States I've visited
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Countries I've visited (The detail's not that great)
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Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Where have I been?
I thought this was neat:
States I've visited
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States I've visited
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Sunday, March 19, 2006
For anyone who likes very small things...
I'm sure there's some mental disorder characterized by an abnormal affinity towards little miniature sized things, but it's something I can live with. I just found the cutest website, where you can buy individual travel sized packages of almost everything under the sun, from mouthwash to cereal, salad dressing, soy sauce, Crystal Light, laundry detergent, toothpaste, etc. etc. etc. Adorable with a capital A :) http://www.minimus.biz
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Ireland trip report, Sunday
Our flight didn't leave until very late (around 8 p.m.) so we had the better part of the day to continue sightseeing. Our plan was to leave the luggage at the hotel so we could go hiking along the coast. The best laid plans......
So we got up, took showers, got dressed, and only then realized how FILTHY the room was. Seriously, there was actual dirt in the sheets, and all over the laptop we'd taken out the night before.....there was mildew in the bathroom, and the worst water pressure I've ever ever experienced. It would have been better if I had just had Mike run the sink, get a wet washcloth and wring it over my head.
We went downstairs and rang the bell to see about leaving our luggage. Again, no-one around. We left to find some breakfast. We did find a really cute little coffee shop that served full breakfasts with eggs, as well as French toast and other yummy delights. After pumping ourselves up with breakfast and coffee, we returned to the hotel. Tried again to find someone, but alas, apparently we were the only people in the whole building, or so it seemed. I waited downstairs while Mike went up to gather up our things. He found a cleaning lady (much to my surprise - see description of room above) who, not surprisingly, was from some Eastern European country and didn't speak fantastic english, and had no idea about whether we could leave our bags there. When the cleaning lady came downstairs to start vacuuming, suddenly about 4 people appeared to hang out with her while she did her work, but none of them seemed to work there. They seemed fairly bemused at the idea of the manager being anywhere to be found before mid afternoon. At this point I figure that if we left our stuff here this random gang of "the cleaning lady's friends" would probably be more than happy to take all of our things and sell them on the black market or something. I just wanted to get OUT of there.
So.......we went for a short walk along the pier in dun Laoghaire, then lugged our stuff back to the train station. Not surprisingly, the train frequency was even less on Sunday morning than it had been on Saturday evening. So of course, we wait. Train finally comes, and we head back to the train station in Dublin, since they have a "left luggage" service according to our map.
We get off the train in the station, follow the signs for left luggage, and end up at a bank of about 12 lockers. All full. You're not surprised, are you? I wasn't, at this point. I go to the information desk, ask if there is any other place we can leave our stuff. He says no, not really, maybe I could ask his friend who works at the bar. So I go to the bar and the girl who works there says, somewhat reluctantly, that she can't guarantee the safety of anything we leave there, but there is a second bar area that's not open to customers and if we want to leave our bags behind there they "should" be ok. At this point, we don't really feel like we have much choice, but we're dangerously close to just hopping on a bus back to the airport and sitting and reading for 8 hours........but we leave our bags. And then - surprise - wait for 20-30 minutes for the NEXT train to take us back to where we started.
We got off in Dalkey, actually, which was an adorable little town, with a cute little town center with a couple of castles, and several pubs, shops, and restaurants. Of course, no cute shops open on Sunday. We stopped and had a pint to boost our spirits. Then we took a really nice walk along the coast south to Killiney. It was really neat; some of the steep hillsides and their villas had a very Mediterranean feel, while looking out at the fishermen and the island with sheep and castle ruins felt very Irish. There were a ton of people out walking with their kids and their dogs on some really nice paths with great views of Dublin bay. We climbed up to the top of a hill with really nice views, then clambered down and walked into Killiney. We stopped at a pub called the Druids Chair, which seemed to be very popular. The only food they had was toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, but it was way past our lunchtime and I had no idea if there were any other food options in Killiney (we had already found out the night before that there weren't any lodgings, I wouldn't have been surprised if there was no food either) So we had our toasted sandwiches and our cider and guinness and people-watched. Not so much craic here, at least not for foreigners like us. We weren't sure how far we were from the train station, so we set off walking. Made it to the station, then - surprise - waited for 45 minutes for the DART, which took us back to Dublin where we picked up our luggage, safe and sound, and went off to find the bus that would take us to the airport. Once we got to the airport, we met up with the sister of a Brussels friend who was sending St Paddy's day paraphernilia back to Belgium with us, and enjoyed a leisurely food court dinner of Pizza from Sbarro before doing some last minute shopping at the gift shop and somehow ending up running to catch our plane.
I hope Mike enjoyed his birthday trip as much as I enjoyed mine!
