Here’s how it went down for us. Friday evening our plane took off from Boston
at about 6:45 PM. I watched a couple of
movies on the TV in the back of the seat in front of me, did some knitting, ate
dinner, and basically had a nice 5 hours on the plane.
Nice is relative, of course.
Economy class still means no legroom, even if you’re flying on an
international carrier.
Then the flight landed at 5:10 AM, Dublin time. Which is 12:10 AM, Rhode Island time. Which is usually when I’m maybe starting to
think about going to bed on a standard Friday night.
Instead. We got off the plane, got our rental car and took
off for Dublin city center. Where, of
course, nothing was open yet because it was only 6:30 in the morning. We had downloaded Rick Steves’ Ireland 2012 on the recommendation of a friend, so we
spent a little time looking at the Dublin section to see what to do.
(By the way, Rick will be making further appearances in this
travelogue. I highly recommend his
guidebook.)
I think Jason was a little disappointed with me during our trip because I didn't have much clearly in mind that I wanted to do while we were there. See, I’ve always wanted to come to
Ireland (I have Irish all over my family). Honestly, though, I
didn't know much about Ireland, other than scenes from movies, or the fact that I
love the lilting rhythm of an Irish accent.
So the whole trip was kind of like seeing a really great movie without having
heard any buzz about it already, which happens very rarely. I had no expectations other than,
“Yay! We’re in Ireland!” The fact that everything we experienced was fun and so Irish and breathtaking and sweet and lovely was just
icing on my already-excited-to-be-in-Ireland cake.
Anyway, back to a dark morning in Dublin. First off, we decided not to lug the camera
around so there aren’t any pictures of us in Dublin, sadly. But I’ll link to the places we went. Our first order of business was getting
breakfast. We found a pub with a sign
that said they served breakfast starting at 7 AM, but it turned out the sign
lied, and breakfast didn’t start until 7:30.
So we wandered aimlessly around the area of the city north of the river, until we
found a cafeteria with 4 breakfast items + toast + tea for 4.95 Euro. Lovely!
I ate a big pile of mushrooms and sausage and black and white pudding and was full and content and
ready to tackle Dublin. Have I mentioned
how much I love Irish/English breakfasts?
Because I do.
We wandered down the streets full of shops, then down a
street with a ton of big statues, ending with one named O’Connell, who we found
out later was kind of a big deal, and across the river to the Tourist
Information center, or TI. We grabbed a pamphlet for an Irish music pub
crawl, with the thought of going later that evening.
We walked down Grafton Street, with Jason remarking the
whole time about how deserted it was.
When we came back a few hours later, I realized why he was so
amazed. It is hopping midday on a
Saturday!
Jason took me to St. Stephen’s Green, which I love. It’s a big garden park in the middle of the
busy Dublin city center. Even though
there weren’t any flowers blooming in late October, there were lovely trees changing
color. Also, there was a big pond full of
hundreds of ducks and a group of swans and a bunch of these weird little black
birds that the Irish lady I asked said are “water hens. At least that’s what my father always called
them. I’m not sure if that’s what
they’re really called.” (Imagine that said in a lovely Irish accent.)
I could spend hours watching ducks. Well maybe not hours, but awhile. They are hilarious and they kept quacking at
each other. Then the swans would float
majestically by, looking down their beaks at the squabbling ducks.
Also, remember, the sleep deprivation was starting to set in
at this point.
After St. Stephens Green we went to the Trinity College Library to see The Book of Kells. The
displays were all really interesting and informative. There are also a bunch of other very old
texts there in addition to the Book of Kells.
At the end, they shuffle everyone into the Old Library, which contains
thousands of old, old books and is very long with a rounded wooden roof that is
beautiful.
Then we went to check out the Cathedrals. The exteriors, at least. Our first stop was St. Patrick’s Cathedral,
which wasn’t open due to a graduation ceremony taking place. Still, it was fun to see the outside, and the
little park next to it. Then we walked
over to Christ Church Cathedral. We
looked at their schedule and made note of an Evensong service later that
day. Because, as we learned in England
last summer, if you go to a service, you get into the cathedral for free! Such a deal when Westminster Abbey and St.
Paul’s in London are each something like 16 Pounds, just to get in.
We made the mistake of walking around the Christ Church
grounds and having a seat at a nice table next to a snack shop. The sun was shining so nice and warm and we
both started dozing off, to the great amusement of a man sitting at the table
next to us.
Have to stay awake!
Have to get used to time change and not lose chance to explore Dublin!
We decided to get some lunch and wound up wandering back to
Grafton Street, which at this point was bustling. Grafton Street is the place to be, with lots
of shops and restaurants and street performers, not to mention the many people
walking up and down the street taking this all in. The energy in the crowd perked me up a bit,
but I was getting hungry again. We
walked around in circles for awhile and wound up in this nondescript pub on
Grafton Street with terrible service. However,
the chicken and mushroom pie I had was quite tasty, so that’s good.
The next stop was the National Museum of Ireland, which
is FREE, everyone! Rick Steves talked it
up, and Jason suggested we go there. It
was fascinating. Remember, I know
nothing about Ireland. For some reason,
all of the European history classes I’ve taken never really talked about
it. I can tell you all about the Tudors
in England, but nothing about what was happening contemporaneously in Ireland.
Turns out, quite a lot. I mean, I knew England did its whole colonizing thing with
Ireland, but I learned so much about Irish history on this trip. For instance, did you know that there have been people here,
building things, for over 5000 years? More
about that in my next post, but, really, fascinating!
I think some of the most interesting exhibits in the museum
had to do with what has been found in the bogs.
Seriously, it’s kind of unreal.
There’s this whole weird bog thing going on in Ireland where stuff is
thrown in and preserved incredibly well for hundreds and thousands of
years. Gold jewelry, tools, animal skin
clothes, books AND bodies, or pieces of bodies, with hair and eyelashes intact, as
well as the contents of the stomach. So
this guy was hit over the head with something hard and thrown in the bog, and,
oh, by the way, he had oatmeal for breakfast.
Crazy!
While we explored the museum, the tiredness was seriously kicking
in. I had to keep sitting down in the
museum because my back and my feet were aching.
Then I’d almost fall asleep sitting there. At that point it was probably about 3 PM and I
had been up for about 34 hours. As we
finished up in the museum, I told Jason, I think it’s time to find our hotel.
No Evensong service.
No pub crawl. Just, please, a
bed.
So we walked back to the car, which was a couple of miles
away at this point, and drove to the hotel, only to be told that some of their
rooms had damage to them so we weren't actually staying at that hotel, but at a different hotel a few miles away.
O…k…
The second hotel was fine, if not quite as nice as the first
one looked. It was right next to the
Aviva Stadium where rugby and soccer are played (and taken very seriously). I read some reviews of the hotel online and,
hilariously, one review talked about how the hotel was fine, but those
obnoxious rugby fans really ruined his time, while a second review talked about how perfect the hotel was for the rugby game and the after
parties.
We got to our room, I took out my contacts (in my eyes for
36 hours at this point) and fell asleep.
It was 5 PM. Then we woke up at
10 PM, stayed up until 2 AM and woke up at 8 AM the next morning, feeling much
more perky.
Saturday the 20th was actually Jason’s and my 5th
anniversary, which is why we went to Ireland in the first place. Celebration!
Our celebration on the actual day consisted of us saying “Happy anniversary” to each other
periodically throughout the day as we stumbled through Dublin in a sleepy haze.
It’s ok, though. It
got better.
