What Is An Expat?

Hmm…where was I? Oh yes, wandering the streets of Dublin. Successfully not getting kilt, and I don’t mean anything to do with Scotland. Did I mention they seem to drive kinda fast there? On the other hand, being on foot for several months or around vehicles going slowly, maybe it’s just my perspective. Naahh.

Here’s J Random Church type place. It’s actually the Church (don’t think it’s a Cathedral, at least) of St. Audoen. He’s also got a gate named for him in what’s left of the old medieval town walls. He did…something or other that made him popular I guess.

I head down to the Guinness Brewery to have a look around. It’s obviously very much a tourist attraction. Very large shop waiting to sell you all your Guinness gear. The tour is a self guided multimedia attraction. It’s not hard to see they’ve spent quite a bit of money on it. They talk about the importance of the water, different stages of production, have stations where you can get an idea of the smell of the hops and barleys, informative videos about the Man, the Myth, the Legend…Arthur Guinness. All in all, it’s quite fucking boring.

That said, after you trudge through the stations to the seventh floor, it brightens up. On the seventh floor you find the Sky Bar. You get a free pint o’ Guinness. Given the cost of the “tour” you have paid the cost of the brew plus 10 Euro. The neat thing about the Sky Bar is that it has about a 360 degree panoramic view of the city through it’s glass windows. The less neat thing is that it’s a bit crowded. I suspect the time and day you go might make a difference there too, so take it for what it’s worth.

And of course the obligatory “damn tourists” picture…

The camera was drunk I think.

Another thing to note about Ireland is a great memory for all their patriots, most of whom met bad ends at English hands. Irish history is rife with tales of rebellion against the English. They were all put down rather mercilessly, but that’s just how things were done back then. On the way back from the brewery I pass a memorial to one, who got shot down by the English just outside some building. My description does it no justice. I took a picture, but it was a victim of the blurr effect. I wish I had just shrunk it down instead. At any rate, the sorrow of a country that had been held down and stepped on for hundreds of years is not easily forgotten.

I have a nice tasty steak and several beers for supper at the pub across the street. I am almost startled, at the very least surprised to find not only do they have Bud on tap in Dublin, but people actually drink it. Not many, to be sure, and the one I saw was a girl. She seemed to think I was an idiot for asking. About the beer, not if she was a girl, that is. I could see that. I think people expect Americans are stupid when outside the US, but I think this was probably my first instance of doing so outside of drunken exuberance. I get sleepy and am down at 9PMish. Of course that’s 2AM Uzbek time. Wake up at 3AM, or 8AM Uzbek time. I’m a bit more jetlagged than I thought, and lots of meandering about town on the footbus has added to it.