Clapton+Jameson+Guinness= AWESOME!

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So in Ireland, they suggest getting to the train station 30 minutes before departure to make sure you don't get caught in a last minute ticket line. What they don't tell you is that your “train at 9am” is apparently Gaelic for a bus at 8:30am. Yep, the ticket AND the departure board says Train from Kent (Cork) to Dublin at 9am. We got there at 8:25, and when we asked what time the train would allow us to board (keep in mind it still said Train to Dublin departing at 9am), the women at the ticket window looked at me like I was crazy and said I better hop on the bus because it was about to leave. I'm just going to chalk this up to a cultural difference. Long story short, we were dropped off at a train station a couple hours away and pulled into Dublin an hour or two after that. We checked into our B&B, which was great, and then took off to the Dublin O2 to see... Eric -Mother F'n- Clapton. First, the O2 might be the best venue I've ever been to. It held about 20k people, but felt very small. We were in the back (we quit our jobs to travel the world, we're on a budget!), but we could see him and the band with no problems. This guy is in his late 60's, has been touring since 1963, and can still rock the house. He sounded incredible. He played for 2 hours, which felt like 30 mins, playing Wonderful Tonight, Bell Bottom Blues, Layla, ….. As we are told only Americans say... it was AWESOME!

The next day we followed up Mr. Clapton with a run through Phoenix Park, and then a tour of the old Jameson Distillery. It is a beautiful building which houses all of the old distillery equipment, a nice restaurant, and bar that is pretty hard to pass up. Yours truly was even picked to be part of the whiskey tasting panel at the end where we were able to taste the difference between a popular scotch, American whiskey, and of course Jameson Irish whiskey. Remember (please read following in Irish accent), Jameson Irish Whiskey is the first whiskey in the world to be TRIPLE distilled to ensure purity and taste, a process that is still used this day that even Mr. John Jameson himself would be proud of. I am now a certified Jameson Whiskey taster complete with diploma.

After the distillery, we took a tour of Trinity College and the Book of Kells. If you are in Dublin, make it a point to stop by and see the Book of Kells. I can't imagine anyone not being impressed by the detail of the writing and art inside the books. You have to exit through the Trinity College Library, which could be it's own tour. We followed up Trinity College with a night out at Temple Bar, listening to Irish music and trying to understand what the locals were saying. The next day we did a walk through St. Jame's gate, had a stop at the Guinness Storehouse and did some final exploring of Dublin before we geared up to head for Galway.