So we got up, took showers, got dressed, and only then realized how FILTHY the room was. Seriously, there was actual dirt in the sheets, and all over the laptop we'd taken out the night before.....there was mildew in the bathroom, and the worst water pressure I've ever ever experienced. It would have been better if I had just had Mike run the sink, get a wet washcloth and wring it over my head.
We went downstairs and rang the bell to see about leaving our luggage. Again, no-one around. We left to find some breakfast. We did find a really cute little coffee shop that served full breakfasts with eggs, as well as French toast and other yummy delights. After pumping ourselves up with breakfast and coffee, we returned to the hotel. Tried again to find someone, but alas, apparently we were the only people in the whole building, or so it seemed. I waited downstairs while Mike went up to gather up our things. He found a cleaning lady (much to my surprise - see description of room above) who, not surprisingly, was from some Eastern European country and didn't speak fantastic english, and had no idea about whether we could leave our bags there. When the cleaning lady came downstairs to start vacuuming, suddenly about 4 people appeared to hang out with her while she did her work, but none of them seemed to work there. They seemed fairly bemused at the idea of the manager being anywhere to be found before mid afternoon. At this point I figure that if we left our stuff here this random gang of "the cleaning lady's friends" would probably be more than happy to take all of our things and sell them on the black market or something. I just wanted to get OUT of there.
So.......we went for a short walk along the pier in dun Laoghaire, then lugged our stuff back to the train station. Not surprisingly, the train frequency was even less on Sunday morning than it had been on Saturday evening. So of course, we wait. Train finally comes, and we head back to the train station in Dublin, since they have a "left luggage" service according to our map.
We get off the train in the station, follow the signs for left luggage, and end up at a bank of about 12 lockers. All full. You're not surprised, are you? I wasn't, at this point. I go to the information desk, ask if there is any other place we can leave our stuff. He says no, not really, maybe I could ask his friend who works at the bar. So I go to the bar and the girl who works there says, somewhat reluctantly, that she can't guarantee the safety of anything we leave there, but there is a second bar area that's not open to customers and if we want to leave our bags behind there they "should" be ok. At this point, we don't really feel like we have much choice, but we're dangerously close to just hopping on a bus back to the airport and sitting and reading for 8 hours........but we leave our bags. And then - surprise - wait for 20-30 minutes for the NEXT train to take us back to where we started.
We got off in Dalkey, actually, which was an adorable little town, with a cute little town center with a couple of castles, and several pubs, shops, and restaurants. Of course, no cute shops open on Sunday. We stopped and had a pint to boost our spirits. Then we took a really nice walk along the coast south to Killiney. It was really neat; some of the steep hillsides and their villas had a very Mediterranean feel, while looking out at the fishermen and the island with sheep and castle ruins felt very Irish. There were a ton of people out walking with their kids and their dogs on some really nice paths with great views of Dublin bay. We climbed up to the top of a hill with really nice views, then clambered down and walked into Killiney. We stopped at a pub called the Druids Chair, which seemed to be very popular. The only food they had was toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, but it was way past our lunchtime and I had no idea if there were any other food options in Killiney (we had already found out the night before that there weren't any lodgings, I wouldn't have been surprised if there was no food either) So we had our toasted sandwiches and our cider and guinness and people-watched. Not so much craic here, at least not for foreigners like us. We weren't sure how far we were from the train station, so we set off walking. Made it to the station, then - surprise - waited for 45 minutes for the DART, which took us back to Dublin where we picked up our luggage, safe and sound, and went off to find the bus that would take us to the airport. Once we got to the airport, we met up with the sister of a Brussels friend who was sending St Paddy's day paraphernilia back to Belgium with us, and enjoyed a leisurely food court dinner of Pizza from Sbarro before doing some last minute shopping at the gift shop and somehow ending up running to catch our plane.
I hope Mike enjoyed his birthday trip as much as I enjoyed mine!
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Ireland trip report, Saturday
Saturday was one of those days that we sort of thought "where did THAT day go?" which I always forget to factor in when planning. We got up and enjoyed a nice Irish breakfast in the downstairs pub; we were quite alone because all the other guests were part of the hen party from the night before and I can only presume they were sleeping off their hangover. We only saw a couple of them before we left. We headed straight to the train station and headed back to Dublin.
We arrived in the early afternoon and since we were very close, we decided to put our luggage in storage and walk over to the Kilmainham Gaol. It was a very interesting guided tour, because the jail was in the center of some of the biggest events in Irish history. After the 1916 rebellion (the Easter Rising) in Dublin, many leaders of the rebellion were jailed here and several were executed. The public response to the treatment of these prisoners really changed the sentiment of the general public and led to the development of Ireland as it's own country. There's a really nice museum in the jail as well, with several artifacts and exhibits regarding Irish history and freedom and ethics worldwide.
Unfortunately there's not much else around there. (well there is a big museum but we weren't in the mood for a museum.) So we walked back to the train station and had a sandwich for lunch, then took the light rail to another train station where we could catch the DART out of town.
