Morys Musing

Just to be clear, we did not sleep on the overnight flight from Halifax to Dublin! It does not matter how tired we were, we simply could not sleep on airplanes. I did, however, listen through my entire “relaxed” playlist. I also had a rather annoying seat passenger to my left who kept encroaching on my personal space. Thankfully, the flight was just shy of five hours.

For your information I am Seán O’Reardon today! An Irish writer apparently.

We arrived unrefreshed in Dublin and early too. Security was a breeze and the border officer was so nice. A great introduction to Ireland!

It was too early for the Airport shuttle, so, we just grabbed a cab. Our cabbie was David Cunningham and he was most helpful in trying to teach us a little Gaelic which we failed miserably at.

We arrived at our destination- the Dublin Hilton- and dropped off our bags (after a little reorganization) and had breakfast there.

We did not plan very much today as it was a transition day and we were tired. However, we decided the Guinness Storehouse Tour was a must. It was only a 20 minute walk from our hotel, but, is was rather confusing to find the entrance. The brewery is massive and clearly a popular tourist spot!

The tour involved climbing 7 successive flights and along the way learning the history of and how Guinness is made. Four simple ingredients but quite a complicated process. The barley must be roasted at 232 C exactly and the final colour is ruby red and not brown of the famous ale. We also learned about the founder and his 9000 year lease on the brewery lands and his wife who bore him 21 children (not all survived)!

The highlights of the tour were the tasting room (the whole point of attending and the proper temperature to drink the hallowed ale at which is between 5-7 C) and the Guinness Academy where we learned how to properly pour a pint (5 steps to the perfect pour). We enjoyed our perfectly self- poured pint upstairs at the Gravity Bar where we enjoyed a panoramic view of Dublin. Anna got a bit of shopping done at the ground level gift shop and then we made our way back to our hotel.

Along the way back we stopped in at St. James Church (est. 1724). Anna needed to ask forgiveness for her many sins!

We got back to the hotel and found out our room was ready early for an early check in. Yes!

As soon as we got in the room, I launched myself on the bed, and according to Anna, I was fast asleep with jacket still on within 2 minutes. She figured it out after having a conversation with me for 5 minutes and wondering why I was not responding! We were both so tired from two overnight sleepless nights. What a great treat. An afternoon nap for about 5 hours!

We finally got up and decided to have dinner at the hotel as we did not want to venture too far.

We had a light meal and then went for a quick walk around the local grounds and then went down to the fitness centre for a swim but found out it would close in 10 minutes so we passed. Instead we decided a visit to the lounge for nightcaps was in order and I introduced Anna to the delights of the Whiskey Smash. We grabbed 2 glasses of Prosecco with fresh strawberries and retired to our room. Lovely!

Before we fell asleep, we planned our travel route from Dublin to Galway and booked our Galway tour (the Cliffs of Moher) for this upcoming Sunday. Tomorrow was a travel day and we figured a good night’s sleep would get us back on track for the next stage of our Ireland adventure.