We were able to get up much earlier today, in part because Jared had an appointment with an old friend at Microsoft Ireland. He went off to lunch with his friend James while my mom and I ate at a nearby coffee shop (again free WiFi, some nice carrot soup, coffee, and some brown bread).
After our lunch, Jared got brave and drove into Dublin. I picked out a location (Teeling Distillery) that was on the green hop on-hop off bus route. I was able to navigate us there and we then jumped on the bus. We were told by several folks that the bus tour was a nice way to get the lay of the land of the city. Our tour driver was quite funny (I thought) with a funny zoo joke and he took us around the city to Phoenix Park, Guinness factory, Jameson distillery, the Gaol, and Temple Bar. We got off the bus so my mom could go to the Irish Writers’ Museum - which was a bizarre quirky little museum with a nice audio tour. Jared and Mom went for a cup of tea (or coke) after the writers’ Museum and I went to the Irish National Gallery of Modern Art where I saw an excellent exhibit on Francis Bacon. They had recreated his studio (with original material) - which was a really neat idea. The upstairs of the gallery had impressionist and post-impressionist works (Monet, Manet, Renoir, etc). It was small but nice. The real surprise was downstairs where I saw an exhibit of Clarke, the Irish stain glass painter. The bizarre thing is that I only know Clarke because there is a beautiful stain glass panel of his at the Wolfosnian Museum on Miami Beach.
After the museum we hopped back on the green bus for its last tour of the night, and hopped off at the Temple Bar area to meet up with another one of Jared’s friends who is taking a course in Dublin (for three months). We drank our stouts / teas / whiskeys / ciders and had our meal (good but can’t compare with last night’s in Bray)- the traditional Irish music downstairs was nice, and conversation with a nice friend even better.
On the way out of th bar we saw a young guy running like mad down the street, followed by an Irish cop. A real life cop & robber situation! I’ve never seen a cop run so fast to try to catch (what I hope was just) a petty thief. If I had to guess, I’d guess the kid was able to outrun the cop.
We hopped in a cab to get us back to our parked car and Jared braved Dublin traffic once again to get us home. He’s hit the curb a few times, but he’s been a trooper about driving and I’m very thankful.
