From the most interesting distillery to the most interesting man, to one of the most interesting companies in the world, we had ourselves quite a day today in Dublin. We started our day off at the Pearse Lyons Distillery. I thought this was really cool to get a behind the scenes look at a local family distillery that was more about a man wanting to support the tradition of his community, and build a legacy than wanting to make a profit. I loved hearing about this history of the church and the importance of distillery business in Dublin.

Later today, we went to Google to see their European headquarters. I thought it was a really cool opportunity to be able to have the access we had at their headquarters. Our three chaperones on the tour couldn’t have been nicer. They took us all over the building and answered all the questions we could think of. They talked about how much Google had grown since it built its headquarters in Dublin, and how they have plans to continue to grow. Overall, it was pretty awesome to see how Google has become such a central part of the community.

However, I think the activity I took the most away from was our tour and conversation with Darren Kelly at the Docklands. I never thought I would find someone who called me a schmuck and said I had a funny face (he was just kidding) so interesting, but that’s exactly where I found myself this afternoon. Darren told us all about how Dublin came to be the tech hub that it is today. What I found most interesting from walking tour was when Darren talked to us about why all of these big companies are coming to Ireland and the ways the Irish do business. I just thought it was really fascinating to hear about how the Irish people put so much emphasis on being flexible and building personal relationships in business.