Dublin day 2

After a solid sleep (that initially required earplugs or a love of early 90's Irish rock), we awoke to sunshine and the promise of new adventures. Thankfully our luggage arrived last night too!

Started our day off with traditional Irish breakfast, including black and white pudding. when Grady asked the cranky waitress what that means, she said, "pH, I couldn't begin to describe it." Ok, well adventure we said. Honestly these were like savory little muffins. Definitely pork of some nature, ground and baked (?) into hockey puck shaped biscuits. My breakfast consisted of poached eggs over homemade brown bread, baked beans and a broiled tomato. That was the "healthy" option. It was all quite tasty and made for a good start to the day.

Next up was Trinity College. The college was founded in 1592 by the OG Queen Elizabeth, the campus sits in a walled cross-shaped courtyard in the middle of Dublin. It also houses the Book of Kells, a hand illustrated book of the gospels from approximately 1,200 years ago.

The books were interesting and truly detailed, but by far we were blown away with the Old Library. This gigantic hall houses over 200,000 books, including the original Proclamation Of the Irish Republic and a harp from the 15th century. This building is massive, filled with relics and smells like heaven (old books). I am a huge fan of the Library of Congress in DC - this rivals that glory.

The national museum of archeology.... sorry, archaeology... provided us with close up views of Viking era relics, bones, gold hoards and weaponry. It was very big and very interesting. But our feet got tired so we traded museums for a ride on a double decker bus to the Guiness Storehouse 

I've heard this described as very "Disney" like and while I can't disagree that the entire 5 story building is essentially an advertisement for Guiness, I loved every second of it. The displays were modern, fun and included a mix of both old school industrial and modern media. The imagery / photography displayed was outstanding. 

We headed up to the top floor for the Gravity Bar and our pint that was included with admission. It was so busy that it was hard to appreciate the views but was fun for a bit. We promptly headed down one floor to the brasserie where we had an amazing lunch experience 

Tony, our server, is a big beer fan. Steve asked him about the traditional Guiness being a stout versus some of the other beers that Guiness serves. Next thing we know, Tony is bringing us a Foreign Extra Stout and the not yet released Rye Pale Ale. We had great conversation with Tony, especially when we realized that the RPA was grown with Cascade hops. That's right, as in from Washington. So here we are in Ireland, drinking Irish beer that includes hops from our backyard. Small world after all. Tony seemed to enjoy the fact that he had customers who actually wanted to talk about the beer. 

When faced with transportation options back to the hotel, we took the most favorable, of course: horse drawn carriage. Our young driver told us all about Red Diesel, how he bought her via Facebook from England, how he has to shoe her ever 3-4 weeks and how he broke her for city driving in May. He told us (and we have seen proof) that kids as young as 10 start driving horses. Crazy to think that but again, we've seen those lads about. 

The weather had been amazing. Sunshine and just a few clouds.