Better, but not good

As my Facebook status indicated, I went through a pretty decent quantity of Jameson last night with some Spanish guys and a German dude; even though that meant getting to bed later than planned (and slightly wobbly), it was the best night's sleep I've had so far in Dublin, and I woke up feeling improved, though still not 100%.

Yesterday I decided I'd had enough sitting around feeling like crap, and decided to walk around feeling like crap instead. I walked down to Trinity College first to see the Book of Kells and get some pictures of the campus... Taryn, one of the waitresses from the Wok About, actually went to school there for a couple years. It was a bit after 11:00 when I got done there, and I decided I was functional enough to walk up to the Jameson Distillery for the tour there. I got picked as one of the volunteers to do a taste comparison between Irish Whiskey (Jameson), Scotch Whisky (Johnny Walker Black) and American Bourbon (Jack Daniels) at the end. Despite being the only one to choose the Scotch as my favorite, I ended up with a personalized diploma declaring me to be a Certified Irish Whiskey Taster. The distillery isn't active like Oban was (all of their production is now done down in Cork), but it was still a fairly interesting tour.

Today I walked by Christ Church Cathedral (kind of cool), and actually went in to St. Patrick's Cathedral. That's actually the burial place of Jonathan Swift (who was Dean there for a couple decades), which was cool since I'm currently reading Gulliver's Travels. The timing there was great too, because just as I was getting ready to leave they said a prayer for travelers (me!) and sick people (also me!). From there I wandered down to the main stop of the day: the Guinness Storehouse. The tour was self-guided, which meant you had to pay a bit more attention but could do the whole thing at your own pace. Part way through I ran into Salim, who was in Dublin on business and staying at the same hostel, and we finished the tour up together. The view from the top is great, but it was way too crowded to get any good pictures.

And speaking of pictures... the computers here at the hostel don't have the Picasa software on them, and I don't want to install it, so I'm just going to throw a few in down at the bottom of the post and get more up when I'm in Paris, hopefully. I'm a bit disappointed that I wasn't well enough to spend more quality time in Dublin, but Ireland is definitely a place I want to come back to.

RIP, good sir.

Original lease signed by Sir Arthur Guinness. He was apparently a very optimistic man, because it's for a term of 9000 years.

Me in the main square at Trinity College. It was crowded with "freshers" who were finishing up with registration and signing up for the various clubs/societies/etc.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Jameson Irish Whiskey. Our guide pronounced it as a weird sort of combination of "Jay-messon" and "Jamm-esson" that it was impossible for me to replicate.

That's all for now. Next you hear from me I'll either be at the airport, or in Paris!