Our jet lag woke us up at 4 AM local time and wouldn't let us get back to sleep. Fortunately it was 8 PM Redmond time, so we could check in with friends back home at the end of their day. Without really meaning to we've been talking to or hanging out with friends almost every day for the last week, and it was great to get a chance to say hello.

Because we had nothing to do until breakfast started and nothing in Dublin was likely to be open before 7 we stayed in for a little while and made Irish breakfast tea while Susan did her hair. She's clearly Irish because it's behaving great in this weather and it feels really soft.

Our morning walk was beautiful. This city doesn't wake up early, so at 6am we had the streets mostly to ourselves. We were a little surprised to find the big green spaces closed since you don't really see parks closed off in the same way in America. Both St. Stephen's Green and Trinity College are completely fenced off and locked up at night. We had hoped to enjoy the morning exploring those before it got crowded, but we'll have to go back later.

Breakfast at the hotel was good. There was no coffee that didn't cost extra (not surprising) but when we decided to get coffee somewhere else we were shocked to find out that there wasn't a single cafe in walking distance that opened before 8am. We took the hint and went back to bed.

Around 10 we started out again to find real coffee and grab a few essentials from a Tesco. Susan insists that an egg and cress sandwich is an essential, as is something called "Vienetta." She refuses to tell me what that is until I've tried some. Alas, our local Tesco stocked neither.

We were much more successful at finding coffee. Apparently we randomly walked into the oldest coffee bar in Dublin. Bewley's looked like just another shop from the outside, but has a long history just like everything else here.

The Guinness storehouse was next on our list and we took a roundabout walk over in that direction. By the time we got there we had walked 6 miles already, so given that it was noon our death march was right on schedule.

Guinness was packed. In the strictest sense of people per cubic foot it wasn't dense, but the walkways were designed to keep people moving through at all times so there was no good place to stop and talk. We learned a bit about beer, which was nice because a lot of brewery tours we've been on seem to be targeted at an audience that has never considered how beer is made.

The Guinness storeroom might have had intentionally bad lighting for pictures, but we grabbed a few anyway.

On the way back we stopped at a pasty shop to get some food. It only struck us as we were eating them that we'd purchased them from an establishment on Fleet St. The wrapper assured us that these were "pure food" so any resemblance of these meat pies to those supposedly served on a certain Fleet St. in London some years ago was purely coincidental.

After eating we took the tactical nap we scheduled so we would be alert enough to see any ghosts on our upcoming Ghost Bus tour.

The Mystery of Dublin 2

I kept seeing "Dublin 2" listed as the city for things around town. I figured this was a postal code but I thought it was hilarious that Ireland stuck the code right after the city name instead of doing a comma separated field like we do in America. I looked it up and this has been in place since 1917, but got switched over to a more modern postal code in 2015. I guess the transition might be taking a few years for people to publish addresses without the added "2" or "8".

Apparently the US Postal Service had a similar system in the 1940s but switched to modern zip codes in the 1960s. Zip + 4 was introduced in the 1980s and American businesses still don't publish that every time, so I suspect Dublin 2 addresses will be around for a while.

Who You Gonna Call?

Ghost Bus Tours is a great play on words with a slow burn. The tour was a blast, and the guide had a great sense of humor and a surprisingly tasteful soundboard which made the drive to each site more fun. The bus was decked out like a haunted house and we did a sing along to the Monster Mash.

We made visits to a bunch of sites from the 1200s and some more recent places like the Royal College of Physicians. We learned about the history of body snatchers in Dublin and the origins of the term "dead ringer." We'd definitely recommend this tour to anyone.

Since we'd already hit the oldest coffee bar, we figured today was a good day to make the pilgrimage to The Brazen Head (Est. 1198 AD). At time of writing they are hiring, so if you're looking for a steady gig...

The beer selection was mostly the same as everywhere else in the city, but they had a Brazen Red ale that was really complex and nutty. I'm hoping I get a chance to have another one of those, but it might be a specialty they only sell there.

We were at about 11 miles walked by this point, and we were both feeling the sleep deprivation kick in more than the beer. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and went back to the hotel.