Saturday, August 2, 2014

Dublin to America


They had a few photo opportunities in the brewery...

The remaining handmade Guinness Barrels!

Well on our last day of our European honeymoon we found ourselves in Dublin - the land of Guiness - so of course we had to do a Guiness brewery tour.  It was a self guided tour throughout the brewery, although I'm not sure how functional the tour rooms were, I'm pretty sure they brew the beer next door.  Regardless, the tour comes with a free sample or two as well as a tall glass at the top of the building.  They say its the best, freshest Guinness you'll ever drink!  My favorite part of the tour was seeing how they made all the old wooden barrels in the city.  The practice was an art, and employed a great deal of Dublin!

Paul enjoying his freshly poured brew!

The other place we stopped was the Castle in Dublin. We were finally able to use our heritage passes, so we decided it was definitely worth the tour. It was a beautiful tour and the best part was the walk through the oldest wing that was recently excavated.  They found some amazing old ruins of the original castle and fortress.  These artifacts were so neat!

It is good, but it sure is filling!

Million dollar view from the top of the Guinness factory!

Outside the brewery, horses await to carry the tourists!

We walked around our hotel to grab a bite to eat at an italian restaurant and were able to stroll the streets to people watch a bit.  It was a wonderful closure to the vacation - we really were not ready to leave yet.

Dublin castle courtyard, full of history!

Paul and I awaiting our tour!

The morning of our departure we woke up, packed quickly, paid for our parking and made our way out to the car. This is where we found our car completely covered in bird poop.  Not just a few robin turds, but full blown goose sized crap all over the car.  It was a disaster when we decided to use the windshield wipers.  Oh my gosh.  We were so concerned that we were going to get charged that we ran all over town to try to find a car wash.  We paid 10 euros to get it washed... and the automatic wash didn't touch the poop... if anything it baked it on.  We moved onto getting a few napkins from the gas station and tried scraping it off with our finger nails. Ugh SO SICK.  It was truly a hilarious ending to our honeymoon, and ultimately we didn't get charged and we made our flight!!

Paul as we stroll the streets of Dublin.

A photo crossing the river...
Hopefully we'll be back in Europe soon - it was once again a pleasure!