Today was jam-packed. We woke up at 8:30 and met up with three other people on the program for the first departing double-decker tour bus going out. We got off the bus at the Guinness factory and took a tour. The factory is awesome! Very interactive, very well spaced out with not too much information to bog you down. The best part was getting to pour our own pint of Guinness from the tap: it's free (if you pay the 10.40 euro admission fee). A charming lady taught us how to do it (pictures on the way). Afterward we were all feeling great, everything was funny, and it was only 11:30 am. There was a hilarious section with old Guinness commercials as well. We liked this one a lot and there was another one I thought was hilarious in how inappropriately sexist it was. It is a commercial with a man and woman on a picnic singing a song to one other, and one of his lines is: "Stop being lazy and make me a sandwich/stop being lazy and give me a beer." Of course he sings it in a very cheerful way, and she's smiling. It's not okay, but then again a lot wasn't okay in terms of civil rights in the 1950's. I wish I could find it online but I can't. We all had a good laugh though at the absurdity. The top floor of the Guinness factory is supposedly the best view of Dublin and of any other observatory. It is called the "Gravity Bar," and you get a 360 degree view. There is a bar up there too, hence the name, if you want to lounge and enjoy a Guinness after learning how it is made. If you come to Dublin you must make a visit to the factory. Honestly, it's one of the better museums I've ever seen. We had a great time.
Then we got back on the bus and went to Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin's former prison now turned into museum. It was established in the 1790's and was shut down sometime in the early 20th century. It was very cold in there, because when it was built the designer's theory was that prisoners would repent and reform if they were kept cold and in the dark. The prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, under the philosophy of Jeremy Banthem, who invented the idea of panopticon, where prisoners feel like they are being watched at all times. The prison is an unsettling place, where executions both private and public once took place, and where the people who gave Ireland its independence died as martyrs. Very interesting place, highly recommended.
After the prison, Brad and I met with a woman who is friends with his Aunt. He had never met her before, but she went completely out of her way to be extremely wonderful to us. She took us back to her house and we met her husband and three children. Their house was beautiful, and we had a meal there. Then she and I walked to the local produce store to buy fruit and vegetables (she insisted on paying, saying Mom would shoot her if she knew I payed for the groceries). They were extremely interesting as well. The husband is currently the Assistant Secretary General of the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport in Dublin. That's my kind of guy. His wife told us that Dublin was a very small city and we'll soon figure that out, but because of that everyone knows each other. When I told her about my academic interests she said she could set up connections for me, whether with someone at the National Library or a museum, and I almost drooled on myself. Later she offered us one of the rugs in their house to take back to the apartment, bought us groceries, drove us to our next location, and said that they could be our Dublin family if we wanted. I think we hit the jackpot. Seriously, the greatest people.
After that wonderful experience we went to Trinity where we met all of the other American students studying there for the semester. Pizza and wine was provided. Everyone is very nice. We were going to go to the Porter House Pub afterward to keep meeting people, but at this point we'd been running around Dublin for about 11 straight hours and decided to call it an early night. It was a really great day.
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