Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

I did manage to wake up at a normal hour (9 am) but then rolled over and went back to sleep until 10. More tourism was the order of the day. I walked over to the Hugh Lane Gallery to look at some art. Oddly, the most affective piece there for me was a WB Yeats poem about the gallery and his emotions on seeing it completed. Many of the portraits were by or of members of his circle.

After a light lunch and a heavy scone, I headed over to the Old Jameson's Distillery. I decided to do the "Whiskey Masterclass" tasting instead of the normal tour. A small group of us (including a Portlander who was part of a whiskey tasting club and knew everything) tasted four different Jameson whiskies and got an explanation of how Irish whiskies differ from others (mostly that they mix malted and unmalted barley and the malt is dried over smokeless heat). Of them, the Distillery Reserve had the most character. I'd happily drink it again.

Since Tinny and Co were due at the airport, I spent some time in the Decorative Arts and History Museum (part of the National Museum). The most interesting exhibits to me were an extensive one on coinage and another on the role of the Irish in war. Since they've spent so long without an independent country, they've served notably in many other armies besides their own.

When they did finally arrive (minus one stroller, which seems lost somewhere in the gyre of international luggage), I left the museum and headed over to the apartment that Tinny has arranged. It's just north of the River, and I'd passed the building yesterday (I'd suspected as much).

We had giant slabs of fish and chips from a takeaway place, and I was able to give someone directions. I was asked yesterday, but didn't know where they were going, but this time the tourist was headed to the single most toured site in the city, where I'd been yesterday.