The Left Side of the Road

Finally, a new post!  The past week has been a little crazy for all of us here.  We got to start working at our companies on Monday and have been busy ever since.  The company I'm working for is call Lily O'Briens and they are a chocolate manufacturer.  And a very good one at that.  (You should check out their site and see all the things that I get free samples of every day http://www.lilyobriens.ie/)  We are really enjoying working for this company.  The founder's name is Mary Ann O'Brien and she's an absolutely wonderful woman.  I swear if you could hear her describe her chocolates and desserts you would want to sit and eat them with her all day.  She's around the office a lot and is always popping in to see how things are going and to make sure we're getting enough chocolates.  Her office is easily the greatest office I've ever seen.  Chocolate everywhere.

Here's a nice shot of me taking a quick photo break:

We also got our car this week.  (It's an Audi A6...I'm a fan)  Now that has been an adventure.  It's not that easy to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road, from the wrong side of the car, with a stick shift...particularly if you've only driven a manual a handful of times.  I was just a bit terrified.  The first drive home was a bit rough.  I got used to the car by driving around the parking lot for about an hour, then we took off.  Of course, I had Whitney and Brian on the left side of the car letting me know anytime I was drifting too far in that direction.  Thankfully, we made it home safely and with no mishaps.  But now that I've been driving the car for a week, I feel considerably more comfortable with the whole experience.  It's actually kind of fun now.  Plus, it's always good to look down and see you're going 120...even if it is kph, not mph.

Last weekend, we also did a hop on, hop off tour of Dublin city.  It was a good way to get to know the city a little better, although I am definitely looking forward to exploring it some more.  The first thing we stopped to see was St. Patrick's cathedral.

We also, of course, did the tour of the Guinness factory.  Interesting fact, when the factory was opened about 250 or so years ago, the founder took out a very tight lease on the land.  Because of that, Guinness is locked into renting that land for another 8,750 years.  I'm not sure they're exactly worrying about what to do when the lease runs out.  The tour did a good job of explaining how Guinness is brewed, but that's not the best part of the tour.

At the end, you have a decision to make: you can learn to pour your own pint of Guinness and have your free pint there, or go up to the Gravity bar, get your free pint, and enjoy the view of all of Dublin.    We all chose to go up to the Gravity bar and leave the pouring to the exports.

Finally, that night, we made it over to The Brazen Head.  This was more of a "just to say I went" visit.  There is a Brazen Head in Grandview that we go to all the time.  So, it was kind of cool to get to go to Ireland and see the original.  Also, this bar was opened in 1198 (or something very close to that), so it was cool to see a pub that's been around since 300 years before Christopher Columbus even made it to America.  In the pub, they have one room that is completely wallpapered (including the ceiling) in bills from all over the world.  So we obviously had to leave ours behind as well.

Somehow, our OSU dollar ended up right above another one hanging right behind the bar.  We just felt like we should leave our mark on the place.

That's about all I have for today.  Hopefully it won't be a week again before I update.

Until next time,
KT