Hopped over the pond to the great Land of Ire! Enjoyed some Dublin-made goods (Guinness and Jameson, of course), toured around the city, met up with Olga’s friends (again, big thank you shout out to O-woman for her ridiculous network of amazing humans around the globe), and enjoyed some spectacular Irish nature. Details below!
Miles walked/hiked: 27.5
Miles planed/trained: ~680
Started out with the basics… Guinness Factory Tour!
Getting nearer…
Almost there…
Though he was hanging out in our backpack, we totally forgot to give him his routine photo op! Thank god for photoshop.
Water… the key ingredient (but we just liked the waterfall)!
Muchos barrels:
I hate hops.
… but Francy sure loves them!
A stack of Guinness:
And one happy Francy:
But not as happy as Paul!!
Or Conan! Why didn’t they coordinate their visits with us? Rude.
We then proceeded to pursue a degree at the Guinness Academy, where we learned to pour to our own pints!
Taking my studies very seriously.
Teacher’s pet…
Me, not so much…
Great success!!
Me, not so much…
But we both passed nonetheless and earned our degrees (which are now crumbled away somewhere in our packs):
Moved up in our alcohol careers and graduated to Jameson!
The iconic distillery tower:
Ready and eager, as always.
Unfortunately for Jameson and sons, the Scottish whiskey (Johnny Walker Black Label) won its spot in our hearts during the taste test. But let’s be real… it’s always been our favorite… sorry James, but thanks for the free(ish) booze!
Dublin Free Walking Tour (thank you, HostelCulture!)
Dublin Castle (but you don’t need me to tell you that…):
Interesting architectural decisions…
And then we saw and learned a ton more (Trinity College, Temple Bar, Parliament – it was a 3 hour tour!), but there are other things we’d rather tell you about, such as………….
HOWTH!!!!
Howth is an INCREDIBLE little fishing village just north of Dublin:
With these amazing views:
Where we embarked on an incredible 6 mile hike, most of it walked to the Boondock Saints theme song on repeat:
We saw these avid cliff jumpers along the way (and when I say avid, I mean two were avid, and the rest took forever to jump…):
And here is the crowd that gathered, cheering them on (all but one ended up jumping. The last dude climbed back down…):
And now, a series of gorgeous photos:
A lighthouse:
Dublin Debauchery
Made it back to Dublin for a fabulous night out with Patrick, Carsten, Conor and Eoin:
And we found this dude on the street, whom Eoin had apparently coordinated with in another dimension before heading out for the evening:
And we’ll leave you with a picture of this lovely couple who were entertainingly going at it, very publicly, might I add, at the bar:
Samsonite's Great Adventures 