guinness!

friday, july 29:

today's the day of guinness. it felt so good to get a full night's sleep last night! i'm so refreshed and happy. we got up at about 0815 - and then we had six people that needed to get ready (there are 6 NE people in our 12-bed hostel) so we didn't head to breakfast until about 0915 - 15 mins before they stopped serving. got a delicious breakfast of 2 pieces of toast plus cereal - breakfast of champions, no? then we walked a couple of blocks to the shopping district and poked aroun there. i bought a pair of gray polyester pants for 23 euro ($28) ... but i had to return them later (didn't have time to try them on in the store and they didn't fit). a lot of the stores here, not surprisingly, are the same as the ones in the UK. next to our hostel is a christian outreach place and i walked in to look at all the books they had while we were waiting to go and i was looking for a new testament or something (i had left mine in oxford) and the guy gave one to me for free ... i tried to pay for it, since it was marked 1.75 euro, but he wouldn't take it. so that was exciting.

we met the other nebraska people at 1145 outside our hostel for the long walk over to the guinness factory in the misty rain and cold (we don't have very good luck with weather). the walk was nice, though ... right by the river in a historic section of the city.

we got to the guinness factory and toured it...it was 7 floors and it was really interesting. i never really knew how they made beer, but now i know more than i ever wanted to about the process. at the top of the factory was a bar called the gravity bar, and with your €9.50 admission you got a free pint of guinness at the top. it's too bad the weather was crappy because you could see a lot of the city...but b/c of the weather visibility (and therefore picture-taking ability) was hampered. after going through the whole factory and having a guinness on top of dublin, we went down to the guinness store and then headed to subway (by now it was about 3 - the factory took a while).

subway was interesting. it was connected to an internet cafe in much the same way it is often connected to a gas station or ice cream store back in the states. there also wasn't anywhere to sit down, and they gave out sub club stamps. they stopped doing that in the us so i was definitely surprised that they were doing it here. jenna collected all of our stamps (and some of the people's behind us) and got enough for another free sub. yay for her.

subway was right across the river from our hostel, so we went back there to drop of our guinness purchases and reorganize ourselves. it was then that i tried my pants on and decided they needed to be returned. so we went to do that, and then on the way there we stopped in this huge 5-floor department store called arnotts. in their "bargain basement" i found a pair of puma-type shoes (brand name DT New York) for €25. hooray ... so i returned my pants and ended up spending 2 euro more for the shoes. much better purchase.

after all the shops closed we headed back to the hostel and went to the grocery store nearby and bought a bunch of food to make spaghetti with. in our hostel's kitchen we cooked spaghetti and garlic bread - there were 8 of us all together. it was delicious ... and the whole meal only cost €3/person! cheap, delicious, and memorable. doesn't get much better than that.

after dinner we did the dublin experience (went to a pub, of course) and then just chatted. it was going to be an early morning the next morning, so we got to bed "early" (between 1 and 130). i will not post about sat. july 30 yet, but i will post some pictures from where we went on webshots. more on that later!

altruistically,
grant


okay, i will finish my dublin trip later. i'm really tired. so check back for more!

gmoney