Lauren and I started our journey at SFO, talking about how excited we were for our first few days in Ireland as we waited in line for security. Once we passed through the TSA, not without setting off the detector and getting thoroughly frisked, we made our way to the Centurion Lounge to kick off our Honeymoon in style!

Our Aer Lingus flight was great, in that we slept through most of it. The only notable moment was being served Shepards Pie for dinner, which gave us a taste of the food to come.  We landed just after noon, Irish time, and proceeded to pick up our rental car. Lauren was slightly dismayed to find out I wasn’t kidding about only renting manual cars, having only driven one for the lesser part of a morning recently, but I insisted everything would be okay and that I knew how to drive.

I’ll be the first to admit, it was a rocky start with the manual; only a minute into our drive I forgot to put the car back into gear after stopping, and we began slowly drifting backward! The rest of the 30-minute drive to our hotel was mostly benign other than stalling the car once.

As we checked into our hotel, I was holding the door open for the bellhop to move our bags inside. As he was taking in the first bag, I went to grab the second bag, but he said “No, just hold the door. We need a doorstop.” Lauren quickly replied with “haha, well that’s the most handsome doorstop I’ve ever seen!”  The bellhop looked at us and asked if we just got engaged or married. Both Lauren and I were impressed and responded that we had just gotten married less than 48 hours ago. He said he could tell by the way Lauren said that to him 🙂

After changing into a fresh pair of clothes we called a taxi and went on our way to the Guinness Storefront. We had purchased the Connosoure Experience, so upon arriving we got to skip the line and enter immediately. Unfortunately, we hadn’t arrived early enough to tour around through the many historical and brewing-related exhibits in the 7-story building. Instead, we headed directly to the tasting area where we met the 8 other people who would be joining us for the private tasting session. Right on cue, at 4 o’clock, our tasting guide, Ian, came over and directed us to the private bar where our tasting would be held.

The one-hour tasting was incredible, to say the least. First, we learned how to determine if we had a quality glass to pour into. Next, we were taught the proper Guinness draft pouring technique and the technical details that went into making a Nitrogen-based draft beer possible. Then we got to taste 3 other Guinness beers: Guinness Original Stout, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, and finally the Guinness Citrus IPA. The Citrus IPA was part of a new Guinness initiative where they rotate a new beer on a special tap every 2 months in special Ireland-only bars. It was an incredible IPA, very florally and not too bitter, even Lauren enjoyed it. Along the way, we learned the history of Guinness and few general beer varieties.

After the Guinness tasting, we quickly got a bite to eat at a local pub, then jogged across the city to meet up with our literary pub crawl. The pub crawl was led by 3 actors who read passages from books, plays, and letters from Irish authors and literature from the past century. There was a lot of interesting trivia, most of which was not absorbed by my slightly intoxicated brain. I would highly recommend the experience to anyone with a free evening in Dublin.

When we returned home from our evening out we were greeted by a beautiful bouquet of flowers, but there was no note attached to it so we will never know if it was the bellhop or a sneaky parent requesting the flowers to be left for us.