The Hillbilly Viking

After a relaxing morning spent shedding the last of our travel fatigue in our chic, Ikea-ish hotel room, we headed out north over the river until we reached the Jameson Distillery. I’m not going to come right out and say that I’ve consumed a lot of Irish whiskey in my life, but my arrival there was apparently foretold by prophecy, as trumpets blared and a flock of white doves took to flight in the morning sky as soon as I stepped foot on the hallowed ground.

Incidentally, liquor tours are the sadistic edging of retail travel—two solid hours of seeing, talking, and smelling all things whiskey, only to be offered minimal release via a single shot of the amber manna. Cruel, really. 

From there, our Ugly American Cliche Tour proceeded directly to the Guiness Brewery where, again, my reputation preceded me. I’m told that the “k” in their employees’ 401k plan is actually short for “Karvinen,” its primary source of funding for the past 30 years. 

The Guiness complex is an over-the-top, sensory raping, Six Flags Over Cirrhosis type of exhibit, and I recommend it. I now know more about Guiness than my college major. Our tour ended in a skybar overlooking the entirety of scenic Dublin (think Duluth, MN, but with a slightly less sulfur smell).

After the tours, we said goodbye to the new friends we hired, and Patty and I ducked into an Irish Pub (OK, probably just called “a pub” here). We ordered more Jameson, lamb stew, and an authentic platter of deep-fried fish and chips. Between the day drinking and saturated fats, I feel like on some level I’ve been training for this vacation my entire life. Had we got in a fistfight over the artistic merits of U2 over, say, Van Morrison, I feel like we would have automatically qualified for Irish Citizenship too. So close.