Dublin Docklands Summer Festival: 2nd weekend

The majority of this past week has been spent creating a powerpoint about a paper for Journal Club.

Correction: The majority of this past week has been spent stressing about the paper for Journal Club. The actual powerpoint took maybe an hour or 2.

Journal Club is a weekly meeting between all of the SPUR ON students in which one of us presents a paper via powerpoint to the rest of the group. Journal Club is always on Mondays and then we have a workshop involving something research related and then the director of the programs takes us all out to a nice lunch. This past week we went to a Japanese style restaurant called Wagamamas where I had something I couldn't pronounce, but it was basically stirfried noodles, vegetables, and chicken with some ginger on top (delicious!).

The paper I am presenting is titled Genetic and pharmacological targeting of activin receptor-like kinase 1 impairs tumor growth and angiogenesis. It took me a few days to read it so I really don't expect you to, but it has a lot to do with what I am researching.

So, I don't know if it was this paper or what, but I spent the week being a big grouch, and by Friday I was so glad it was the weekend, I practically ran back to my apartment.

Because it was raining heavier than usual on Friday night, the whole group (9 of us) was not in the spirits to go out and attempt to conquer the city, so instead we bought a few bottles of wine and chocolates and sat down for a movie together.

Saturday was the Docklands Summer Festival, which we live right on the Liffy River and near the ocean, across the street from the docks where the festival was to be held.

6 of us ventured out to the festival where there were many international food booths including what looked like authentic dishes from Kenya and Lebanon, as well as a Crepe booth and of course the all American hamburger/hotdog stand.

Notice the little slices of grass, the first Grass I have seen since I arrived in Dublin.

Viking Splash Tour: This is also a bus (the tires are under the water) and they drive around the city. We plan to partake in this adventure before we leave.

Grand Canal Theater: Interesting Architecture

Myself and Matt enjoying some foreign deep fried wrap on one of the grass slices.

One of the booths was selling "power bracelets". If you havn't heard of these, they are bracelets that are supposed to improve your balance and strength and are worn by people like Shaquille O'Neal. I've always thought these bracelets were a scam, but the woman gave us a demonstration to test our balance and strength with and without them, and it seemed to actually work. I really didn't want it to work so I tried my hardest to prove her wrong, but I can't explain it, it just worked. 

After the power bracelets, a few pieces of fudge, and what I thought was a pink lemonade (it was actually just pink sparkling water despite the label clearly reading pink lemonade), me and matt took off towards the Inner Canal to find the "Try It Yourself!" Sessions. Part of the festival included water sports open to the public, so Matt and I went Kayaking and the 4 other girls when paddle boating. 

Melike, Caroline, Alexa, Julia, me

Sailing Crews were making some really awesome turns

After the kayaking, we all decided to try out a pub that is right across the street from our apartment. 

This place had many old advertisements and photos.

As we sat and discussed the differences in our lives between our countries, we first decided we would have a potluck dinner in Caroline's apartment. And we secondly decided we would take a ferris wheel ride: 

On the walk to the ferris wheel..

Up in the ferris wheel

After the 12 minute ferris wheel ride (it obviously was enough time as indicated by the amount of photos I was able to take), we returned home to cook. 

Our meal consisted of 

1. Julia's soup: made with potatoes, mushrooms, garlic, and broth--extremely delicious

2. my salad: chopped romaine lettuce, tomato, broccoli, cucumber, boiled egg and french dressing

3. Caroline and Alexa's chicken masala: curry sauce, white rice, chicken, peas, carrots, potatoes

4. Caroline and Alexa's stir fry: mixed vegetables and soy sauce

5. Alexa's and my tortellini with marinara

6. Matt and Melike's store bought "party cake"

7. Melike's Turkish Delights

8. Matt and Melike's wine

9. José's beer (he wasn't at the pub to hear we were holding a dinner)

After some great conversation and an ever expanding belly, I returned upstairs to my apartment for bed time. 

