Dublin Day 2

 Yesterday morning, we got up and found a cafe for lunch. So far all of the food we’ve had in our neighborhood has been really good. From breakfast we went on to Trinity College for the Book of Kells experience. 

The sun was actually shining and that was our first time on the campus so I took a lot of pictures. The campus is very beautiful and has an Ivy League vibe. The campus was well marked and maybe the students don’t use that quad often but I can’t imagine SO many tourists walking past me just trying to get to class. The Book of Kells experience was really cool. There is an audio guide and they explain the restoration of the book as well as how they believe it was written, down to the pigments used. They blow up some of the more famous paintings within the book so you can really see the symbolism. Then you get to see the book open to two pages. I was more excited for the long room, the giant library room after. They are decanting the books right now so only a few rows had books in them but it is still a really impressive room. We then went onto a more interactive exhibit that brought some of the book and the Long room to life. 

After finishing on campus we wandered around that end of the neighborhood and bought sweaters from the Aran Islands. We dropped them off at our hotel and went across the street to the Hairy Lemon pub for lunch. Fish and Chips for me, Irish stew for mom. We both enjoyed what we ordered. After lunch, we walked over to the St Patrick’s cathedral neighborhood to check out the Marsh Library that is tucked away behind it. It is also a very very old library where the books have been in the same place for 300+ years. It looks like a well lit version of the library at Hogwarts. After the library, we walked towards the Guinness storehouse and I snapped some new door pictures along the way. The Guinness Storehouse was a fun touristy experience. We got taken through the ingredients and the process for how the beer has been made for centuries, and they highlighted a lot of the employees (a lot of them women) and folks that work with the company and have for generations. They brought us into a tasting room where we were given over sized shot glasses of Guinness and learned how to sip properly. We made our way up to the 7th floor to have a pint (which we didn’t finish) of Lager. We had done the add on to go to the Open Gate Brewery behind the storehouse to be able to try more beer. Since we actually like going to breweries and trying different beers, this was a good addition for us. We got to try the experimental beers that are only available on that site. I really liked this Pink Gin Ale that tasted like a gin cocktail somehow. I think Mom’s favorite was the Citra IPA which was not special to the brewery but we are hoping we can find it elsewhere. We had some amazing braised beef arancini at the brewery with an apple pear chutney. After the brewery, we took a cab back to our neighborhood to Murphy’s Ice cream. The shop is small and they have maybe 10-12 flavors but they meet you in line and offer you unlimited samples. We tried a lot of flavors including brown bread. I ended up with honeycomb caramel and lemon curd. Mom got butterscotch and lemon curd. After ice cream we went back to the hotel for bed early. This morning we are on our way to the suburbs via train.