well we all made it back from dublin this weekend! it was a great trip, very relaxing, nice get-away, and ireland is a wonderful country... here's the low-down:
friday morning we upped and left in the am. not too early, not too late, just right. caught the train to the airport (stansted), and caught our flight around 11:30. another ryan air experience. very fun as usual, first come first serve on the seating, entering and exiting the plane from the tarmac... chaotic, yet entertaining and fun. we managed to all get our seats in a row, including a window seat, so we had a nice little flight. just an hour and half-ish to dublin airport, which is 20 mins outside of the city. it was really easy to get to the city center from the airport - we bought a 3 day bus pass, which came in handy on several instances, but never paid for itself, which was dissappointing.
got to the hotel friday early afternoon. unfortunately, we forgot to think about the fact that it was a bank holiday, meaning tons of places were closed, and no alcohol could be served either. so it was basically a day off from everything. so we ditched our luggage and started walking around the city. the city is really small, for a capital city. nothing is out of footwalking range, which was convenient. also the reason that we didn't use our bus pass enough.
we started out by walking in our area, which was north of the river. the main street is o'connol street, and it has lots of monuments and buildings and stores and stuff. here's o'connol as it crosses the river:
we crossed the river and went to the temple bar area, which is named after the one bar in this little area called temple bar. its kind of the marshall street-type area of dublin, with lots of bars pubs and restaurants. it attracts the younger generation, i would say. speaking of the younger generation, here's an interesting fact that might come in handy if you're ever on jeopardy: 46% of the population of dublin is under 25 yrs old. wild.
from temple bar we walked down to the christ church cathedrale, which is protestant. very nice architecutre, but i've been seeing alot of churches lately this semester, so this one didn't really seem much different than the rest.
next church was st. patrick's, which is also protestant. we kind of snuck into the church behind a tour group, and we thought we were breaking in without paying, but it turns out that they were just letting people in for free because it was about to close. it was interesting to see the inside, again not much different from other churches we've seen, but it was neet. this was apparently where st. valentine did something too. so, yea. the outside was cooler tho, there was a huge garden open tot he public outside the cathedrale. there were some kids doing drugs on the steps, and a nice family playing some soccer in the grassy area. near the fountain there was a family sitting, and the kids were barefoot int he fountain picking up loose change! unbelievable!
from there we walked up to grafton street, which is the huge shopping street. basically, kind of like oxford street in london. we didn't really stop and shop, we spent about 4 minutes realizing that it was just like london, so that was it.
we grabbed dinner at a little italian cafe, which looked pretty cheap, and since it was a meatless day, italian seemd like the best option. great tortollini, garli bread and salad, but i had a bloody nose at the end of dinner, so it put a bad memory in my head with the place. good food tho, great time.
then we completed our loop back up to temple bar again, where we stopped at the hard rock cafe, which we had heard so much about. we only stopped for dessert, because it was mad expensive, but it was a great hot fudge sundae. real whipped cream. mmm. the stuff on the walls was pretty cool. too.
at that point we all went back to the hotel for a little nap, this was about 7 oclock, but the nap turned into something 'uge so we ended up staying in all night and getting lots of rest. which was good because we got up really early for our traditional irish breakfast. the breakfast consisted mostly of meat - sausage (lots of varieties) and ham, and eggs. with tea, it was pretty sweet. free too, well, not free, but included. here's some random shots on the river, frm night and morning.
the weather was supposed to suck on saturday but it ended up being a beautiful day. our first stop was the kilmainham gaol (pronounced jail). we went via bus, because it was kind of outside the city. basically, its an old jail, it reminded me alot of alcatraz. it was pretty interesting because the weekend we picked to go there was more than just easter for the irish. in 1916 there was somewhat of an irish revolution, i think it was similar to when the french stormed the bastille, which has the same weight as independance day in the US. and it happened on easter monday 1916, so people celebrate it on easter. it was crazy, i guess. so not only was it the easter rising of 1916 day, but it was the 90th anniversary of that event. that ties into the jail because thats where the people involved int he rising were kept, and eventually executed. and today they are seen as heros and revolutionaries in irish culture. pretty cool stuff. here's the jail, the tour guide, the inside of the jail (which was used to film a couple of movies) and then a device used to keep people in jail from climbing the gutters, similar to something to keep squirells out of the bird feeder.
