Ireland (part the first)
Saturday, March 14th
3:30am – Wake up.
4:00am – Catch the cab to the airport. About $30, a lot cheaper than long term parking would be.
6:00am – Succeed in making it through security. Board the plane at PDX for JFK, a 5 1/2 hour flight.
Five hours later – Arrive in JFK, where it’s something like two in the afternoon. A grey day but not too cold and not raining. Amy’s friend Joe drives down from Vermont and meets us at the baggage claim. We take the airport rail out to the Long Island Rail Road station, and take the LIRR to Manhattan.
I’ve never been to NYC (although I had a great view of downtown on the flight in) and it’s every bit as mind-boggling immense and crowded as I could have imagined. The only thing GTAIV really misses is the sheer size of the crowds. Anyway, we make our way to Times Square and have a slice of pizza for lunch and snap the classy pic below before hurrying back to the airport.
6:50pm-ish (EST): Make it back through security with forty minutes to spare, and catch the plane to Dublin.
Sunday, March 15th
6:00am (GMT): Arrive in Dublin, make it through customs with a minimal fuss, collect our baggage, hit up the ATM for some Euro, buy bus tickets to our hotel, check-in, and have a traditional Irish breakfast at the hotel, involving scrambled eggs, baked beans, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, and sausage.
10:00am – 2:00pm: Sleep. Neither of us slept for more than a few minutes at a time on the flight in, so we take a few hours to catch up.
3:00pm: After getting directions to the DART station (the train) and getting a little lost trying to find it, we eventually find the right road and walk the mile or so down to the coast where the station sits, overlooking the bay. We catch the train up to Pearse Station and walk our way up to the River Liffey in what is more-or-less the center of the city.
We then make our way to the famous Temple Bar district; we quickly find the crowded main touristy drag, stop to watch a couple of performing musical groups on the sidewalks, and then make our way to the ends of the large crowd. Amy and I find ourselves at a place called Dandelion’s, which is apparently where U2 got their start. It’s Sunday and we’re at the end of the brunch crowd, but we just get a snack and a couple of drinks. The chicken wings were incredibly delicious, but they were nothing next to the Bushmill’s and the pint of Guinness. Amy takes a sip, in preparation for committing to drinking a full pint on her birthday while we’re there. We wander around a bit more but I was apparently too tired to remember much of it. Eventually, we go back to the hotel and get some more sleep in preparation for a busy week ahead.
Monday, March 16th
We get up at eight and, having just recovered from a nasty bout with a cold, I successfully have my first full night of sleep in a couple of weeks. I felt pretty fantastic. We eventually get our act together enough to make our way down for another expensive-but-delicious hotel breakfast, and as the package deal on the hotel and flight was a good one, a few extra luxuries are to be expected. When are you going to be here again?
After breakfast, we spend some time talking to the porter? in the lobby who gives us even more information about where to go and what to do, and talks about his large family and about growing up in Dublin. Amy asks him about good wool shops, and he mentions a couple. We then make our way down to the train station and buy all-day passes for eight euro each; we take the train up to Connolly Station, then hop the tram over in the general direction of the Guinness Storehouse. One of many lessons with the Confusing Roads of Dublin is had here, as the street that we actually wanted to take was right in front of the tram stop but hidden by a low brick-and-iron fence, so we spend an extra fifteen minutes walking the grounds of the St. James Hospital before realizing that there’s no way we’re getting east of where we are without backtracking.
Eventually we can’t help but find it, however, and we see a lot of information about the long and storied history of Guinness (two-hundred and fifty years as of 2009): the brewing process; the world’s largest pint glass; the 9000-year lease signed by Arthur Guinness for use of the land. We work our way up the several stories to the second-to-top floor where we redeem our tour ticket stubs for a pint (with an expertly-done clover in the top of the foam). We’re one story below the famed Gravity Bar, with it’s amazing view, but our view is no less amazing for the missing twelve feet in height, and it’s much less crowded.
