April 5 - Early morning Dublin, the never ending day, and lots of delish food!

Early morning Dublin, the never ending day, and lots of delish food!

We landing in Dublin at 0455 Dublin time, or 1000 Denver time. Brandon didn't sleep at all on the flight from Chicago (which is probably a major first, seeing as he almost always sleeps the entire way on every flight we take) and I only slept for about an hour and a half. Needless to say, we were pretty tired but I think that the adrenaline rush of excitement propelled us forward we.  We went through Customs and Immigration, which was a total non-event compared to so many other countries we've been to, retrieved our bags and picked up our rental car.

Our car is a Hyundai IX 20, aka a little roller skate with four doors. It has a surprisingly large back seat, and the front seats are comfy. Of course the most interesting fact about our car is that it is a RIGHT HAND DRIVE!!! Oh my. We were laughing hysterically (nerves and exhaustion combo, anyone?) about how odd it felt inside the car. We also found out that our Garmin GPS that we brought for the trip only has maps for the US, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands on it. Whooooooops! Fortunately we bought a really awesome laminated map of Ireland that has really well marked roads. So far that map has served us extremely well! It is also kind of fun to be using a good old fashioned map. We headed out of the airport towards Dublin.

Driving went GREAT until we were actually able to see our hotel. Once we saw it, we could not figure out how to get to it! The road that we saw that looked like it went in didn't, and the next one we found we thought was a one way. After several wrong turns and accidental detours of the surrounding streets, we found that the road we thought was a one way was in fact the correct road to go into the parking garage. It took us 20 minutes to drive to the hotel from the airport, and then almost 10 to figure out how to park! Oh my. By now it was the late hour of 0630, and of course we couldn't check in until 1500. No problem, we said confidently (and naiveley), we're gong to explore Dublin until then. We got a city map and found out that it was about a 15 minute walk to the downtown, and set off. It was still pretty chilly out, but the sun had come up and there was some blue sky. We walked until we got to Christ Church, and headed up the hill. What a beautiful place! Unfortunately it was closed due to filming of the movie "Mary, Queen of Scots" and we were unable to go inside. It will be open when we are in Dublin in two weeks, and we are planning on going in then.

We then strolled on to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is surrounded by a huge park with flowers and nice paths and big trees - everything was so green and beautiful! The cathedral and park did not open until 0800, so we walked on to find some breakfast. We found this place called lovepasta, which is apparently an Irish chain, but it was in this charming old stone cellar, and the food looked wonderful! We both ordered something called "Egg Pots," which were scrambled eggs with some kind of fillings. Brandon had his with smoked salmon, cream cheese, and dill, while I chose the crispy bacon and hollandaise. These were both accompanied by brown bread, and I got a cappuccino while Brandon had a pot of Earl Grey. The food was delish! So simple, but exactly what we needed! The cook told us that he smoked the salmon himself, which we thought was pretty amazing.

After this we walked on to St. Stephen's Green, which is essentially a large park. It was starting to get a bit colder, and all of a sudden there was a (fortunately  brief) sleet shower! After that we didn't get any more rained/snowed/anything the whole day. St. Stephen's was beautiful, with a large pond that had two swans in it. It also had lots of pretty flowers. We walked over to Trinity College to see the Book Of Kells, which in our opinion was a major disappointment. The book itself was amazing, but there were so many tourists there that it was hard to feel like you had time to actually look at things. The real problem was that it hardly spoke about the history and reconstruction of the book. It had an informative basic timeline of the history of the book, but not too much detail. We were also hoping that there would be information about how they restored the book. The other part of the exhibit that was interesting was a walk through the "Long Library" of Trinity, which has loads of old books that are undergoing restoration in it. As book lovers, it was neat to see, but once again there wasn't much information. The entrance fee of 9 euro's felt like quite a scam once we left. Oh well - as my Dad would say, "now it's on our been there done that" list! It was good to see the book as well, simply because of the historical significance of it.

Something that was interesting to us about Dublin was how quiet it was. Even when walking past groups of people, no one was really talking. There were no horns honking or tires screeching. We did hear church bells ringing and eventually a few horns honking, but it was almost eerily quiet compared to many other big cities.

After leaving Trinity we headed back to St. Patrick's and went inside. Before going in, we spent a while taking photos in the park.  While paying our entrance fee to the cathedral, we heard the organ. I asked the clerk if there was a concert, and he said "no, the organist is just practicing." I was so excited!!!! The last time Mom and I went to Westminster Abbey, the organ was playing and it was an amazing experience! Brandon and I were pretty cold and starting to feel quite tired at this point, so we sat in the nave for a while and listened to the organist. It was beautiful to hear. We then spent a long time exploring the church - it was beautiful and so peaceful.

