On day one and two of touristy whatnots we embarked on the City Sightseeing Tour- Dublin; which I highly recommend. This is a ticket we bought online for €9 each from groupon.ie (if you are coming to Ireland, check out Groupon.ie for good deals). The normal price for an adult ticket is €17.. so this was a GREAT deal. There are different tours, some are multilingual with a pre-recorded tour and other are guided by a real life person (those tours are exceptionally better). During the tour we had the option to "hop on- hop off." There are 23 stops (25 if you count sub-stops) each with their own attraction, sometimes even 2 or 3 attractions per stop, also a bus makes its way to each stop every 10-15 mins. It was a great way to get to know the city and we got to hear "Molly Malone" sung on multiple occasions =D: "fish monger by day and Lady of the Night." One of the oldest professions ;). I find it sort of funny that I learned the song for an elementary school chorus concert...
^ Molly Malone ^
...Moving on... On the first day of this tour we took the route completely through one time. It lasted about 90 mins. During this first tour we noted some places we wanted to visit and over the next three days we did just that. The first set of pictures was from the tour itself. When we did get off the bus, the first stop was at the National Museum of Art. I don't really remember much from the National museum. It was relatively small. Honestly, the only reason I wanted to go there was to get a picture with Picasso. It turns out, NO photos were allowed of the Picasso piece. I was pretty sad. But, I did get a pretty cool picture with this black and white piece by Pieter Jan Balthazar De Gree. Also I really like this statue of a young boy by Giacomo Vanelli (1863) because it reminded me of the book Death in Venice, but I won't go any further into that. The piece by Balthazar De Gree looks 3- Dimensional, but isn't and that's what makes it so interesting. Next, we went to Dublinia which was an interactive viking and medieval museum. This was an amazing attraction (Mainly, because I like to touch everything). The tour ended at the Church of Christ. This Church had breathtaking stained glass windows. Finally, we went on to the Guinness storehouse. This was a self-guided tour with a taste testing and a free pint at the end. On the 4th floor you have the option to learn how to pour a perfect pint, and you better believe I took full advantage of the opportunity. I enjoyed taking a goofy picture with a statue (As you'll see down below).
On the second day of the tour Jason and I stopped at Kilmainham Gaol (gaol, pronounced, Jail) and the Dublin Zoo. During the guided tour of the... gaol, we learned a lot about the history of Dublin; seeing as the jail had much to do with it. Once again, I don't really remember much about the historical bits. This explains why I am not a history major. But, I do remember the really creepy things; for example, during the gaol's busiest times about 10 people were forced to sleep in a single cell with one bucket as a toilet, and over 100 years later 14 men were killed on site at the gaol. The gaol was definitely creepy and I was somewhat relieved to get out of there. On a happier note... the zoo was amazing. I don't really have much to say about this seeing as it was a typical zoo. I really enjoyed the difference in one of the monkey habitats. The Macaque (Sulawesi Crested) monkey lived in it's own colony on an island sort of thing in the middle of a lake on the zoo grounds. All of the big cats were taking naps =( but, I did get to see an elephant pretty up close and personal... I miss the elephants at the Philly Zoo (I fully understand why they had to leave though).
Today, On the 3rd day of doing some touristy things we realized that there were still a few stops we wanted to see that we didn't have time for during the first couple of days. Before heading out, we looked up some bus stops and jumped on the Dublin Bus to go towards our destinations. We went to the Jameson Distillery around noon... which is 7AM local time... way too early for whiskey in America. Because of my outgoing persona, it was guaranteed that Jason was selected to be a taste tester for an American (Jack Daniels), Scottish (Johnny Walker), and Irish (Jameson) whiskey. After the Distillery and walking around some, we finally made it to the wax museum, where I found David Bowie to be the most exhilarating exhibit. The main selling point at the wax museum, for me, was the chamber of horrors (where I got some pretty gruesome, lovely pics). The wax museum wasn't as great as I expected but it was amusing. I didn't like the signs that said no touching... If I can't touch them, then why are the fake people completely accessible???
WOW! This was a really long post. Thanks if you took the time to read it... Thanks, even if you only took time to see the pics.
The Facts:
Buildings here have such amazing architecture.
They had red ear sliders at the zoo, we have red ear sliders in Lake Fred at Stockton =)
I really like taking pictures of me doing stupid things/ making stupid faces... be prepared.
Buy a "Rambler" bus ticket in Dublin as soon as you arrive, it is more useful than you'll ever imagine.
It's pretty impossible to get lemon in your water at a restaurant.
Everything, with the exception of bars, closes between 7 and 8.
It is cheaper to get Guinness and Jameson memorabilia outside of the tour facilities.
Beer is not served warm.. I don't know how or why this rumor was started, but it is a big lie. I have not had a single warm beer since I have been here.
People in Ireland are over-all nice (they want you to have a good time on your vacation).
Sometimes when you talk to random people it gets you a guaranteed Jameson taste test.