Unfortunately, we hadn't planned on the fact that as the day got later, the frequency of the DART trains got less and less. So we just barely missed one, and then had to hang out for about an hour before the next one. THEN we happened to hit a particular train station right when the Ireland v. Scotland rugby match was letting out, and so we just sat on the tracks for almost half an hour. It was raining, but we were able to see some of the beautiful scenery south of Dublin, and we were excited about checking it out, but by this time it was like 7:00 at night and so we were just looking for a place to sleep. The main area we wanted to see in the morning was the area between Dalkey and Killiney, and the places I'd seen on the internet in Dalkey were really expensive, so we got off in Killiney, only to find out that there wasn't SQUAT in the way of B&Bs or hotels in Killiney. Mind you, we had just gotten off the now-only-hourly-or-even-less-frequent DART train. So we had to decide whether to go further south to Bray, or backtrack and go back towards Dublin. I was worried about finding accomodation the closer we got to Dublin because of this giant rugby game, but the train going back that was was coming sooner (mind you, we still had to wait half an hour or so). So, we waited in the cold for the train to come, and we took it back up to Dun Laoghaire. By this time it's almost 9 p.m., it's freezing cold, raining, windy, and I'm more than a little cranky. And of course I have some names and addresses of a couple of places but no phone numbers. So, we start walking up into the town from the train station, and we stop at the first place that says "hotel" and doesn't say "no vacancy." We head into the downstairs pub and I proceed to wait for like 20 minutes for someone to come to the hotel desk. (Yes, I took that as a bad sign but what are you going to do? :)) We got the keys to a room for 80 euros, which didn't include breakfast. Took our stuff up to the room and tried to get something to eat in the pub, but the kitchen was closed. At least the bartender was nice enough to recommend a place a few blocks away that had good food. We went off walking in the rain to finally get some dinner (and it was good, too), and we of course had another Polish waitress. :) Headed back up to the room, collapsed into the bed and fell asleep despite the thudding of music from the partying downstairs. Long day.
We arrived in the early afternoon and since we were very close, we decided to put our luggage in storage and walk over to the Kilmainham Gaol. It was a very interesting guided tour, because the jail was in the center of some of the biggest events in Irish history. After the 1916 rebellion (the Easter Rising) in Dublin, many leaders of the rebellion were jailed here and several were executed. The public response to the treatment of these prisoners really changed the sentiment of the general public and led to the development of Ireland as it's own country. There's a really nice museum in the jail as well, with several artifacts and exhibits regarding Irish history and freedom and ethics worldwide.
Unfortunately there's not much else around there. (well there is a big museum but we weren't in the mood for a museum.) So we walked back to the train station and had a sandwich for lunch, then took the light rail to another train station where we could catch the DART out of town.
Unfortunately, we hadn't planned on the fact that as the day got later, the frequency of the DART trains got less and less. So we just barely missed one, and then had to hang out for about an hour before the next one. THEN we happened to hit a particular train station right when the Ireland v. Scotland rugby match was letting out, and so we just sat on the tracks for almost half an hour. It was raining, but we were able to see some of the beautiful scenery south of Dublin, and we were excited about checking it out, but by this time it was like 7:00 at night and so we were just looking for a place to sleep. The main area we wanted to see in the morning was the area between Dalkey and Killiney, and the places I'd seen on the internet in Dalkey were really expensive, so we got off in Killiney, only to find out that there wasn't SQUAT in the way of B&Bs or hotels in Killiney. Mind you, we had just gotten off the now-only-hourly-or-even-less-frequent DART train. So we had to decide whether to go further south to Bray, or backtrack and go back towards Dublin. I was worried about finding accomodation the closer we got to Dublin because of this giant rugby game, but the train going back that was was coming sooner (mind you, we still had to wait half an hour or so). So, we waited in the cold for the train to come, and we took it back up to Dun Laoghaire. By this time it's almost 9 p.m., it's freezing cold, raining, windy, and I'm more than a little cranky. And of course I have some names and addresses of a couple of places but no phone numbers. So, we start walking up into the town from the train station, and we stop at the first place that says "hotel" and doesn't say "no vacancy." We head into the downstairs pub and I proceed to wait for like 20 minutes for someone to come to the hotel desk. (Yes, I took that as a bad sign but what are you going to do? :)) We got the keys to a room for 80 euros, which didn't include breakfast. Took our stuff up to the room and tried to get something to eat in the pub, but the kitchen was closed. At least the bartender was nice enough to recommend a place a few blocks away that had good food. We went off walking in the rain to finally get some dinner (and it was good, too), and we of course had another Polish waitress. :) Headed back up to the room, collapsed into the bed and fell asleep despite the thudding of music from the partying downstairs. Long day.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Ireland trip report, Friday
Friday, 10 March 2006
We woke up on Friday morning, ate breakfast and checked out of our hotel. (Oh, and the toilet broke in the middle of the night, which was annoying.) The front desk person said that the train station, our next stop, was too far to walk with luggage. Our initial plan was to get back on the tourist bus and ride it around town to the train station, but the bus was taking a really long time to show up, and the line of tourists for the bus was getting longer and longer. I was worried that we would continue waiting, and then the bus wouldn't let us on with our luggage, or we would miss our train. So we decided to take another cab. This cabbie wasn't quite so chatty. I think he was Romanian or something.