After leaving, we headed off to visit the Guinness storehouses, which is where they have their tour. What a place!!! It is a huge complex. The tour was very interesting. We learned that Arthur Guinness, the founder, signed a 9,000 year lease for the buildings back in the late 1700's! Talk about an optimist! I love it. The building was multi storied, and each part of the tour was on a different level. It was really interesting to learn about the brewing process. One of the most interesting things was that the yeast that they use is grown there, and that the same yeast has been used since the beer began. They always take part of the yeast from the last batch and add it to the new yeast. The yeast is such a special ingredient that they keep several extra stores of it locked in a safe.
Another really interesting part of the tour was about the coopers that made the casks that the beer was stored in. Talk about a tough job!!!! It was amazing - the casks were not sealed with any adhesive or glue, they simply build them with the oak wet, and when it dries it forms that watertight lining.

After the official tour was over we headed up the the Gravity Bar, which everyone said was one off the best views of Dublin. The view was indeed amazing! 360 degree view over all of Dublin. The only problem was it was PACKED with people. We headed out of there pretty quickly and went to a restaurant two levels below, which still had amazing views. We decided to share the beef casserole with mashed potatoes - this was delish!!!! It was a filet of beef cooked the same way that you would slow cook stew meat, and a rich sauce with carrots, yams, and onion. It also came with arugula (or, as its known in the UK, "rocket") and brown bread. The sauce and the bread were both made with Guinness, and it added a wonderful richness to the flavour. By the time we finished this feast we were absolutely dead on our feet. We decided to head back to the hotel and hope that we could check in a little early. After stumbling back to the hotel we were thankfully able to get into our room. We went upstairs to our room and COLLAPSED in bed. It was about 1430 Dublin time, which translates to 0730 Denver time. We had been awake for 26 hours at this point and we were exhausted - hence our three hour nap! I slept until 1730, and Brandon slept until 1830. We felt SO much better after sleeping some. We then showered and headed out to find dinner.

We had planned to go to this pub called "L Mulligan Grocer," which was supposed to have wonderful food, but when we got there it was packed. We decided to wander up the street further to find somewhere. We ended up finding this little place called "Soul-Ful" bistro, which billed itself as healthy traditional Irish food. I won't lie, we were a little dubious because of it being billed as healthy (we want greasy fish and chips! Shepherd's Pie!), but it looked so warm and inviting inside that we went for it. We are so glad that we did!!!! The ambience (or ambulance, as we Kithil's always say) was wonderful! Everything was painted a lovely dove grey, and there were lots of mirrors on the walls with pretty curtains on the windows and sayings about cooking and food painted on the walls. After getting our menu, it was really hard to decide! Everything looked delicious. Brandon went with the healthy fish and chips (panko breading and pan fried rather than battered and fried) and I finally decided on the beef stew. I was vacillating between the stew or salmon, and after asking our waitress, I went with the stew. She made a comment about how she wrote the menu, and after she walked away I said to Brandon "I bet she's the owner! This place looks like someones baby." Our food arrived and it was so so so wonderful! Brandon's fish was so flakey, and the panko breading was wonderfully crispy with great flavor. The fries were also amazing, and it was accompanied by the best tartar sauce of all time1 My beef stew and mashed potatoes were so good. The stew had these wonderful mushrooms in it. I am normally not a big mushroom fan, but these had a wonderful crisp texture and a nutty flavour. Accompanied by the rich sauce and potatoes it was a major win. When she took our plates, I asked if she was the owner. She said she was, and we then talked with her for about 10 minutes. She has lived all over the world and opened numerous restaurants. She gave us some great tips on other places to eat and things to do, and then gave us a dessert menu. It was so hard to decide what to get! We finally settled on the "pie in a jar." This was toasted oats with raspberry, rhubarb, and strawberry compote, garnished with either vanilla custard or chantilly cream. We went with both the custard and the cream (on the side) and IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!! We demolished it, to say the least. It we hadn't been in a restaurant, we probably would have licked the jar (rather than plate)!

We thanked her and headed back to our hotel, which was a nice 10 minute walk through the quiet evening streets of Dublin. It was beautiful out, but not too cold. After getting back to our room, we headed to bed as it was now around 2230 Dublin time.  On Saturday we'll be heading south to Kilkenny for two nights.

Love love love,

Linds

PS) I've been having trouble getting my photos to post within the blog, so I'll be posting them straight to Facebook. Please check them out! :)