After we left the tapas bar we walked down the street a bit until we came to a place called The Green Hen. It seemed like a cute place and had a few empty seats at the bar, so we decided to check it out. I had an old fashioned, which is one of my go-to drinks at home and was a nice change of pace from all the beer. Ryan decided to stick with a Guinness.
After we wrapped that up we went back to the Temple Bar district. It's touristy, crowded and probably overpriced but it's pub after pub and close to our hotel, so it's quite convenient. We started with a round of pints at the Norseman, then headed down to the Auld Dubliner. Both places had live music, but it was all covers of American songs, including one drunk German girl doing karaoke to "Africa" by Toto (hilarious).
Following a Guinness at the Auld Dubliner we made our way across the street to Oliver St. John Gogarty's, a 3 level bar. On the first level it was extremely crowded and we somehow attracted the attention of a very drunk young German guy who Ryan thought as hysterical but I wanted to stab. He informed us how much he loves Donal Trump and how much he hopes Trump wins the election...yeah. I was done with that conversation.
We decided to head up to the 2nd level where there was a group of musicians doing some trad music. We refilled our pints and listened for a bit, but then our Trump-loving clinger found us and we had to relocate again. We climbed up to the top level and enjoyed some quiet conversation, sans clinger. After a bit I felt nature calling and popped into the bathroom that was near the table we were sitting at. As I'm in there I hear Ryan start talking to someone else outside the door. I hear Ryan say that we are from Gainesville, to which the mystery stranger replies "Are you Gator fans?" While this question would not be unexpected back home, when you are several thousand miles away it is a bit more surprising. As I emerged from the bathroom I saw Ryan speaking with a middle-aged gentleman in a Dallas Cowboys shirt who was here on business from Texas. We had a nice chat about SEC sports (he's an Auburn fan, we told him to have fun watching Muschamp run his defense into the ground), which was refreshing since all we've heard anyone talk about since arriving is rugby.
After we wrapped it up at that pub we decided to finish our night at The Temple Bar, where we had been the night before. We got one round but were both fading fast and decided to call it a night. We stopped for some drunk munchies food and made our way back to the room.
This morning it was a bit rough to get going, as I'm sure you can imagine after reading about our little improvised pub crawl last night. We got some coffees and breakfast and made our way to the bus stop. The bus took us out to the Kilmainham Gaol. The jail was built in the 1700s and housed common criminals (men, women and children, some as young as 6) until around 1910. Following that it was used to house political prisoners, and the execution in 1916 of 14 would-be revolutionaries helped build public support for Irish independence.
The tour of the jail was very informative and Ryan and I both love historically significant places like that. The only bad part was that it was SO cold and windy today, and the jail didn't offer much protection from the elements. Yesterday was much warmer and so I unfortunately decided to leave my heavy jacket in the room today, a mistake I quickly regretted.
At the conclusion of the jail tour we got back on the bus and rode over to the Jameson distillery tour. Unfortunately, Jameson is no longer distilled at that facility, but they do have some replicas of the distilling equipment and a guide who gives some backstory about Jameson and goes over the distilling process. At the conclusion of the tour they present you with 3 small samples of spirits. One is Jameson, the other a Scotch and the third an American whiskey. The Jameson was by far the preferred choice of both Ryan and myself. Once the taste test is done they give you an additional drink to enjoy in their bar area. Thankfully they alllow you to choose between a whiskey ginger with lime or a glass of straight whiskey. It was a no brainer for me to get the whiskey ginger...I couldn't do any more straight whiskey at that point!
For lunch today we went to the Brazen Head, which claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland, established in 1198. We both enjoyed a Guinness to drink as well as some beef and Guinness stew. Once we were stuffed we walked back to our hotel, and now, as you may have guessed, it is nap time! Tonight we are meeting up with one of our friends from work who just happens to be here on vacation as well. We are going to do the traditional music pub crawl with her and her friend. It should be a great time!
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