Top o' da mornin' to ye! And for me, it was a pretty frikking long one! Our first night in Dublin was characterised by a long battle for occupation of the bed. I lost. As I was staying triple share these few weeks with Dad and Daniel, our first foray into each hotel we stayed at always carried this nervous anticipation of whether we'd get three single beds, or a double and a single. Unfortunately in this situation it was the latter. Unfortunately more, Dad got the single bed (he's old and needs preferential treatment). Unfortunately most, I was sharing with the biggest ******* bed hog in the history of man! As a result, I really didn't get much sleep last night, in my occupied territory of perhaps, if I'm lucky, one foot of bed to relax in. Meanwhile I got to listen to the smooth sounds of epic snoring and peaceful sleep. Jerk! But that won't curtail our fantastic day in Dublin to be had today, to be sure to be sure! After the other two woke up, we all got out of bed and got ready for the day. Dad and Daniel went out to get some breakfast, while I had a shave - my 18 days of growth was finally breaking through my skin and could be seen! I love being Dutch! But I also love shaving day, for a nice soft face again. That's probably not the most relevant thing to this story so I'll move on. Once we were all ready, we hit the streets of Dublin to start exploring! Our first stop was a tour office. We gave ourselves all this week in Ireland to hopefully get out of the city and explore the countryside and some smaller towns. Our original intention had been to hire a car and get out, but we decided to check for any multiple day tours to go on, because driving looked very ominous! Luckily there were a heap of pretty awesome looking overnight tours to choose from, and the lady at the counter was so nice (who hadn't been so far in Ireland) and gave us a really good rundown of each. Then again, maybe she was just being a good salesperson, but I think it was the former! We took the pamphlets and decided to discuss it at lunchtime, before any possible booking later that afternoon. We continued on our way through Dublin, and into the grounds of Trinity College. It's pretty old and historic or something! Apparently some of Harry Potter was filmed in its old library too. But I dunno, if I was a student there it's fair to say I'd be pretty ****** off if the line to get into the library looped twice around the foreyard. Although, it would be a good procrastination excuse. After we'd finished there, we crossed the road and found the National Gallery. It cost us nothing to get in, and I was so keen to see Daniel's reaction to art (considering his last attempt to withstand it in Frankfurt), that I decided that I wanted to see it. His reaction was pretty awesome. He pretty much wanted to spend his time writing awful reviews on their feedback forms, or get selfies with head sculptures. Or pick up a little bit of rubbish and call it art. Uncultured, but satisfactorily rested, ****er. Next we were onto food! Or at least I was! I haven't been feeling too well the last couple of days - I think the bad food is getting to me a bit (the beer is fine, it's causing no ill-effects) - so after only eating one meal in the last couple of days, I was ready to eat again! We wound our way across the River Liffey to the north side of Dublin. Along the way we saw these try hards trying to promote something with this big basketball display. They had a trampoline, a mat, balls and a ring, and they were trying to do all sorts of fancy tricks to slam dunk. On the face of it, it was sort've entertaining. But nobody seemed to be watching (great publicity stunt). And they couldn't dribble the ball (just threw and dunked). And, funniest of all, on like their third dunk they busted the ring, and that was the end of that. Great success! I don't even know what they were advertising! After that epic fail of a publicity exercise, we moved on and found a little café to eat! Finally! Dad wasn't hungry, but for the first time in a long time Daniel and I scoffed some food that had neither fried, accompanied by beer, or that general combination, in it. Maybe that's also why it lacked a critical thing called taste, but my stomach sure appreciated it afterwards! Tastebuds screaming but stomach fulfilled, we headed back in the general direction of our hotel to the Christ Church Cathedral, which was just across the road from it. We wanted to have a quick look in there as we started out, but apparently it was used in the morning for praying or something, so couldn't! But now we were back, God had rid this church of these plebs and we were free to explore. Alleluia. It was pretty amazing to think that parts of this church were built almost 1000 years ago and are still standing. Could call that a miracle. But this fact is even more miraculous considering the massive lean one side of the wall inside the church has! Guidance was a bit off the day they made that section. Underneath the church they had a massive crypt, with plenty of old things that weren't that interesting. But they did have one thing of note! Apparently in the 1860s, a cat took chase of a rat in this building (yes, it really has seen its share of big events). In a highly entertaining chase (not an eyewitness account), the rat looked to have skilfully evaded the cat when it entered an organ pipe in its attempt of escape. Not to be outdone, the cat followed suit, but due to its larger size, it became stuck. And there it remained, it's arm still outstretched in its hopeless chase of the rat, until it became mummified. The rat itself continued down the organ to freedom, the promise of which was at the end of this organ tunnel. But as the pipe got thinner, it too became stuck and mummified. The results of this epic chase, complete with these mummified remains, are now all on display in the crypt, and it was a little cruel and yuck, but also a little bit funny. They must've sinned. At the end of that encounter, we crossed the road back for a quick break at the hotel, and to discuss our options in regards to the tours on offer. After absolutely no deliberations, we decided on the tours we knew we were going to do at the time we were described to us, but