Daily Emilie: Dublin

I arrived in Dublin first thing in the morning (by that, I mean 5am...) and hopped on a bus to find my host. I found the place and took a well-deserved nap before I went on a long walk with my host, Sheila. She showed me around the city, all the main tourist attractions. Dublin seemed so small; all the things we saw were within a 20-minute walk from each other. The first thing we explored was the Dublin Castle, then on to the Trinity College, where I stopped to see the exhibit about the Book of Kells, a script of the four Christian gospels written circa 800! This book is over 1,000 years old! The exhibit showed how they made the ink and pages back in the day, and also talked about the other Books made before and after this one. The exhibit ends in the "Long Room," this amazing library that is just absolutely breathtaking. When you imagine old scholars spending all day reading dusty books in a library, it's that library you're picturing. We also saw some cathedrals, one of which was built by vikings, and made our way home.

Dublin Castle

Long Room

St Patrick's Cathedral

The next day, I got on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus, and stopped at Dublinia, a museum all about the vikings who used to live in Ireland before the British took over. Next stop? The Guinness Storehouse! You can't go to Dublin and not visit the birthplace of Guinness! I toured around, learning how beer is made and at the end, you go to the Gravity Bar, which is in a glass tower with a really nice view of the city and the freshest pint of Guinness you can get.
I got back on the bus and headed straight to the Old Jameson Distillery. I toured around and learned how whisky is made, then had a whisky tasting!

Gravity Bar at the Guinness Storehouse

Old Jameson Distillery

Last stop of the day was the Leprechaun Museum. It sounds silly, but it was probably one of the best tours I've done. The guide explains the history of leprechauns and some of Ireland's mythology, then we head inside, where each room is decorated according to a legend and the guide tells you more legends and myths.

In the Giant's Cottage in the Leprechaun Museum

Kilmainham Goal is one of the top places in TripAdvisor, so I thought I would give it a try. It's an old prison (Goal=jail) built in 1796 (closed in the 1920s). It was an overpacked prison and the site of many executions... Our tour guide brought us through the jail and told us some of the prisoners' stories and how the jail used to be run. He was a fantastic tour guide.

Kilmainham Goal

That night, we went out to The Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin, if not Ireland (est.1198) for a beer before we went to their friends' house for a sushi night.

My last full day in Dublin, I spent wandering around free museums: The National Museum of Archaeology has an amazing collection of artefacts, swords, skeletons, etc. and The National History Museum, or The Dead Zoo, as the locals call it has all sorts of taxidermy animals from all over the world, and lots of critters in jars.