It is now Sunday, and I am taking care of some household chores, some grocery shopping, and preparing for the Journal Club presentation tomorrow. 

Love and miss you all!

My Goodness, My Guinness

Our group had two goals this weekend: attend the Merrion Square Street Festival as well as the Guinness Storehouse.

The street fest is a free event which books street performers for entertainment. It's basically an outdoor circus with limited equipment. We only walked down the street and saw one performance, but I got it on video, no worries.

I spent a bit of time editing all the videos from the performance together on iMovie. 

He juggled a machete, axe, and knife blind folded at end, but for some reason I could not get that video to load.

YES, he is juggling with a real chain saw. He used it to cut through a metal can to prove that it was real.

After walking through the festival, we decided to head to the Guinness Storehouse. Little did I know, it would be about a 30 minute walk, so I took some photos along the way:

St. Augustine Church

Portion of Dublinia Castle

More Dublinia Castle

For all the people at home: ARLINTON!

We arrived at the Guinness Storehouse where I realized there was a 4 euro discount if you had a student id. Lucky for me (sarcastic) I forgot mine. Lucky for me again (not sarcastic) I asked for the discount and she gave it to me anyway--THANKS GUINNESS! 

To begin the tour, we started in a large circular structure in which all of the floors rotated around. We were told we were standing in the world's largest pint glass (it would take 5 days to fill, although they did not give us the pints/sec or hour or any similar measurement). 

At the bottom of the pint glass was a copy of the 9000 year lease signed by the owner of the land as well as Arthur Guinness himself. That's some pretty solid brand confidence if you ask me (8,750 years left on the lease...)

Ingredient #1: Barley

Every year, 100,000 tonnes of Irish barley are used a year to make Guinness. That's 2/3s of Ireland's barley a year.

I got to touch some..

*****IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE :In order to touch this barley and take a picture of it, I had to free my hands of my Brochure/Map as well as my ticket (needed for a later event) and jacket. It went down by my feet....

Ingredient 2: Hops

There were real hops growing behind the glass here, so you could actually smell it all around you.

Ingredient 3: Yeast
Legend has it that the yeast used to make Guinness today is still the same strain as the yeast Arthur Guinness used. There was a small erlinmeyer flask with fixed yeast that was on display (forgot to take the picture), but they have a reserve supply of the yeast always locked up in the Director's safe in case anything disastrous happens to the main supply.

Ingredient 4: Water
The water used to make Guinness comes from the Wicklow mountains of Ireland and is known for its purity. 8 Million Litres of water are used everyday at Guinness.

Many people throw euros into the water tank to make wishes. All of the money collected there is donated to Water of Life, an organization dedicated to supplying clean water to Africa.

original documents and items of Arthur Guinness

I found the above and the below windows to take pictures out of. These are actual brewing machines of Guinness or something. After I took the second picture, the windows tinted up. I think you are not supposed to be able to see out of them and they forgot to tint the windows.

Ceramic Guinness bottles from the 1800s I believe?

The harp, signature of Guinness as well as a symbol for the Republic of Ireland

And for the most anticipated part of the tour....

We were given a sample and taught how to properly taste it...

And then... we were to go to the very top floor to the Gravity Bar: a circular room with floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking Dublin and Ireland.

So you remember that IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE? Well, you need a ticket to get a complimentary pint of Guinness to enjoy in the Gravity Bar. I am certain I dropped mine back when I had to pick up the barley.

Lucky for me (not sarcastic) again again, José some how forgot to give his ticket to the bar and just took a pint. So he let me have his ticket to get my own. Funny thing about it was, I didn't see one person get carded the entire time I was in the Gravity Bar, but for some reason, I was carded: pretty embarrassing.

Matt, me, Julia

José, Caroline, Julia, Me, Alexa (french), and Melike (istanbul)

Melike and me

More to come soon : )