Dublin

As I mentioned before, our group went to Dublin for the weekend. We had a wonderful time. On friday night we attended Riverdance with our group. It was alright. The first half was a bit dull but the second half was a little better. It was a very Americanized show [they even had a bit with jazz and black tap dancers who were supposed to be from New Orleans] and the music was a little too modern, but it was an experience.

Saturday we went to the Guinness storehouse, which was great. They did a really good job with the museum, and at the end you get a free Guinness in their sky bar, which sits above the skyline of Dublin and has a wonderful 360 degree view of the city. It is packed and we had to fight for our seats, but we managed to get some really nice seats around the outside.

Here are a couple pictures of me enjoying the free Guinness and the view from the sky bar [I tried to upload a video of the whole view, but the internet here is just awful]:

Additionally, they had an enormous Guinness store at the storehouse, so I picked up a few things including a bottle of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, the only variety of Guinness I have not tried. It is not available in the states. I watched a video where they said that what distinguishes it from the other Guinness beers is that back in 1801 when they started producing it, this recipe was made with extra hops to help it weather the journey to places like Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. I have not had it yet, but it should be interesting.

That evening we met up with Fares and his friend Kevin and went to a pub where there was a metal/irish traditional music fusion show. It was certainly interesting, but not my cup of tea. From what I have seen so far there appears to be a fairly large metal scene in Ireland.

One of the nicest things about the Dublin trip was that we were given a fairly large sum of extra money to pay for restaurants and museums, so for the first time on the trip we ate at a restaurant. We actually ate dinner at restaurants both nights. The first night we were there we ate at a restaurant called MAO. It was an asian restaurant with a lot of pop art pictures of Mao around and pretty decent food. I was still slightly sick at this point and a nice bowl of pork ramen helped out quite a bit [might have had something to do with the sudafed as well].

The second night we went to a place called Bia Bar, which was not as unique as MAO, but was an affordable place with very good food. I got a steak there because I think it might be the only time during this trip that I can afford it. What actually brought us in to Bia Bar was a cocktail called the Lynchburg Lemonade. Laura and I were walking around checking out menus and how could we not get a cocktail with Laura's hometown in the name?

There is a place in Galway called Lynch's castle. It is the remnants of a house inhabited by a fellow named James Lynch. The story of James Lynch is that he was mayor of Galway, and his son murdered a Spanish man. James Lynch apparently volunteered to be the hangman. It may not be the case, but it would be pretty neat if he were related to the fellow who founded Lynchburg. Unfortunately, the remnants of his castle are now mostly occupied by an overpriced cafeteria.

Wednesday we have due a 15 minute presentation and a 6 page paper in sociology, which seems like terrible planning from the teacher, but I ought to work on it anyways.