felt needed to be discussed to make it feel as though we put in some effort in that decision so therefore didn't book at the time. We headed back to the tour desk and locked our tours in - a two-day tour south and west, and a one-day tour north into Northern Ireland. Next on our list to do was the Guinness Storehouse, something Dad had been excited to do as soon as we'd confirmed we were going to Ireland, and something I think that Daniel and I dreaded a little bit because we weren't really keen on guzzling what realistically looks like fizzy oil! And we knew not to do that would risk humiliation in Ireland, so our hands were pretty much tied! We walked out to the old brewery site and did the tour. It was awesome...for the free wifi! The tour itself wasn't too bad really, and for me I think the best way to describe it is that it's sort've like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for grown ups! It was all light and sound and very interactive in telling the Guinness story, and quite entertaining too, but I get the feeling that when a certain company sets up a tour fully about itself, it's probably a bit of a brag-fest and advertisement for itself! But there were highlights! We had a delicious steak and Guinness stew while we were there, and the final part of the tour involved having a really fresh Guinness in the Gravity Bar, a bar at the top of the brewery with views all across Dublin. It was mine and Daniel's first try of Guinness, and despite our earlier reservations, it actually wasn't that bad - not that I'd make a habit of drinking it, it wasn't that great! Also, at the high tech place where you could write comments on an iPad then it was put on a massive public screen, Daniel actually wrote "Lick my windmill" (a reference to the windmill tattoo he has on his ****) for all to see. The reactions were funny! Another highlight was the subtle grief I decided to give an impatient dullard of a woman who got me offside early in the tour. When we entered a big room as part of a guided part of the tour, with people everywhere in front of me I heard her mutter in the background to herself 'get out of the way, let me through', when clearly there wasn't really that option. Game on *****! From then, I made sure to take my time walking through the displays if she was behind me, stopping in slow motion to read things I wasn't actually all that interested in. She was lining up to get a photo at one point and I made sure just to languish a fraction of a second longer in front as I was going past! It wasn't obvious, but I knew it would irk her. Proudly, Daniel got in on it too, and when she was trying to push her way down the stairs (annoying everybody) at the conclusion of the tour, he took his time to make it down. It was completely subtle, but she was so rude she actually rammed an elbow into his rib from behind. No excuse me or anything. Later in the gift shop, which was packed, I overheard her cracking the absolute ***** at how busy it was! Worst thing was she was Australian! Speaking of the gift shop, my earlier thoughts about the Willy Wonka feel were complete by the visit to it! It had absolutely everything you could think of as a souvenir! Women's handbags, wallets, alarm clocks, tea bag holders, kitchen utensils, make-up mirrors, even expandable socks and t-shirts that you put in water so they grew to fit you. Basically anything and everything not related at all to Guinness that they could stick their label on. Oddly though, you couldn't actually buy Guinness. Weird. But that didn't really matter really; this was Ireland and there were pubs aplenty to procure it! On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by one such pub, just a little old corner pub, unspectacular in any way. But it was still awesome! Filled with drunk old regulars, they loved having us in there and the banter started straight away. Despite it being a Monday, an old bloke was setting up to play some traditional Irish music for the regulars, and we sat on in listening, which was pretty entertaining. Not least because when he found out we weren't from there, he just kept joking about us. When Dad left (he decided to get a haircut), he just kept having digs at him. Scared of having the same treatment, we waited till the end of his first set, thanked him, and headed back to the hotel to meet Dad, then headed on to our next pub for the night - we'd decided that seeing as there were so many, a little pub crawl might be on the cards! Our first stop was the oldest pub in Ireland, the Brazen Head, which was built in the 1100s! Clearly humans were much shorter back in those days as I hit my head on the door frame going to the toilet. It hurt! We ended up making our way back into the centre of Dublin after that to continue our pub crawl. Along the way, the funniest thing to happen today happened: Daniel said that we had to turn right down here and pointed left. He actually got his left and right confused. I got a punch for having a go at him, but I'd like to think I get the last laugh putting on the Internet his inability to know left from right. That, and the casual abuse of his brother! Devastatingly, we were too late to get noodle bar by the time we reached it en route to another pub. After this, Dad called it a night (old) but Daniel and I kicked on for a little bit longer! By about midnight we too were stuffed, and completely hungry, so hunted for some food on the way home. We found a Subway in a convenience store, which we hadn't yet had on the trip so far, and decided now was the time. We got to the back of the convenience store and found the Subway here was way different to what we had at home. The hot meats were already heated and kept warm under lights, the salads and cold meats were on massive platters, and they didn't even do footlongs! Taken aback by this, I decided not to have anything, but Daniel ordered two wraps. On the way out, we found the steps that led to the actual Subway store that was located above the convenience store, not the back! End result: I enjoyed Subway, and Daniel had dodgy convenience store food. Sucker. And poetic justice for that punch you p**** Happily devouring my sandwich, we made our way home to the hotel, another big day done!