Sunday, May 10, 2009
We landed in Dublin and pulled our bags off the carousel in Baggage Claim around 9 AM. Two friendly CIE guys spotted the yellow CIE luggage strap on our bags—they were there to collect CIE tourists and drop them at their hotels. (We were actually a day early so it was really nice of these guys to make an unscheduled stop at our hotel and save us the 30 euro (about $50) for the cab ride... Jason)
I had no choice but to accept the high prices, and I learned to stuff my bum bag full of Canderel (lots of it, because it's not very sweet), which made me look like that kind of tourist. The kind that can't just let go of her comforts and preferences. (She really did this. I was more inclined to just start drinking my coffee without sweetener (good for you!) or use regular sugar or brown sugar crystals (Irish love brown sugar). Kim got strange looks every time she asked for the artificial stuff. They would grumble, go digging around and invariably come up with a handful of it from someplace.)
The tour guide who was driving talked the whole way. He cracked really simple jokes, the kind that the median tourist would love, I guess, and then he would wildly laugh and snort after telling them. I told Jason that we should be glad to not have this guy as our guide--that he would drive us nuts. Jason could not hear the snorting, apparently. He found the guy charming. (Oddly, the guide we did get was just the opposite. Anytime you would ask a question he would rebuke "If you wait a minute, I'm gonna tell ya, jeez." But, he really grew on you after awhile...like a fungus or a grumpy uncle you cannot help but like).
They drive on the left in Ireland, and they use lots of roundabouts, and I was still confused after 10 or so days as a pedestrian. The habit of first looking left when crossing the street, rather than right, is deeply ingrained (go Mum!). (Next time, I am driving...gotta give it a whirl.)
We did a lot of walking on our first day in Ireland, and we saw a lot of sights. At the beginning of the day, I looked over our options for sight-seeing, but the thing that attracted me above all else was the idea of visiting St. Stephen's Green and lie about and read or nap. But we didn't make it that far due to having so much else to do, and if we had, I would have learned that you don't really want to lie around on Irish grass, unless you're cool with getting wet.
So, after being dropped at the Camden Court Hotel, we stowed our luggage, and struck out into the streets to do the following in a somewhat similar order:
We walked down Grafton Street on our way to Trinity College. Grafton is a fun window-shopping district with side alleys of hippie vendors selling jewelry, hats, clothes, etc.
Once at Trinity College, the plan was to catch the walking tour of Dublin. We did the walking tour for 10-15 minutes, but the guide was too soft-spoken, and we just couldn't hear his brilliance. So, we ditched and visited the Book of Kells exhibit to see the illuminated gospels made by Celtic monks centuries ago. On our way out of the Kells exhibit, we passed through the Trinity College Library, which I found to be delightful in its old-world kind of way.
As we wandered the campus, we passed a number of sculptures for which I could muster no appreciation. For instance, you'll see a picture of one of us in front of a metal ball-in-a-ball. Now that I am rested, I can see that that's a pretty nifty sculpture. On that day, in my sleep-deprived condition, I was having a hard time thinking past my own needs and perceived ills.
I wanted out of Trinity College because we were ravenous (my Id was dominant). After some wrong turns, we finally escaped and made our way back toward the lively Grafton Street area. We settled for lunch at Nude Cafe, and I should emphasize the word settled. It's outer wrapping lured me in. It appeared to serve healthy fare to intelligent people. (It must have been the green eco-paint that deceived me). One dirty restroom, hard bench-seat, and over-priced bread bowl of forgettable soup later, I learned not to re-visit Nude. I would later learn that my favorite food and ambience by far would be that found in pubs.
Having eaten, we decided to hop on the Hop-on/Hop-off Dublin Sightseeing Tour Bus. It was the most efficient way to get an overview of the city. Patty was our driver, and he spoke a million thickly-Irish-accented words a second, it seemed. Heading south from Trinity College, he took us to the south and the east a bit, and then we headed north and west past Christ Church on our way to the Guinness Brewery.
At the Guinness Brewery, you had to go through about 8 floors of tactile exhibits, and the prize at the top of the building was a panoramic bar where you got your 'free' pint of Guinness.
We hopped back onto the bus and got off at the Kilmainham Gaol, which was an incredible experience in the hands of an excellent tour guide. Visiting here gave us a good sense of the civil strife that has plagued recent Irish history, from the late 1700s through the early 20th Century. Perhaps what struck me most were the stories of the children jailed here for stealing food during the Famine of the 1840s and 50s. Another thing that struck me was that the main room of cells (see image) was designed so that the jailers could hear a pin drop. In later years, this main room has been used for musical concerts because the acoustics are so good.
We left the Gaol and hopped back on the bus, which took us to the north side of the city center. We almost went to the Jameson Distillery and the nearby St. Michan's Church (with mummified remains on display in the crypt!), but we moved along, passing through the Henry Street shopping district on our way to see the world's first maternity hospital as well as the Garden of Remembrance, a memorial to Irish insurgents across the centuries.
We strolled down O'Connell St with its Georgian facades to the General Post Office, where we got to read the Proclamation of the Republic, which Patrick Pearse read to a crowd of people outside of the post office in 1916.
Pausing for pictures as we headed our way south (about 6 PM by this point), we trekked to our hotel in about 25 minutes.
We took a delicious bath in a very long, skinny bathtub with lava-hot water. I painted my face anew, and we felt so fresh that we decided to go to the Bleeding Horse pub next door to our hotel. There, I had a chicken soup with wheaten bread (I would do soup and bread daily for the remainder of the trip), and Jason had a plate of fish and chips that he found scrumptious.
Then, we returned to our room and passed out.
Monday, May 11, 2009
On Day 2, we slept till about 9:40, and then went downstairs for breakfast. It was an excellent array of fruits, yogurt, eggs, sausages, and breadstuffs. They had these toaster ovens with a little wire conveyor belt that dropped the bread to the rear somehow. Having never used one before, I deigned to use it on this occasion. Jason, however, jumped right in with this device and got a scone stuck in it. An Englishman witnessed this horror, and was retelling the tale to his wife: Some American bloke got a scone stuck in the toaster!
It was at this breakfast that I became an eater of fried eggs.
I cannot exactly recall what we did on this day. We had lunch at an 811-year-old pub: the Brazen Head, established in 1198. I had soup and wheaten bread again!
Oh, and we visited Christ Church Cathedral, which was begun in 1038 by King Sitric Silkenbeard (love the name!). I loved the floors in this church, as you will see in my slideshow available at the top of this post. The crypt was kind of neat. Apparently, they used to hold market down there. On display, we got to see the mummified cat and mouse that James Joyce speaks of in Finnegan's Wake:
"...As stuck as that cat to that mouse in that tube of that Christchurch organ..."
what remains?
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