This morning we had the chance to live our best tourist lives and visit the Guinness Storehouse for a tour to learn about their history and their stout making process. Even though I don’t particularly like the taste of the signature Guinness, I still found the company and its history intriguing. I learned that Arthur Guinness first leased their Dublin brewery back in 1759 for a length of 9,000 years. I was shocked by this figure, and it made me consider how Mr. Guinness was a great entrepreneur of his time as he decided to take a risk and make sure that the Guinness name and business would continue to exist and flourish past his own lifetime and into the future. It seems as though Arthur Guinness’s entrepreneurial spirit along with the dedication to the tradition of their beer making process has led to the company’s continued success. Now, they continue their success in Ireland and across the globe by marketing effectively through targeted ad campaigns.

In the afternoon, we took some time at Griffith College to bask in the sunlight and have a discussion about different instances where we have had to navigate cross-cultural communication on our trip thus far. In my experience in Dublin so far, I have noticed that when it comes to dining and service, the expectations are quite different to what I am used to in the states. At restaurants, there is no host, so you just seat yourselves. Then, if you want service, you must actively seek it out. This is a noticeable cultural difference in communication styles because Irish culture does not explicitly follow a set of dining and service expectations, which is more high context communication, while in U.S. culture, we like to be told where to sit and be tended to in a timely and efficient manner, which is more low context communication. I can learn to be more adaptive to this cultural difference and others by observing my surroundings and paying closer attention to the behaviors of people around me. In doing so, I hope to start to break down my previously held notions of acceptable cultural behaviors and begin to start learning more from my neighbors.