Immigration in Ireland
Which brings me to my next interesting observation about Ireland. Apparently, when several eastern European/former Soviet nations joined the EU a couple years ago, Ireland was one of just a couple of countries that allowed residents of these countries to come work without a visa. The result has been a huge influx of immigrants from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc. They are ever-present in the service industry especially, working in hotels, restaurats, etc. Sometimes we had a harder time communicating and asking questions than we do in Belgium or France!! Not sure if this is going to be good or bad for Ireland; we very frequently heard native Dubliners lamenting about how different the town is from just a few years ago. Most people weren't overtly prejudicial but it seemed to be only thinly veiled. Just some interesting dynamics that don't really show up in the tour books.....
Kilkenny
Anyway, we went to the train station and bought tickets to Kilkenny, a small, medieval town a couple hours south of Dublin. The tickets were about 25 euros for a round trip. The train wasn't particularly comfortable, but it could have been worse. Mike finally got to see a couple of sheep from the train, which was nice :) It was lamb season, I couldn't get enough of the bouncy, pouncy little baby sheep, they crack me up! We walked from the train station to the center of the little town, found a pub with a B&B upstairs (The Rafter Dempsey's - have no clue what the heck that name is supposed to mean) and had a fish and chips lunch. The room wasn't cheap (40 euros per pers0n) but it was very clean, fairly quiet, with a decent private bathroom. We unloaded our stuff. Then, off to the castle.
Kilkenny Castle is a nice Medieval castle dating from about the 13th century. Fairly extensively remodeled in the 1800's and again during the 20th century. Excavations still go on now, uncovering stuff from the original wooden castle from the 12th century and maybe even earlier.
It was a castle. Eh. Nice way to spend an hour or so; plus, apparently Fridays in March the castle's free! Which made it a lot nicer. There are only tours once every hour, so we had some waiting time to wander around the grounds, and check out the Kilkenny Design Center across the streets in the old castle stables. They have high quality Irish crafts and gifts (books, pottery, jewelry, music, sweaters, soap, all kinds of stuff). Fun for me, not so fun for Mike.
Then we walked across town to see the other "big" sight in Kilkenny, which is St. Canice's Cathedral. somehow, in this tiny little town, we got lost, but it didn't really matter because when we got to the cathedral it was closed and had been closed for a while (darned off season hours). But I got some nice pictures of the cemetary and the exterior of the church and the "round tower."
Not sure what the big deal is with the "round towers," they're really old and all over Ireland. I don't know if they just stand up to the test of time longer than other buildings because they're not sued as much, or maybe it's the structure, not sure. This one is from about 1100.
I really liked spending time walking around the town itself. The old town center is very very well kept up, buildings painted really cutely....all sorts of really quaint pubs. We stopped in a couple of them on the way back from the cathedral. The Anna Conda (cute name eh?) was really neat looking, but it was totally dead (then again, it WAS only like 5:30.) the bartender, however, was very friendly and suggested I try some black currant in my Strongbow cider. Not bad at all. Then we went to another place, Kyteler's Inn. Very old building, used to belong to a witch they say.....fantastic atmosphere but *zero* craic. We had a couple of drinks, then took off.
We had a nice dinner in a fairly expensive kinda-French restaurant, I think it was called del Sol...we had the menu which included a bottle of wine and it wasn't too bad. Service a bit slow, and it was odd that nobody spoke excellent english in this little restaurant in a little Irish town.(the two people we encountered who worked there were a French man and a Polish girl) It was a sweet quaint little place.
After dinner, we headed back to the pub where we were staying. It was karaoke night, and there was a big bachelorette party from Dublin (They call them "Hen Nights" over here). Apparently they're not allowed in Dublin so everyone always takes the train out to some other town for them. It's big business. Carrie sang "Crazy" by Patsy Cline, and we turned in.
We woke up on Friday morning, ate breakfast and checked out of our hotel. (Oh, and the toilet broke in the middle of the night, which was annoying.) The front desk person said that the train station, our next stop, was too far to walk with luggage. Our initial plan was to get back on the tourist bus and ride it around town to the train station, but the bus was taking a really long time to show up, and the line of tourists for the bus was getting longer and longer. I was worried that we would continue waiting, and then the bus wouldn't let us on with our luggage, or we would miss our train. So we decided to take another cab. This cabbie wasn't quite so chatty. I think he was Romanian or something.