from the jail we went to another interesting part of irish culture - the guinness warehouse. the largest beer making brewery in the world. considered to be one of the best beers in the world. very unique, thats for sure. so its the biggest thing to do in dublin, and there was a line longer than the vatican to get in, but we waited. we had to, it was one of the cooler things to see in the city. so we waited and waited and finally got in. pretty sweet stuff - in terms of the design it was awesome. it was set up as a huge exhibit, with a great look and feel. absolutely loved it. and they gave you a sweet little map to go with it, which was also nicely designed. you know you're a designer when you're more interested in the design than the beer, but the beer wasn't bad. so the tour was awesome, they showed all how they make it and stuff, i took some barley from the huge container of it that was just chillin there, but i doubt i'll ever be able to make beer out of it. it was full of interesting little tidbits and stuff. they also gave away a little memory-souvenir thing, that was a plastic rock filled with a little bubble of guinness. its pretty cool. i hope it doesn't break in transit, because its only made of plastic. anyways, the tour comes with a free pint of guinness at the end, so that was a nice way to end it. courtney only had 1/4 of hers too, so it was my duty to finish that, so i got my moneys worth. the cool thing is that they have this bar at the end of the tour called the gravity bar which is 7 or 8 stories up or so, and there's an awesome view of the city from up there. so you go up and get your free pint and admire the views of the city.. pretty nice. here's some shots from the tour/exhibition...
when we finished there we took the bus back to the city and went to a place called the bad ass cafe. not bad ass like bad boy, but like bad mule. it was a clever little restaurant, with great deals on the early bird menu, so we lucked out there.
from there we went to the gift store called carrol's which is in the city. as opposed to buying souvenirs right at the guinness storehouse, its a little bit cheaper here. i ended up buying a souvenir t shirt from guinness thats kind of old school lookin and says "time for a pint." i find it quite humorous. anyways, it was a great day of touring the area.
after that we went home for a nap. our motto in dublin was to wake up early and check out the sites, and thn come back and take it easy and nap a little bit. when we finished napping we went out into the night, intending to go to a pub called mulligans. this place sounded cool because jfk allegedly ate there in 1947 when he was a journalist. but it was pretty sketchy looking so we ended up going to a place close by to our hotel called o'shea's, where there was live music going on. we took in the music and entertainment for a little while then went back and went to bed early again. random shots while out at night:
easter morning we woke up and got our breakfast, and then headed to church. we went to a place called st mary's pro cathedrale. it was a relatively new church, it looked like, and the mass was incredible. first of all, we got there really early because we figured it would be busy. not the case at all, infact it was empty until about 5 mins before hand, when it filled in with what i would call a regular crowd. no kidding: 40 minutes later we were out. shortest easter mass ever! it was crazy. but it was good.
so it was easter, and it was the whole easter rising 1916 anniversary day too, so there was a huuuge parade scheduled for sunday. the streets were all fenced off, and there were stands set up to sit people, and cameras everywhere - it was huge! it was just like july4th. it was an army parade tho, so it wasnt that exciting for us american tourists. we had other plans anyways - our goal was to go to the coast.
we took the train to a city about 20 minutes from dublin called bray. it reminded me alot of brighton. it was a coastal city, with a rock beach, and a boardwalk-type scene. reminded me of cape cod too, but it was awesome to get out of the city. to the south of the city there was a mountain on the sea, with cliffs and a walking path that we took, and it was a beautiful day. no noise from the city, it was awesome. the sky opened up and it was bright blue, and the water looked great, and the grass was lush, and the rocks looked great - it was just brilliant. we spent a while down there just hanging out and taking in the whole scenery. this was cool too because it was the first time all semester that a random person has said hello to us. we were just walking along the pathway, and a few times, people walking towards us said hello as they passed. simply amazing. its true that the irish people are much friendlier than the rest of europe.
we took the train back and did our daily nap-rest, then then went to o'sheas for dinner. very convenient, right down the street from our place, they served up a mean steak burger. and the atmosphere was great - no live music, but it was still fun. from there we went back to the hotel and went right to bed, pretty early, because on monday we woke up at 4 am to catch the plane back to london. only a 50 minute flight back, so it wasnt as long, only really early in the morning. and we took more naps when we got back, because a 4 am wake-up call will do that to anyone.
all in all it was a fabulous trip, very relaxing, mixed with the perfect amount of sight seeing.
