June 19

There's Poetry in a Pint of Guinness...

Slept in today for the first time since Richmond. It. Was. Wonderful. You have no idea. Although the dump trucks and the sun still woke me up at 5am... I fell back to sleep till 10:30. Met the girls (and guy) at 11:30 and we were off to do a little typical touristy sightseeing. Today's plan was basically two stops: The Guinness Storehouse Tour and Merrion Square for a huge "Street Performer Festival." So we left around noon, and the rest of the post for today will just be pictures of Guinness and the festival I guess? Haha, just an image-filled post.

(On the bus.)

(Here we go.)

(Outside the giant gates.)

(Street performer Guinness bottle.)

(Megan and Julie asked if we wanted our picture taken with this guy. Jenny said, nah that's ok. I was like "come on Jenny, let's go." Find out after she's afraid of people in masks.)

(This picture's a keeper.)

(Soo.. this guy was standing behind us in the ticket line... we made I contact... I didn't know what to say. So Megan said "I like your mustache." He replied, "Thanks." I asked him if he lost a bet or something. It was his bachelor party. His group of friends made him walk around like this. They were also making him buy his ticket alone. Mean friends. They were standing somewhere near by all in kilts and matching Tshirts.)

(The Guinness Storehouse is seven floors. Each floor is HUGE. The first area showed us the ingredients and how to harvest them.)

(Reading the plaques... David would be proud.)

(Water is one of the ingredients. So they made a huge waterfall to tell us that, haha.)

(The backside of the waterfall.)

(Timeline room.)

(Here we got to try our own barley when it was still in bean form.)

(A copper has a 600 barrel capacity... 1 barrel can hold 288 pints... So each copper holds 172,800 pints.)

(The information to read on the tour walked us through the giant vats that hold Guinness. They are HUGE. And amazing.)

(Videos to watch inside the vats.)

(Impressive facility, eh?)

(The first time they let us drink during the tour.)

(Being a mass comm nerd... I think my favorite part of the tour was seeing the evolution of the Guinness advertisements. Pictured above were some of the old celebrity endorsements.)

(This area had walls of blown up ads.)

(How to pour the perfect pint.)

(Seventh floor is the Gravity Bar.. known for its 360 view of Dublin.)

(At the Gravity Bar, we got more free beer. Megan's had a shamrock in it! Howwww!?)

(The best panoramic I could attempt, considering there's glass reflection and I had no tripod. Make sure you remember to click the photos to make them bigger...)

(Taking turns in front of Dublin. Not often I stand alone in front of the camera... haha, proof I'm here!)

(Megan.)

(Julie.)

(Jenny.)

(Everyone.)

(Bartenders staring me down.)

(John's awkward.)

(And he loves Guinness.)

(Megan and I.)

So as I said before, after Guinness, we went to Merrion Square to see the Street Performers Festival. It was huge. And packed. And we almost saw an Irish fistfight go down. It was intense.

(The entrance.)

(Entering the "Stage 8" area. There were 9 areas just this big and just this packed. And areas for games and food and painting and kids and forestation. This place was huge.)

(That's a lotta sausage!)

(Watching breakdancing..)

(This sign seemed appropriate..)

(We'll end the post with a leprechaun. By the way... the proper way to catch him is to come up quietly behind him and grab him around the neck with both hands. Then he becomes obligated to take you to the gold.)

Have a good night.