Immigration in Ireland
Which brings me to my next interesting observation about Ireland. Apparently, when several eastern European/former Soviet nations joined the EU a couple years ago, Ireland was one of just a couple of countries that allowed residents of these countries to come work without a visa. The result has been a huge influx of immigrants from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc. They are ever-present in the service industry especially, working in hotels, restaurats, etc. Sometimes we had a harder time communicating and asking questions than we do in Belgium or France!! Not sure if this is going to be good or bad for Ireland; we very frequently heard native Dubliners lamenting about how different the town is from just a few years ago. Most people weren't overtly prejudicial but it seemed to be only thinly veiled. Just some interesting dynamics that don't really show up in the tour books.....
Kilkenny
Anyway, we went to the train station and bought tickets to Kilkenny, a small, medieval town a couple hours south of Dublin. The tickets were about 25 euros for a round trip. The train wasn't particularly comfortable, but it could have been worse. Mike finally got to see a couple of sheep from the train, which was nice :) It was lamb season, I couldn't get enough of the bouncy, pouncy little baby sheep, they crack me up! We walked from the train station to the center of the little town, found a pub with a B&B upstairs (The Rafter Dempsey's - have no clue what the heck that name is supposed to mean) and had a fish and chips lunch. The room wasn't cheap (40 euros per pers0n) but it was very clean, fairly quiet, with a decent private bathroom. We unloaded our stuff. Then, off to the castle.
Kilkenny Castle is a nice Medieval castle dating from about the 13th century. Fairly extensively remodeled in the 1800's and again during the 20th century. Excavations still go on now, uncovering stuff from the original wooden castle from the 12th century and maybe even earlier.
It was a castle. Eh. Nice way to spend an hour or so; plus, apparently Fridays in March the castle's free! Which made it a lot nicer. There are only tours once every hour, so we had some waiting time to wander around the grounds, and check out the Kilkenny Design Center across the streets in the old castle stables. They have high quality Irish crafts and gifts (books, pottery, jewelry, music, sweaters, soap, all kinds of stuff). Fun for me, not so fun for Mike.
Then we walked across town to see the other "big" sight in Kilkenny, which is St. Canice's Cathedral. somehow, in this tiny little town, we got lost, but it didn't really matter because when we got to the cathedral it was closed and had been closed for a while (darned off season hours). But I got some nice pictures of the cemetary and the exterior of the church and the "round tower."
Not sure what the big deal is with the "round towers," they're really old and all over Ireland. I don't know if they just stand up to the test of time longer than other buildings because they're not sued as much, or maybe it's the structure, not sure. This one is from about 1100.
I really liked spending time walking around the town itself. The old town center is very very well kept up, buildings painted really cutely....all sorts of really quaint pubs. We stopped in a couple of them on the way back from the cathedral. The Anna Conda (cute name eh?) was really neat looking, but it was totally dead (then again, it WAS only like 5:30.) the bartender, however, was very friendly and suggested I try some black currant in my Strongbow cider. Not bad at all. Then we went to another place, Kyteler's Inn. Very old building, used to belong to a witch they say.....fantastic atmosphere but *zero* craic. We had a couple of drinks, then took off.
We had a nice dinner in a fairly expensive kinda-French restaurant, I think it was called del Sol...we had the menu which included a bottle of wine and it wasn't too bad. Service a bit slow, and it was odd that nobody spoke excellent english in this little restaurant in a little Irish town.(the two people we encountered who worked there were a French man and a Polish girl) It was a sweet quaint little place.
After dinner, we headed back to the pub where we were staying. It was karaoke night, and there was a big bachelorette party from Dublin (They call them "Hen Nights" over here). Apparently they're not allowed in Dublin so everyone always takes the train out to some other town for them. It's big business. Carrie sang "Crazy" by Patsy Cline, and we turned in.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Ireland trip report, Weds & Thurs
Oops, not being very good about updating. But nothing really exciting has happened in the last month or so. February was certainly the most boring/uneventful month since we've moved here. So Mike's birthday was last Wednesday, 8 March (The big 3-0!!) and we spirited off for a short trip to Dublin.
Wednesday, March 8
Flew into Dublin, arrived around 7:30 p.m. Took the Airlink bus to O'Connell St (5 euros), and walked to our hotel, Cassidy's Hotel. This is in central Dublin, across the street from the Gate theater at the top of O'Connell Street. The hotel lobby was really nice (much nicer than we needed,) with a bar, restaurant, nice fancy reception area, and elevator. The upstairs was a bit more tired, as was the room, but it was clean, and acceptable. We groaned to think of how much extra we were paying for the room service when we noticed the menu!! But I had gotten nervous about finding a place for our first couple nights because the first several places I checked had no availability, and pretty much nobody had rooms available in central Dublin for the weekend, so I freaked and got the first thing I could find for the first couple nights.
