Well I am fresh off of my journey to Ireland's fair capital of Dublin, and what a wondrous city it is. Cork may be the second largest city in Ireland but Dublin dwarfs it entirely. There seems to be some fantastic piece of history on every street from the beautiful churches to the statues commemorating famous citizens on every street. Megan, Allison, Chris and I arrived at about noon and immediately proceeded to get lost. After some reorienting of the map we were on our way to Trinity College to see the campus and its famous Book of Kells. Sadly the book was not on display but there were still some other very interesting attractions like some of Darwin's field notes. From here we went to the Irish Museum of History which had some absolutely grizzly peat bog corpses on display. Sounds gross but is actually really cool how well the bog preserved the bodies. After that we met up with a friend of Megan's named Shane who is studying at local seminary. Shane took us to a great authentic restaurant and pub and I had my first Guinness Stew which was absolutely divine. Afterwards we went to a another pub to watch the Munster v. Sale rugby match. Munster absolutely decimated the Sharks in a superb performance. Afterwards we all retired to our hostel, but little did Chris and I know that our night was far from over. We were visited that night by three spirits. No I'm just kidding but at about 4 in the morning our other hostel roommates came storming into the room in a drunken stupor and spent the next hour and half entertaining Chris, Sebastian (our other roommate from France) and myself. Apparently our new friends, Ross, Ryan, and Phil were from Northern Ireland and had come to Dublin to watch the UFC tournament that weekend. They were full of praise for the host Joe Rogen.
The next morning we all awoke and went to breakfast. Afterward our group of four went to the Jameson Whiskey Distillery, the best part of the trip according to the group consensus. The tour was fantastic and at the end all four of us were able to participate in an authentic whiskey taste test, where we matched Jameson against Johnnie Walker Black and Jack Daniels. Jameson won hands down. After that distillery we found a fish and chips joint on our way to the Guinness factory. The tour was incredibly modern with a lot of very grandiose architecture. At the top of the Guinness tower which is actually shaped like a giant pint glass we enjoyed our complimentary pint and a 360 view of Dublin. We were all thoroughly tired after the days events and went for an afternoon nap. Dinner after the nap was found in the Gin Palace where we enjoyed another tasty beverage. We returned to the hostel after dinner to play pool and watch a movie while we awaited the return of our new friends from the match. Upon their return we hit the town finding a huge club where we enjoyed a couple of pints before finding our way back home one last time.
The next morning we all checked out and went out for breakfast. Then we journeyed to Ireland's Art Gallery to look upon some stunning works of art. The paintings were simply gorgeous, and there was even one of Bono, he really is a legendary figure here (and thankfully still more popular than Joe Rogen). We caught the 2 o'clock bus and arrived back in Cork at 6. We joined up with the rest of the CSB/SJU group for our second group dinner and shared our stories from our perspective trips. Perfect
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