain works and all this science-y stuff that I won't get into here but basically my main way of thinking is reading and writing and yet somehow it takes all my effort to form a sentence, sometimes. Science, man. I haven't had anything to write about but I have this blog so I should put something on there, and I guess it will be Ireland since I started talking about that 10 years ago or whatever it was.
So, Ireland. The trip (remember when I went on a trip, like, 2 months ago or something?) wrapped up with Ireland. It's a separate country from Northern Ireland. Different money, too. Different accents. I'm sure you know all this.
I already told you about the converted church apartment in Dublin. It was within easy walking distance of the number one tourist attraction in the city- the Guinness Storehouse. I just made that up, I have no idea if that's the number one attraction. Going by the number of people there, I'd venture to say it is, but I don't actually know. The Guinness Storehouse was recommended to us as a must-do, even by people who don't drink beer. Obviously we had to go, and I'm sorry to report that it was pretty disappointing. The tour is not of a brewery, it's a museum. So you just wander through, reading about how they make Guinness. Underwhelming. The highlight is the "free" Guinness you get at the end- that you paid the 19 euro entrance fee to get. Whatever though. When in Dublin, and all that. I did have some delicious Guinness and Beef stew in one of the restaurants, so that was nice. I'm so torn on this. On the one hand, I feel like if you find yourself in Dublin, you need to do this, but on the other hand, zzzzzzzz. Go to a pub. Buy yourself a Guinness. Boom, you've just experienced the best part of the Guinness tour.
After Guinness, we made our way north of the river to pay a visit to the Jameson distillery. The Jameson distillery is also not a working distillery but the tour was a billion times better and the main reason for that is that I won a contest to do a special tasting and I got a certificate with my name on it that says I'm a certified whiskey taster. So legit. At Jameson I learned a lot about whiskey-making and then bought myself a bottle of supposedly only available in Ireland, aged whiskey blah blah blah. In conclusion- Guinness no, Jameson yes, thank you and good day.
There's more to Dublin than booze. There are also churches. We had kind of a church day and hit up St. Patrick's, Christ Church, St. Audoen's, and the Carmelite Church. So many churches! The highlight for me was St. Patrick's Cathedral. We happened to be there just as they were starting a communion service, so we joined and it was really so lovely. Christ Church is home to a mummified cat and mouse, if you're into that sort of thing. And the Carmelite Church has a relic of St. Valentime. I'm pretty sure "relic" means "a piece of his dried up body" but they have it inside a little box so who really knows. Fascinating though, and everything is so, so beautiful. Kind of a far cry from my church, which meets in a high school auditorium. Ha.
As I'm sure you can guess, there is more to Ireland than Dublin, but let's save that for another time.
So, Ireland. The trip (remember when I went on a trip, like, 2 months ago or something?) wrapped up with Ireland. It's a separate country from Northern Ireland. Different money, too. Different accents. I'm sure you know all this.
After Guinness, we made our way north of the river to pay a visit to the Jameson distillery. The Jameson distillery is also not a working distillery but the tour was a billion times better and the main reason for that is that I won a contest to do a special tasting and I got a certificate with my name on it that says I'm a certified whiskey taster. So legit. At Jameson I learned a lot about whiskey-making and then bought myself a bottle of supposedly only available in Ireland, aged whiskey blah blah blah. In conclusion- Guinness no, Jameson yes, thank you and good day.There's more to Dublin than booze. There are also churches. We had kind of a church day and hit up St. Patrick's, Christ Church, St. Audoen's, and the Carmelite Church. So many churches! The highlight for me was St. Patrick's Cathedral. We happened to be there just as they were starting a communion service, so we joined and it was really so lovely. Christ Church is home to a mummified cat and mouse, if you're into that sort of thing. And the Carmelite Church has a relic of St. Valentime. I'm pretty sure "relic" means "a piece of his dried up body" but they have it inside a little box so who really knows. Fascinating though, and everything is so, so beautiful. Kind of a far cry from my church, which meets in a high school auditorium. Ha.As I'm sure you can guess, there is more to Ireland than Dublin, but let's save that for another time.
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