The area was safe and very lively, so it was a fairly easy place to catch busses, get food, find a bar, etc. Not really *far* from major attractions, but a bit of a hike. I would choose to stay on the south side of the river by St. Stephens Green next time, I think. I thought it was odd that with mixed reviews on Tripadvisor, the overriding comment was "great location!" and I thought that the location was its major downside! *shrug* Different strokes......
Anyway, after we checked in, we started walking to an area around the 4 Courts towards a couple of music pubs that had been recommended to us. The first, M. Hughes, was really quiet (hey, it was Wednesday night,) and had zero craic (that means "good conversation and atmosphere, fun time" in Irish). So we headed over to Cobblestones, which had some fantastic music but unfortunately a TINY listening area with no room even to stand, let alone to stand, so we ended up hanging otu chatting with some Dublin guys on the back patio. We had a really nice time, shut the place down around 12:15. Then on our way back to the hotel we stopped at a bar by the hotel called Frazers, had a nice time chatting with an Aussie who now lives in Dublin, and an Irish girl who lived more than half of her life in Boston. Turned in very late, probably close to 2:30 a.m. Collapsed into bed for a good nights sleep. Happy Birthday Mike!
Thursday, March 9
Got up pretty late (hey, we were on holiday, er, vacation) but managed to throw some clothes on in time for breakfast (which ended at 11) which was very good because they replaced the traditional black and white pudding normally in an Irish breakfast with hash browns, and I certainly wasn't complaining. They had these yummy little sausage links, which I totally loved, because unfortunately one of the things I hate about Belgian food is that their sausage is all nasty and boudin-y. They also had scrambled eggs, baked beans, tomatoes, "bacon", as well as cereal, yogurt, fruit, etc. And they brought us some white toast and coffee/tea. Not bad. I was just happy to be in a place where they eat a real breakfast instead of a croissant with some coffee. One of the major non-negotiables in my food plan is having a very high protein breakfast and it's often a challenge when travelling in Italy, France, etc. Germany and Ireland so far are the best.
Anyway, we left our hotel and jumped on a Hop on/Hop off bus which drove us over to the area around Trinity College, St. Stevens Green, and the shopping areas. We were really enjoying ourselves, sitting up on the top of the bus but underneath the little "awning" in the front, when a big group of people got on and sat right behind us and were talking and laughing and I couldn't hear the commentary. I felt like a big nerd for being upset about it, but Mike suggested we get off and wait for another bus, so we did. We had noticed a Starbucks on the street so we went there and had our fix of cafe mochas and frappuccinos...
Walked backwards to St. Steven's Green and walked around for a while. The flowers were just starting to bloom and it was such a peaceful place to be right in the middle of the city. We went in because we were trying to find the "garden for the blind" that we had heard mentioned on the bus tour. We both giggled a little bit at the idea but we were intrigued. It was actually kind of neat, a little island that you walked around and it had plants that had interesting textures, and when some of them are blooming they have interesting scents as well.
Anyway, we then waited for the hop on bus for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time for a bus that was supposed to come every 10 minutes, finally got on it and headed further west. We passed some important castles and stuff, but my memory of that stuff is so bad. We got off at the Guinness Storehouse, one of the only "must sees" on Mike's list.
It was interesting enough; a quick lunch of sandwiches and chips was retardedly expensive but c'est la vie. Basically you pay however much (too much) and go around this kinda multimedia "experience" to learn about the Guinness company, how beer in general is made, what makes Guinness special, etc. Some of their attempts at "cool innovative interactive technology" were painfully lame (the "send a video postcard" thing took a picture that looked like it was taken with a 1991 web cam) but certain parts I thought were cool, including
Wednesday, March 8
Flew into Dublin, arrived around 7:30 p.m. Took the Airlink bus to O'Connell St (5 euros), and walked to our hotel, Cassidy's Hotel. This is in central Dublin, across the street from the Gate theater at the top of O'Connell Street. The hotel lobby was really nice (much nicer than we needed,) with a bar, restaurant, nice fancy reception area, and elevator. The upstairs was a bit more tired, as was the room, but it was clean, and acceptable. We groaned to think of how much extra we were paying for the room service when we noticed the menu!! But I had gotten nervous about finding a place for our first couple nights because the first several places I checked had no availability, and pretty much nobody had rooms available in central Dublin for the weekend, so I freaked and got the first thing I could find for the first couple nights.
The area was safe and very lively, so it was a fairly easy place to catch busses, get food, find a bar, etc. Not really *far* from major attractions, but a bit of a hike. I would choose to stay on the south side of the river by St. Stephens Green next time, I think. I thought it was odd that with mixed reviews on Tripadvisor, the overriding comment was "great location!" and I thought that the location was its major downside! *shrug* Different strokes......
