Day 1 - Arrival in Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, and the Guinness Storehouse

At 6:30 on August 23rd, my girlfriend’s mom picks us up and takes us to the airport. Kara and I unload our hiking backpacks from the truck and immediately check them in at the United counter, ready to depart on our 15 hours of travel. Free of the weight of our bags and full of excitement, we pass through security quickly and head to our gate. With plenty of time to spare, we browse the airport bookstore and then find ourselves the only open Starbucks on the concourse, crowded with a long line and many menu items out of stock. The order for two cold brew coffees takes longer than expected and causes us to rush to our gate for boarding. We rush down the concourse back to our gate, afraid to miss boarding our flight out of Denver. Luckily, we are on time with a few minutes to spare and board the plane to Detroit.

As we take off from the tarmac, I am going through my takeoff ritual to deal with my flying anxiety. With eyes closed, I immerse myself completely in John Coltrane’s cover of My Favorite Things. Even though the familiar notes struggle to drown out the airplane engine, I have listened to this performance so many times that I have the notes memorized—I lightly bob my head in time to the saxophone’s progression as the song begins to deviate from the original. The track is 13 minutes and 49 seconds, which is one of the few songs long enough to get me through the plane takeoff jitters.

We fly to Detroit uneventfully and learn that our connecting flight to Montreal will be delayed by an extra hour. To kill time until we board, we head into a brewpub and have a beer with some pretzel sticks. I answer a few more work Slacks, telling myself more than a few times This will be the last message I send before uninstalling the app. We head back to the gate and charge our phones before takeoff to Montreal.

Once in Montreal, we realize we have only had snacks today. We pick up a few sandwiches from a deli before heading to the gate to eat and wait for our delayed flight. I have been reading Station Eleven, a science-fiction dystopian novel. In the story there is a group of passengers who end up quarantined and ultimately stranded at an airport as the rest of civilization crumbles. As I hear more delays of our flight to Dublin over the intercom, I begin to worry I may also get stranded at an airport overnight.

We ultimately board the flight, and I get tucked into the dreaded middle seat on the international flight to Dublin. I try to sleep as best I can, but eventually end up watching Northman to kill the last few hours of the flight.

We land in Dublin airport, and my first impression is that the airport is old and quite dirty. We get through customs, claim our bags, and get bus tickets to downtown Dublin. Sleep-deprived and jet lagged, we drop our bags off at our hostel and freshen up before walking around Dublin. To start the day we walk through Temple Bar, around Dublin Castle, and into Chester Beatty Library, an expansive collection of art and artifacts from all over the world. The dark, cool, air-conditioned room makes me sleepy, and I struggle to focus on all of the amazing pieces that fill the museum. I enjoy the pieces thoroughly, especially those that are a part of the Japanese and Chinese collection, but I can tell that exhaustion is getting the better of me.

After Chester Beatty we head toward the Guinness Storehouse, stopping by Christchurch Cathedral to snap some photos from the outside. We walk about 20 minutes to Guinness and get tickets to enter and begin the brewery tour. The tour is self-guided, but you learn all about the brewing process for Guinness. As a Colorado native, I’ve seen brewery tours at Coors, Budweiser, and microbreweries, so I skipped reading some of the initial signage about how beer is made. The smell of hops and the flow of water make me excited to get a taste of Guinness, but there are 5 stories of tour to do before getting the complimentary beer.

At each level you learn a little more about the history of Arthur Guinness, the inventor of the beer, specifics on how Guinness is made, how coopers historically made the wooden barrels that stored Guinness, and more. As a paid extra, Kara and I got to learn how to pour our own Guinness, which we then promptly were able to drink. We also received a free guided tasting of Guinness. My favorite part to witness was the history of the advertisements for Guinness. This section was particularly interactive and included options to take poses to match iconic Guinness ads.

By the time we reached the top of the Storehouse, the tallest point in downtown Dublin, we were blown away with the sunny skyline. We got our complimentary beers, but the skytop bar was packed with not a table available. After our third lap around the rooftop, Kara and I were finally able to snag a table, rest our feet, drink our beer, and enjoy the skyline of Dublin, backdropped by the Wicklow Mountains to the south. We take our time enjoying the drink, then visit the gift shop and walk back toward the hostel.

As foodies, Kara and I decide ahead of time to enjoy more global foods in Dublin before we try true Irish cuisine in some of the more rural parts of the country. On the way home we grab a table at an Indian restaurant where we strike up conversation with an American couple who are in Dublin for an exhibition match between the Nebraska Huskers and Northwestern University. They are a friendly couple, and we get to learn a lot about their travel plans.

After dinner we walk the rest of the way back to the hostel, cross the Ha’penny Bridge, shower, and go to sleep.