Wimbledon - Day 21

Breakfast this morning was at a little place called Lemon Jelly. I didn't ask how they got past the trademark infringement (there's a band named Lemon Jelly though I don't know which was really first) but they did have some pretty tasty eats and a much more reasonable price than the hotel breakfast "deal." And, of course, wonderful coffee. I packed Splenda for this trip, and found it to be a very good decision, as there were not many locations that actually carried the stuff. On a slight diversion, I am not sure when I became a coffee drinker. I generally find myself too high strung to take on lots of caffeine but I have had coffee almost every day when on vacation. I think part of it is the wonderfully strong coffee I find in other countries, and the enjoyment I get out of sitting with Colleen and having a cup. Either way, I do enjoy good strong coffee. Black with two Splenda please! :-)

We started our morning heading toward Dublinia which was a Viking and Medieval Heritage Center for Dublin. I sort of lied to the ticket office, as they sold a discounted ticket to do both Dublinia and the ChristChurch cathedral, telling the agent we had already visited the church first. So, he discounted our ticket one Euro for the visit. We didn't actually pay to go into the church, so that meant I should have paid full price for the ticket, but I wasn't going to argue with his decision to discount the ticket. :-) Dublinia was mostly replicas and manequins, but Colleen and I still found it interesting. Dublin is an ancient city in that regard, and just experiencing some of the old Viking and pre-Saxon heritage was very educational.

We were then heading off to the Guiness Storehouse tour. Now, the Internet indicates this is mostly a tourist trap, and maybe that is true. Based on the numbers of tourists, it definitely is busy. The tour is highly stylized, and mostly self guided. The building still does serve function, but no brewing is done here. It is just for corporate meetings and training. Still, we did get to see the brewing process used (much like some of the others we saw in Australia) and you could smell the hops and barley. We got to go into a "tasting room" where we got a small shot of Guiness (tasty as ever) and then our admission ticket (which was actually a paperweight with a drop of Guiness inside) got us into the Gravity Bar for a free pint. We could have stopped and learned how to pour our own "perfect pint" of Guiness, but the queue was WAY too long in our opinion to really be worth it. Besides, when would I actually have the chance to use that skill? The Gravity Bar is a circular bar at the top of a tower on the plant. It has a large viewing window which affords an incredible view of Dublin from one of the (reportedly) highest points in town. Based on what we saw, that's reasonably accurate. Now, it was fairly early to be starting on the consumption of alcohol, admittedly, but that's what vacation is about. :) We ended up spending almost 4 hours in the storehouse altogether, because of course we had to go looking for some Guiness merchandise. I found a stress pint, which I loved. That's one of those squeezy toys like a stress ball, but it was shaped like a pint of Guiness. We also purchased some Guiness flavored chocolate and dark chocolate, though I wondered how we'd get it to survive in this land of no A/C. We did get my picture in front of the large gate that is seen in the commercials, so that was goofy, but still cool.

I should also mention that on our walk to the Storehouse, we popped into a place for some take away coffee. I don't quite understand why it is so hard to get coffee for take away, but I suspect it is just a cultural difference and one that is based mostly on Americans being too "on the go" while the pace of towns like Dublin is much more relaxed. Why would one get a coffee to go, when they could sit and chat over a wonderful brew? Well, we were tourists, and we had things to do. :-)

From there, we walked toward the Irish Museum of Modern Art. On the way,we popped into a discount shopping outlet. It was stacked high with clothes of all sorts of styles, and in the end, we did find Colleen a pair of white linen pants she really liked. Of course, we also discovered that she hadn't packed any white undergarments, so we weren't sure if she was going to be able to wear them on the trip. Still, it wasn't a bad deal at 22 Euros as long as the quality does hold up.

One more distraction, as we are prone to do on any of our vacations. We saw a very old church ruin rougly across the street from the store we were shopping in and chose to drop in for a visit. Tickets were free, which seemed novel, and so we wandered into a church that had gone through several incarnations since the Saxon conquest. Parts of the church were simply dismantled as they were no longer needed, so some parts were exposed to the elements (the roof had been taken down,) some were just housing models of the church through its history, and then the still working church itself. It was short, and we didn't choose to stay for the guided portion, but we did find it very interesting stuff to read through.

Finally, onto the Musuem. Modern Art is an understatement to say the least. We saw some very odd artwork. There was one display that was a pair of slide projectors, alternating between each in what seemed random intervals. the projectors themselves were miked, so that the room was filled with the chunk-chunk noise the projector made when it switched slides. A timer of some sort was on the two, so that one displayed an image, then the other, though as I indicated the intervals were not equal, and there were some times that one projector would show two slides in a row before moving to the other. Very odd. We did see some good art as well, but for the most part it was piles of sand, ropes in wave patterns, and hunks of metal that did not look like anything resembling what the artist said it represented. While we were on the second floor, we saw a large gate that we thought was another castle ruin. Turned out to just be the old gate to the formal gardens outside the museum, but we chose to walk down that way to see what was there. When we got to the other side of the gardens, we saw Kilmainham Gaol so we went over to take a look. It was too close to 5 to get in. We ended up taking a couple of pictures, and then thought we'd try to walk around a bit more. However, we were both tired, we had missed lunch (a theme for this trip) and decided to head back toward the hotel. We walked a lot today, and I don't think we really knew that. It definitely was farther than I had anticipated and the walk back seemed VERY long.

After getting changed and cleaning up a bit (very hot and sweaty day again) we decided to head to Quays Restaurant and Bar since the menu looked very tasty. We were not disappointed, though we did spend 85 Euros for dinner. :-) It was a treat for sure, and we definitely felt it was worth the price.

We stopped in the Temple Bar Trading Company and had a look around, and of course, purchased a couple of things for souvenirs. It turns out this pub in the middle of the Temple Bar district is one that does play traditional Irish music and folks gather around in a circle, etc., but it was horribly crowded, and we chose to not go into the bar. I guess that means we missed out on some traditional Irish music and drinking, but we usually like things a bit more intimate (or just quieter) anyway.

WOW, we manage to do a lot every day. We are getting up early, and going to bed late. I think this will be a vacation we're going to want a vacation from!

Cheers!