Dublin

Alright, almost caught up now. On to Dublin!!

This is the only trip that I've taken so far where I've had to miss a class. And we left Tuesday night. Go figure. The bus ride there was...interesting. We met a couple of Canadians that pretty much reversed any stereotype someone might have of Canadians being sweet and mild-mannered. I think it was one of our boys that was being polite and asked "Oh, so what part of Canada are you from?" and the more obnoxious one said "the asshole part." Excellent. It was that kind of witty banter that defined the bus ride since they were sitting right behind Lisa and I. There was one particularly riveting conversation at around 6 a.m. when everyone else was trying to sleep where they were discussing whether the plural of beer is "beer" like "deer" or "beers" like normal human beings say it. We arrived in Dublin on Wednesday morning, dropped off our luggage and decided to get some coffee to regroup. While there, we looked at the map and decided that it was a good day to go to the Guinness Factory. The Factory itself was pretty cool. There was a huge pit of barley seeds and an indoor waterfall to display 2 of the 4 ingredients needed to make a Guinness. We also got to pour our own pint and get a certificate for our trouble. The trick to pouring the perfect pint is to tilt the glass at a 45 degree angle up until a mark on the glass when you slowly tilt it upright until the beer is a few inches from the top. From there, you need to let it sit for 2 minutes to let the beer settle before topping it off by pushing the handle up. Unfortunately, the beer was absolutely nasty. I wish I was one of those down-to-earth guy's girl that can chug a cheap beer, but I'm not. I need my fruity drink. We got to go up on the top deck, however, and see a 360 view of the city itself. It was a wonderful view, made even better by the clear skies. Unfortunately, it was so busy that we could barely stand in there let alone wander around enjoying the scenery. We ended up heading over to St. Patrick's Cathedral afterwards and chilled out in the park. It really was a lovely day--perfect for some people watching. There was this cute little boy that really wanted to ride his sibling's scooter and was running through the flowers to make his point heard. After relaxing in the park, we decided to go inside the cathedral itself. It really was a lovely place with particularly notable stained glass windows. After walking around the entire perimeter, I was surprised to discover that this is where Jonathan Swift is buried. I was first introduced to Swift back in Mr. May's English class junior year when we read "A Modest Proposal" an essay that he wrote about how the Irish were in such destitution that they may as well eat their own babies. It then went on to graphically describe the eating and cooking processes. It's not an essay that one is liable to soon forget. More recently, I got to read portions of Gulliver's Travels in my early British literature class. It's just a really neat moment when you get to be in the place that someone with such literary significance is buried. We grabbed some dinner in a pub soon afterwards and turned in early, exhausted from our lack of sleep the night before.

Sorry guys, I can't figure out how to rotate it. At least you'll look funny turning your heads. Pouring the perfect pint.

The next day was St. Patrick's Day. I was so excited to see this parade, partly because I was interested in what bands were going to be marching in it. Woo band pride! Me, Steph, Lisa, and Jayne got extra decked out with our green eyeshadow and eyeliner before heading out a few hours before the parade started to get a good spot. I had gotten a St. Patrick's Day cowboy hat the day before so I think I encapsulated the combination of America and Ireland in my outfit. Once we picked out our spot, Jayne and I left to find her a hat and get some coffees for the group. On the way, we got stopped by some Japanese people who asked us to sign a Japanese flag that they were going to send to Japan for encouragement after the earthquake and tsunami. Then, as we continued down the street, some random guy took a creeper picture of us but was pretending like he hadn't even though the flash clearly went off. Awesome. Finally, just as we were about to go into the coffee shop, we were given a 5-10 minute pitch by some girl who wanted us to buy raffle tickets. We finally made it back to the group and awaited the parade's start. The crowd had definitely grown in the time that we were gone. It was at least five people deep everywhere you looked. There was a historic statue near our spot and people were even scaling it to sit in the laps of angels. The parade itself was bizarre. The inspiration was a fantastical children's book: [posting the rest later, I need to restart my computer and will therefore lose this if I don't post.]