Friday morning, after our complimentary continental breakfast - cornflakes and toast - at the hostel, we packed up and headed back out into the city. We were traveling light - only a carry-on - so that didn't take long. Again, our hostel was in a great location; right in the heart of downtown in the middle of everything we wanted to see. Our flight wasn't until 6 p.m., so we walked up toward St. Patrick's Cathedral, on our way to the Guinness brewery tour. Roland's best travel tip was that whenever you're visiting a city abroad, check the service times at the big churches or cathedrals. Again, it would have cost €6.50 to take the tour, but we got there about halfway through Matins, sung by a small boys choir. Again, it was a beautiful service.
We got to the famous "St. James Gate Brewery" at about 11 a.m. Let me say this - whoever designed this "tour" was a genius. It was the quintessential postmodern, experiential . . . experience. It wasn't the typical "guided tour" where you follow your tour guide from point to point in the factory while they point to stuff and spit out information. It was an experience. (Leonard Sweet would love it.) Sights. Smells. Tastes. Sounds.
The self-guided "tour" was through a seven-story visitors center shaped, appropriately, like a giant pint glass. You began on the bottom where you got a taste (literally; we got to eat roasted barley) of the ingredients that go into Guinness' distinctive brew. There was a huge pit of barley - had I still been a child, you couldn't have kept me from jumping in - and you could pick some up, run it through your fingers or throw it at your friends. There was a life-size (but plastic) 15-foot tall hops plant. Running over and past the display where they talked about water, there was a huge waterfall running overhead and down into a small reflecting pool. There were monitors everywhere running looped videos describing the brewing process and how it all comes together from the brewing process to an old black and white film showing how a master cooper used to make the wooden casks. The middle floor had a coffee bar (when we walked in at 11, I told Roland, "I could sure go for a cup of coffee"). [Another excursus: the barista - she sounded Italian or Spanish maybe - when I ordered an expresso and a cup of coffee responded: "you know an espresso is little, right?" She should have just said, "I assume you're American and don't know anything about coffee." I furrowed my brow and just said, "yes".] It was also at this point in the tour where - I thought this was pretty cool - you could "interact" with the master brewer on a series of flat screens up against one wall. Eventually, he asks, "do you mind if I take a photo?" and pulls out a digital camera. You press "yes" on the screen and then it takes a picture and he asks if you'd like to share it with anyone. Then you can punch in your email address and two friends' addresses you'd like to send it to (though, as of last night, our friends still hadn't gotten the photo). Technology is cool. The high point of the tour - literally - is the complimentary pint of Guinness on top of the building. It's the tallest building on the 60-acre brewery and the bar is a round glass area offering an incredible 360-degree view of Dublin. The perfect place to enjoy a delicious pint. And, again, the weather was amazing - the sun was shining, we could see out into the harbor on one side and the Wicklow Mountains on the other. The sky was full of fluffy white clouds. It was really neat. The perfect end to a great three-day visit to Dublin.
As we walked back toward downtown to catch our bus we swung through Trinity College - the oldest university in Ireland. Ironically, according to Mallis (our tour guide from Thursday), it was founded as an Anglican university and only recently started admitting Catholics unrestricted - previously, it required a waiver from the bishop for a Catholic to attend. [Excursus: I just learned that Roland and I could have downloaded an audio tour podcast from Trinity College all the way to the top of the Guinness brewery tour. Amazing.]
We caught the city bus back to the airport that afternoon - our "tour" had lasted over three hours. As we were boarding the bus, it started to hail (perfect timing). Funny thing, too, when we got to the airport, they confiscated my deodorant ("Deo" auf Deutsch) - it was 150 ml; you're only allowed 100 ml for any one item containing liquid. It was funny - they were more uptight than the Germans. Again we were chastised at check-in for trying to do online check-in when we didn't have EU passports (we were told to "read a bit more carefully next time" but weren't charged; when we left Germany, we had to pay an extra €4). Our flight got back about ten minutes late and we missed a bus from Frankfurt Hahn airport (it's called Frankfurt Hahn, but it's 130 km from Frankfurt). This was the first and only logistical hiccough on our trip. So we had to wait about an hour for the next bus. We got back to downtown Frankfurt at about 1 a.m. and caught the "Night Bus" back to Oberursel as the trains were no longer running in our direction; to our delight, it dropped us closer to the Hochschule than the train would have anyway.
A good trip. Dublin is a good time.
NB: if you hadn't already noticed, I finally realized I could put hyperlinks in my blog text. Be prepared to see more of those. And, I realized by looking at the "Labels" tally on the right-hand side, that with this third Dublin installment, I have as many posts related to Dublin as I do to Martin Luther.
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