We made the beautiful, and at times harrowing, drive to Glasgow the next day to fly out to Dublin. The A82 runs through Glencoe and the Trossachs, narrowing to a choke point along Loch Lomond that is somewhere between single and dual track, full of tour buses and standstill traffic. It’s 135 miles from Whitebridge to Glasgow, but the American mindset of 70 mph to get from A to B doesn’t apply. It takes about three and a half hours to make the drive, alternating between highway speeds and stops waiting for a tour bus to clear a tight corner.
We flew Ryanair down to Dublin. As our transfer van arrived to the city, we ran into hurling game day traffic. Croke Park was hosting the Leinster Championship between Galway and Wexford. The neighborhood was full of people in team colors. After some short delays, we made it to the Temple Bar area, and our AirBNB for the next few nights. A spry Irishman (his name was Pat, but that would sound to contrived if I said his name was Pat, so we’ll just call him the Irishman) led us upstairs above his bar to our flat, and warned us that the door should always be locked because a left turn lead to the ladies rooms while a right turn lead to our flat. Imbibers may not know left from right later on in the night. We had one guy stick his head in the door, which lead the Irishman to use a few choice Irish curses to explain the men’s room was downstairs and ask how he could miss it (I had only noticed the hobbit like door in the corner of the bar while waiting for Pat to emerge from his downstairs storehouse, hair slightly mussed and young lady in tow – gent was at least 60, but like I said, spry).
We headed out to get our obligatory Hard Rock visit in before retiring to the flat and enjoying the live music mixing from the bars up and down Dame Lane. The next morning, we slept in and took our time making our way up to the Harding Hotel to await the arrival of the extended family. We would be joining my Dad, Stepmom, two stepsisters with families, Mamaw and Papaw, Harry and Diane; including our family, we would be a party of nineteen for the next few days.
Our first stop was lunch at Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin. It had a great feel to it. We passed through the courtyard to a seating area upstairs where we spread out over 3 large booths. The food was delivered quickly and was all very good. After lunch, we split up to visit different places. Greene and I, along with Kristen and Andrew, Adam and Leslie, and Lindsay went for the Guinness tour. It’s in the original factory, but not much remains of the actual production equipment. It’s mostly informational displays, lots of advertising history, and a huge gift shop on the first floor. The highlight of the tour is visiting the top floor bar, where you can claim your free pint and take in some excellent views of the city. There’s an option to pull your own pint, but the long lines made us opt for the professionally pulled pints at the bar.
The rest of the crew visited Dublinia, and we met up for dinner at the main event – a whole roasted suckling pig from Brassiere Sixty6. The pig had been cleaned, stuffed, and arranged in huge chunks. Each plate was covered by a whole slice, and only the bravest finished their entire portion.
The following day started with a Duck Tour, the amphibious car boats which cruised around the Dublin streets before setting sail in the Grand Canal. Joe and Cade had the chance to drive the boat around for awhile. The group split again, with some heading off to the Jameson tour, while our family opted to visit Trinity College and the Book of Kells. We spent a lot of time admiring the Long Room (including many marble busts, the 15th century “Brian Boru” harp that was used as a model for Ireland’s Guinness’ Ireland’s emblem, a Swift death mask, and a nodding Papaw) before entering the Book of Kells exhibit.
We met at the hotel to have dinner at the Copper Alley Bistro. That night, we had the opportunity to enjoy Riverdance at the Gaiety Theatre. The performance was magnificent. Afterwards, Mamaw had a sugar drop which resulted in breaking into the concession stand to get some peanuts and a Coke and guilting a rickshaw driver into giving her a ride down to the taxi stand for free. She recovered and we headed our separate ways for the night.
From Tennessee To Texas to Saudi Arabia 