Green Fields of Ireland (Plus Guinness)

Our flight to Ireland was around 12pm so we had to start getting ready to head out pretty early (you know how airports and air travel goes). We got up and had our last pastry of the trip, so sad... The rain held off thankfully and we made our way to Victoria Station using the Tube. At the train station, we bought our train tickets and then rode the 45 min long train ride down to Gatwick Airport. Very uneventful getting through security and flying to Ireland. It was a short flight of only 1 hour.

We landed at Dublin Airport. While using the bathroom, I saw a sign for a 10 euros 24-hour transit card. That was way cheaper than the 12 euro airport bus plus other buses so, after talking to a friendly worker, we bought our transit cards. We rode the bus through Dublin to our hotel. Our hotel is on the Northside of Dublin (still only a 10-minute walk to the River Liffey and the middle of the city). The hotel was fine! Nothing crazy to note about it either good or bad.

Lacey started to not feel very good at this point. When Lacey gets sick, she really gets sick haha. We powered through and decided to head out and see a little bit of Dublin. Our first main stop was the Guinness storehouse. Because we had the free transit card we bought earlier, we took the city bus across the city to the Guinness Storehouse.

Guinness has been brewed just outside the city of Dublin for well over 120 years. It's a staple of Irish culture (at least to outsiders). The storehouse is designed to be like a museum where you go up level by level learning more and more about house Guinness is made and where it started and how it got to be where it is now. The museum part was super cool honestly. We learned a lot and it was really fun to see the old advertising and how the Guinness campus had grown.

The highlight, however, was a thing called the Stout-ie. It's a small machine that prints a picture of your face on the top of a pint of Guinness. So you pay extra for it but you also get an extra beer so it's worth it either way. A guy takes your picture on an iPad and then sends it over to the machine. The machine takes a pint of Guinness and lifts it up. A small device that looks a lot like an inkjet printer, takes barley/malt and literally prints the picture on top of the Guinness's head. It doesn't change the flavor or anything but it looks cool. Lacey saw one of her coworkers do this so we knew we had to try.

After drinking this beer a little bit, we headed up to the top of the Guinness museum. There's a space on top called the "Gravity Bar". We found a spot in the crowded seats around the windows and hung out. I wouldn't say either one of us "love" Guinness but it tasted fine. I finished mine eventually and switched to a lager with my other drink ticket. We happened to get really good seats that faced West and were able to watch the sunset over Dublin. It was a nice way to spend our last evening of the trip.

After the sunset show, we hunkered down and tried to find somewhere to eat. There were limited options because we wanted some Irish food but also didn't want to spend a million euros. We found a bar in the famous Temple area. It's kind of like Cowboy Slims if you've ever been there. Like it serves some traditional Irish stuff but it's also sort of like a chain and a little sterilized. Anyway, we went to this bar and it was pretty good! I had fish and chips because I hadn't had it the whole trip yet. Lacey had Irish stew with beef pieces. Her stew was actually really, really good. She has beaten me on food choices quite a few times on this trip. Not that my food was bad, but her's was better.

After eating and having 1 more beverage, we headed back to the hotel to regroup. Lacey started to feel even worse so we actually just stayed in the rest of the night. We had planned to maybe go out again in the Temple area and see what the bars and live music scene were like but it didn't work out. We were honestly both fine with that.

After resting all night, Lacey still didn't feel great. She had a really bad cold with lots of sinus pressure. She toughed it out for the morning though. We went to a small restaurant near the River Liffey for breakfast. It was really cute and had great reviews. I got some pancakes that were legit like mini cakes (a lot taller and fluffier than American ones). They were delicious with the blueberry compote. Lacey got a breakfast sausage sandwich which was also very tasty. Though the breakfast sausage literally looked like bratwurst and not a patty.

We ventured over to Trinity College (the other main attraction in Dublin). We paid the entry fee to see the Trinity College Library. It's spectacular. Huge ceilings and over 200,000 books. It made me think about my sister who is a librarian and how much she would have loved it. We got there right when it opened so we basically had it to ourselves for at least a few minutes which was really special.

Our last stop in Dublin was the shopping street near Trinity College. I could imagine this street being fun when it wasn't packed full of delivery trucks and when it was busier. As it was, we were not super impressed but we knew we were early for the action. We walked back to the hotel and packed up all our stuff to head back home. We took the same airport bus back to the airport. We had to wait outside in the freezing cold for a solid 20 minutes because it was late. I carried both our big backpacks which was funny to witness.

Back at the Dublin airport, we found out something new. Dublin airport is the only airport in Europe that has US Border Control in it. So we dropped our bags again and then went through normal security. Then we headed to another area that had even more added security and passport checks. My ticket was randomly selected so I had to get my bag swabbed and stuff. No big deal. This whole thing is GREAT because we could literally land at MSP and then head out right away instead of waiting in a passport line. The only problem is, once you go in this US zone in Dublin, you can't go out and there's only like 2 food options in this part of the airport. Our lunch was some banana bread, some candy, and a muffin. Super annoying that they price gauge and stuff.

The flight was easy peasy. I watched a bunch of movies. Argo was really good. I also watched one about a Pakistani kid in London in the 80s who loves Bruce Springsteen which was good. Lacey played some Switch and listened to music. Overall, easy flight. The flight back home always seems shorter. We landed and surprised my Mom and Greg coming out of a different door and landing about 30 minutes early. They graciously drove us back home.

We'll have our post-trip thoughts like usual but overall, this was a good trip. We wished the weather was a little warmer and we missed the "exotic" nature of some of our other trips but the places we went to were spectacular and Malta, in particular, is something we'll always remember.