Dublin Part 2

I asked in the last post what was happening in this photo... and here's your answer!

This was the randomest thing of the entire trip - there was a designer outdoor market in downtown Dublin, in the Temple Bar area.  We just wanted to walk through and see what was there, and we stopped at this guys' pottery stand.  The Irish are the nicest, chattiest, and most friendly europeans that I have met while living here.  The guy at the stand, who is the designer of the pottery, strikes up a conversation with us after we tell him we're from the states.  He tells us about how he sells his stuff in NY, and how he had recently been selling some of his things on QVC.  

Offhandedly, he shows me a bowl, about 1/4 of the size of the one in his hands in the photo above, and says "How many of these do you think I sold in five minutes on QVC?"  I thought about how there are a lot of people who watch QVC, and though I don't really understand that phenomenon, and I thrown out the number 5,000.  Incredulously, he looks at me and says "You're RIGHT!  I've asked that question of everyone who has stopped here all day, and no one got it right!  And now, just as I'm closing down, I ask you and you get it right!  I have to give you something, I have to give you something because you got it right!"  I'm pretty surprised that this is happening, and before I have a chance to say anything else, he's wrapped up said bowl, put it in a bag, and we snap a photo together.  And now, said bowl hangs out on my coffee table, holding a great story.

After all that excitement, we headed to see Christchurch, but just hung out in the gardens.  

We stopped at a nearby little takeaway place and got some of the greasiest and most delicious fish and chips for dinner, and ate them in the church gardens.

And what would Ireland be without the pub?  We found one that claimed to be the oldest in Dublin, quenched our thirst with some delicious beer, relaxed from our day of sightseeing, and headed back to the hotel to hang out.

The next day was the Guinness Tour.  Which we were really excited about - we had heard a lot of really great things about it.

The displays were pretty great, and though we have been on several brewery tours, and the essence of making beer is always the same, Guinness displayed everything in a really cool way, and we really liked the tour.  They still make the beer at the same place that they have been making it since it's inception, and being close to that size of a working brewery was great.

I really liked the art gallery with the original prints from their marketing campaigns.  

And you finish out the tour with a pint at their Gravity Bar, which sits high above the Dublin skyline, allowing you to see the entire city in a 360 degree view.

See the storm coming in?

I'd say it was one of my favorite tours that I've ever been on!  I would highly recommend it to anyone else!

Sunday afternoon, we headed up to Belfast in Northern Ireland, but only to stay the night.  We didn't do any sightseeing, and headed out the next morning to the northern coast.  Come back soon for more :)