This was my first time in Ireland and I was very excited.  We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which is right next to the Dublin Castle and a lot of very popular eating and drinking spots.  They upgraded our room and I really enjoyed it.  The view of the street was amazing.  We were on the third floor.  

We arrived around 4pm, so we went out for some pizza where it was homemade.  It was good, but not as soft as I was expecting.  We decided to wander around a bit and took pictures of the outside of the castle. 

I really wanted some ice cream, so we stood in line at Murphys.  As we waited, we were given multiple samples of ice cream.  It was awesome.  I wanted to try the Irish cream, which I saw online, but they didn’t have it in the store.  Instead I got chocolate whiskey, which just had a hint of whisky to it and the mango gelato, which was so fruity.  I loved the tiny scoops and the homemade cone.  

The next morning we got a cinnamon roll at the Queen of Tarts, which was still warm!  It was bready and delicious.  We also stopped at the Gay Spar for drinks.  It has no doors, is always open, and accepts everyone.  I loved the paid stickers that they used.  

For simplicity, I’m going to skip ahead a day (since we took a trip out of town) and focus on the day we did spend in Dublin.  This was the last day of our two week two day trip to the UK and we were knackered.  We decided to check out a couple of museums.  I did not take any pictures of either of them.  One was the museum of archeology, which had a tiny Egyptian exhibit and a really cool exhibition on bog bodies.  They were behind these circular walls so you didn’t have to see if you didn’t want to. They were the stuff of nightmares, to be honest, but my scientific curiosity won over the ghoulishness of the remains.  I thought it was fascinating that they found all these bodies in bogs all over Europe and all of the people were murdered. There were people they could identify as  high class and lower class, there were all types, and they all died in a brutal way.  I thought it was really interesting.  They had other exhibits on Vikings and such, but the bog people were my favorite. 

The other museum we visited was the National Gallery.  I love art, so I was looking forward to checking it out.  I was not a fan of how they set up the museum.  Each area was named after someone, but you had no idea what art would be in the room.  It was all mixed up. There were religious paintings and carvings and then suddenly modern portraits. There was no way to tell what you would see next.  I’m not a fan of that.  The other thing that was distracting was a baby crawling through the rooms.  Yes, a baby.  I have never seen anything like that in a National museum.  

We decided to grab a pizza and take it back to the hotel room. They sold slices as well, but we got a whole one to share. We should have bought two, it was so good.  It was near the Temple Bar, which everyone seemed to be very excited about and there were lots of people taking pictures.  Back at the hotel, I requested a record player and records to be sent to our room (I read that they provided this service for free).  The records were very random, but we found a few we enjoyed.  My favorite was four records of Frank Sinatra.  We spend a good deal of time sitting, listening, and relaxing.  We had an appointment to visit the Guinness Storehouse at 5pm.  

Although we could have walked to the Storehouse, we wanted a break, so we took an Uber.  It was expensive for just a few miles.  The “tour” experience was very strange.  I have been to a lot of breweries around the U.S. and this was so manufactured. There were displays and videos to watch on each floor and then you took an escalator up to another floor to see more stuff.  For example, one floor was about the brewing process and had a waterfall, another had a bunch of wooden barrels and had a video showing how to make them.  They did have one room for tasting and someone explained the different flavors (which you could smell from barrels in the room) and then they explained how to taste a Guinness. That was a nice interactive portion. One floor had all kinds of advertising from the company, which I found the most interesting. 

My husband is not a big fan of Guinness, so I bought him just the tour, which comes with a beer sample.  I bought the tour for myself that teaches you how to pour the perfect Guinness.  When we got to the floor with the pouring station, I let the woman know that my husband would be just watching and she said it was no problem.  However, when we got to the part where we got to pour, she let him do it too.  This was nice because then we could sit together after and enjoy our samples.  She also never collected our free tasting tickets, so we could have taken the escalator upstairs and had two more beers.  We did not.  Guinness is very filling to me.  

We each got a certificate for pouring a perfect pint, which I thought was a nice touch.  After we drank our perfect pours, we went downstairs to the store.  I really wanted a Guinness t-shirt that was not super expensive.  I found one, a coaster with the turtle, and a freezer mug.  It was a successful shopping trip.  I’m glad that we went through the experience, but I would not do it again if I visited Dublin.  I would just go to a pub and drink Guinness. 

We tried to eat after leaving the storeroom, but the one place to eat closed the kitchen at 7.  We had to walk a bit before we found any other restaurants because the storehouse is so massive.  We ended up with a nice pasta meal.  

I know that Dublin is a big city, but I found the homeless population to be very glaring there.  Many people approached us while waiting for trams and walking the streets.  It was sad to see people picking up cigarette butts and putting them in their pockets as we walked around and when we left at 4am to go to the airport, there was a man walking near our hotel that would have nailed a part as a zombie.  It was very creepy.  I guess that is what you find in a lot of big cities nowadays. It’s sad.