Anyway, after we checked in, we started walking to an area around the 4 Courts towards a couple of music pubs that had been recommended to us. The first, M. Hughes, was really quiet (hey, it was Wednesday night,) and had zero craic (that means "good conversation and atmosphere, fun time" in Irish). So we headed over to Cobblestones, which had some fantastic music but unfortunately a TINY listening area with no room even to stand, let alone to stand, so we ended up hanging otu chatting with some Dublin guys on the back patio. We had a really nice time, shut the place down around 12:15. Then on our way back to the hotel we stopped at a bar by the hotel called Frazers, had a nice time chatting with an Aussie who now lives in Dublin, and an Irish girl who lived more than half of her life in Boston. Turned in very late, probably close to 2:30 a.m. Collapsed into bed for a good nights sleep. Happy Birthday Mike!
Thursday, March 9
Got up pretty late (hey, we were on holiday, er, vacation) but managed to throw some clothes on in time for breakfast (which ended at 11) which was very good because they replaced the traditional black and white pudding normally in an Irish breakfast with hash browns, and I certainly wasn't complaining. They had these yummy little sausage links, which I totally loved, because unfortunately one of the things I hate about Belgian food is that their sausage is all nasty and boudin-y. They also had scrambled eggs, baked beans, tomatoes, "bacon", as well as cereal, yogurt, fruit, etc. And they brought us some white toast and coffee/tea. Not bad. I was just happy to be in a place where they eat a real breakfast instead of a croissant with some coffee. One of the major non-negotiables in my food plan is having a very high protein breakfast and it's often a challenge when travelling in Italy, France, etc. Germany and Ireland so far are the best.
Anyway, we left our hotel and jumped on a Hop on/Hop off bus which drove us over to the area around Trinity College, St. Stevens Green, and the shopping areas. We were really enjoying ourselves, sitting up on the top of the bus but underneath the little "awning" in the front, when a big group of people got on and sat right behind us and were talking and laughing and I couldn't hear the commentary. I felt like a big nerd for being upset about it, but Mike suggested we get off and wait for another bus, so we did. We had noticed a Starbucks on the street so we went there and had our fix of cafe mochas and frappuccinos...
Walked backwards to St. Steven's Green and walked around for a while. The flowers were just starting to bloom and it was such a peaceful place to be right in the middle of the city. We went in because we were trying to find the "garden for the blind" that we had heard mentioned on the bus tour. We both giggled a little bit at the idea but we were intrigued. It was actually kind of neat, a little island that you walked around and it had plants that had interesting textures, and when some of them are blooming they have interesting scents as well.
Anyway, we then waited for the hop on bus for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time for a bus that was supposed to come every 10 minutes, finally got on it and headed further west. We passed some important castles and stuff, but my memory of that stuff is so bad. We got off at the Guinness Storehouse, one of the only "must sees" on Mike's list.
It was interesting enough; a quick lunch of sandwiches and chips was retardedly expensive but c'est la vie. Basically you pay however much (too much) and go around this kinda multimedia "experience" to learn about the Guinness company, how beer in general is made, what makes Guinness special, etc. Some of their attempts at "cool innovative interactive technology" were painfully lame (the "send a video postcard" thing took a picture that looked like it was taken with a 1991 web cam) but certain parts I thought were cool, including
- The "tasting lab" where you got to taste regular Irish Guinness and a couple of different types of Guinness that are the predominant type sold in other places in the world. One of them is more bitter, more the "original" recipe, and one of them is actually *carbonated* so it tastes like Guinness flavored soda.
- The exhibit of advertising memorabilia which also included an extensive collection of TV ads and some background information on the artist who drew all of the animal ads in the past. (John Gilroy) Had some original sketches, etc.
- The kind of cute paperweight thingy they give you as your "admission ticket" as well as your "free parting gift" which consists of a piece of plexiglass/plastic with about 1 mL of Guinness in it in a little air bubble.
- The "Gravity Bar" at the top with a complete view over Dublin with markings on the map of what exactly you're seeing on the skyline (monuments, buildings, etc). It was way too crowded though. But you do get a pint with your admission to the um, museum?
Anyway, we stayed there for a couple of hours, just in time to miss the last Hop on Hop off bus of the day which was around 5. We headed to the bus stop to get back to our hotel in time to get our jackets and directions to the meeting place for our ghost tour that we'd reserved for that evening at 7.
