Dublin, take 2

Last trip of the season, I fear, but it was a fun one. Dan and I went to Dublin for a day. We had to get up really early to catch the bus, and it took like 3 hours to get there. But get there we did, then we went right over to the book of Kells, which was AMAZING. It told us all about how they made Vellum (calf skin) and binded the book together, and about the symbolism of some of the symbols and stuff. I hadn't realized how small, and thus intricate the book was. It was really amazing how fine the detail looked, even after all these years. It was stunning. Then there was this old library we walked through to get out that had lots of old books like that, too.
Then we walked to go to a river cruise, but luckily the tide was out and not due back in until 4pm, cuz I didn't want to go anyway. So after that we went to the tourist office to find out how to get to the brewery and newgrange, an place built 1000 years before Stonehenge, with a hole in a rock formation that only catches the light on the winter solstice. But it was too far out of the way for us to go, unfortunately. So we continued on to the guiness factory, which was neat. We learned all about how guiness was made, from the barley (it's the roast barely that gives the drink its distinctive dark red, almost black look) to mashing the barley, to adding water, to adding yeast, to boiling it, to adding hops (which act as a preservative as well as adding flavor, so they'd load up the beers with hops if they had to go on long journeys overseas). We saw some cool guiness ads, learned how to sample different beers (but they only gave us one...jerks), and got to the top where they let you pour your own pint, which was neat. I tried to make a shamrock, but it didn't work out too well. There's a picture. Also, little known fact, it takes a guiness exactly 119.5 seconds to completely settle. After that, it was getting kind of late, and shops were closing down, so we took an earlier bus back, which was way to long and hot and I felt sick on. But we got back, and there you have it. The last trip in Ireland. Probably.

So thanks for reading about my travels, hope you enjoyed them, and I'm sure I'll be telling all of you about them in person fairly soon.

Love,

Justin

Pictures:

Dublin