A note about buses in Dublin. They are everywhere. And they are big. Seriously, at any point if you look down one a street you will see 1-2 bright yellow double decker buses every 40 feet or so. In addition, you have an almost equal number of Hop On/Hop off buses that are either Yellow, Red, or green/cream colore. It's almost comical. So, when we look at the schedule and see that a bus that goes to the street where our hotel is arrives every 10 minutes or so, we're happy to experience Dublin Public Transort up close and personal for a mere 90 cents or something. So we wait. And we wait. And about 3 buses pass us that are either not in service or are on a different route. And we wait. It is now about 6 o clock on a friday evening, traffic is not super great, and we're thinking we'd probably BE at our hotel if we'd just kept walking instead of stopping at the bus stop, but it was cold. And well we've waited so long, ok lets wait a little more. Finally we realize the futility of this exercise and we hail a taxi.
Taxi drivers in Ireland like to talk. At least, if they're Irish (more on that later). The cab driver starts chatting us up, and we tell him we need to get to our hotel and then back to the place where we think the tour starts by 7 and he tells us that we're SOL. Oh well, nevermind, we'll keep thinking positively. We get out near our hotel (rather than wait in traffic another 10 minutes to go the next half block), gladly pay the 7 euros or whatever, and run to the hotel. Luckily we needed our jackets because I was COMPLETELY wrong about where I thought the tour took place, but unfortunately the place where it DID start was about halfway between the Guinness storehouse and our hotel. Ok so we don't always have the most foresight. So, I call the contact number for the tour, tell him we'll be late, and he tells us where we can meet up with the group. We get another cab (this one has an equally chatty driver) and zip back to Dublin Castle to do this walking ghost tour that I've read such fabulous things about. We actually make it there only about 5 minutes late, but there's nobody there. So we are racing around the perimeter of this castle trying to find the street the contact guy told us to meet them on. We find it, behind the castle, but there's nobody there either. I think "ok if they're walking even faster than WE are, maybe this isn't the tour we wanna be on!" and I call the number again. He directs me to the guard shack at the castle and tells me to ask those guys where the group is, because they're probably not out of the castle grounds yet. So, we do that, find the group hanging out on the side of a hill, and everyone looks at us really strange. It's also a really big group (almost 30 people) which surprised me because it seemed like kind of a small outfit when I made the reservation. But we just ignore the stares and try to enjoy the storytelling. It soon becomes obvious that everyone on this tour besides Mike and me knows each other. The tour was cute enough, lasted about an hour and a half, took us into some dark alleyways and consisted of one guy who was the leader/storyteller and was supposed to be blind, and another guy who would show up in silly costumes acting out the part of someone in a story the blind guy had just told. It was ridiculously fake but it was supposed to be, and particularly after a spooky story about a legend of a monster haunting this one particular area who ripped people to pieces, when this guy comes running out in a furry suit with a pig head saying "Roar, Grrrr", I almost fell down laughing it was so silly. Ok so maybe you had to be there. It was certainly not a 5 star activity (which I think was also made worse by the fact that it was a HUGE group, and that they all had fun joking and laughing and telling inside jokes etc and then there was us...) BUT it was only 10 euros and I thought it was not a bad deal. Many many people recommended that we take this Ghost Bus tour instead, but 1. I had already reserved this other tour, and 2. the Ghost Bus is like 25 euros. But if you have the choice I can at least say that the bouncer and the cab driver independently told us that we should do the Ghost Bus.
The tour is called the Zozimus Experience, and again, you might want to give it a chance if you're in the area, particularly if the Ghost Bus is too rich for your blood or if you prefer walking to buses.
Strange, my most vivid memories of Ireland (and certainly the biggest laughs) are from things I never even saw, but people seemed to be so into! I guess ordinarily I think that people who actually live in places like Dublin just roll their eyes at stuff like the Guinness factory, etc, but it seemed like everyone we met was like "Oh hey, you're in Dublin? You should really check out the Ghost Bus tour!" It reminded me of when Katie and I were in Dingle, and *everyone* kept saying "Well, there's this Dolphin.....have you seen Fungie the Dolphin?.....you're going to Dingle, make sure and see the dolphin......You were in Dingle? Did you see Fungie the Dolphin.....? For the record, no i did not see Fungie the Dolphin, nor did I take the Ghost Bus tour, and I still loved both of my trips to Ireland. Go figure :) I did see an otter in Dingle and I figure next time we go I'll see a new statue of Bert the Otter......
Anyway, after the ghost tour we had fish and chips at this Dublin institution, Leo Burdock, which is actually just a take-out place but there was a really nice guy there who let us stand at the counter and eat our fish and chips and he showed us how to use the vinegar (the trick is, you break up the crust on the fish, and sort of use your fork to cut little slits in the meat and kinda half way through it, then put the vinegar in the little holes so that it soaks into the meat.) They have a silly-long list of celebrities who had eaten there; somehow I doubt we will make it onto the list.
Walked back towards our hotel, stopped in the same pub as the night before, where they were having karaoke but we were tired and they didn't have the songs I usually like to sing, so we headed back to the hotel and to bed around 12.
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