After a sojourn into the impressive gift shop, and making a day out of the where-alcohol-is-born tours, we make our way back to the tram and ride it a couple of stops to the stop that looks as though it’s nearest to the Old Jameson’s Distillery. As luck would have it, there was a sign pointing the way right as we exited the tram, and it was only a block-and-a-half yonder.
The lines for the tour were long, but the tour was worth the wait. The tour guide was fantastic, and a lot of fun. We learned things, as well. For instance, it’s the Old Jameson’s Distillery because it’s where they got started, but “Old” because the operation got too big for its britches, and now all of the distilling proper is done down in Cork. Additionally, Irish whisky doesn’t use peat moss, unlike Scotch, but gets its additional color and flavor from the barrels that they use, which are generally a combination of used bourbon and sherry barrels (which is where you also get the vanilla and oak flavors). So basically there are whole warehouses of other whiskys that are eventually destined for something greater.
The portion of the whisky that evaporates during the aging process? It’s called “the angel’s portion”.
After, again, a detour into the gift shop– where I finally found a good little journal to write in– we were starved for lunch and made our way over to the nearby mall. We got sandwiches from a food court place called “La Croissanterie”, which was not nearly as popular as the nearby KFC, but on the other hand, the commercials there manage to make KFC look fairly appetizing. (As an aside, I noticed more than one reference to “‘southern’ fried food”, so apparently “southern” is becoming universal slang for southern U.S. cuisine, which is odd.)
We wander about a bit further and find the Dublin Woolen Mills shop that John had recommended, near the Ha’Penny Bridge; Amy has a couple of decent find there before we hit up a corner store for some evening provisions and catch the train to the tram to the hotel where we relax for the evening (and see a three-legged cat near the side-street gate that leads to the path to our hotel).
Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s, so we try to conserve some energy for it.
Tuesday, March 17th
Amy’s Birthday! And CHAOS.
We waited for the morning bus but it was on a holiday schedule– of course– so after we got tired of waiting, we split a cab with a couple of guys from Michigan who were also staying at the St. Helens Radisson.
We get downtown and after a bit of detouring about, and stopping to ask a Garda directions, wer finally find the crepe restaurant where Amy wanted to eat: Lemon. We had walked right past it initially, looking prospectively at the restaurant across the street from it in our hunt for breakfast on unusually empty Dublin streets. Once the nearby hellishly loud alarm stops wailing, it’s a good breakfast.
The streets were bereft of life, most of the shops were closed, and it’s because everyone in the entire waking world was lining the parade route. I have never seen so many people in my entire life gathered into one place. People everywhere decked out in green outfits, green hats, painted faces, fake orange beards, everywhere they can fit, hanging off of fences, standing in window sills, perched on top of statues; Amy promptly gets a shamrock on her cheek, and we walk along the parade route with tired legs.
Eventually we get to what must be the far end of the parade route, and the parade begins. We see Simpsons characters come to life, and we begin to trace backwards along the route, watching the whole thing unfold in fast forward.
We hear bagpipes: it’s an official parade. We stop now and then to attempt to see some of the more interesting bits, but eventually decide to beg off and start heading towards the park where the parade started. Along the way, we get a bit lost and end up at Dublin Castle, which is fortuitous. At the gift shop, I find a nice souvenir in the shape of a compass, and once we escape the castle it deftly helps us wind our way eastwards towards the park.
We ultimately find ourselves at Foley’s Bar which quickly becomes a standing room only venue not fifteen minutes after we arrive, taking refuge from the madness of Merrion Street, and we’re seated next to a group of older American women from California. As a guy with a guitar plays traditional Irish tunes, they tell us tales of things to do, including a must-see pub called Cobblestone, near the Old Jameson’s Distillery (as it later turns out).
Then more walking through the madness of the street fair where there is an insane line for the Ferris Wheel, and although it’s still the middle of the afternoon, we decide to catch the crowded train back to Booterstown, and to the hotel.
Once there, we stopped at The Punchbowl, our local Irish pub (with its dubiously named adjoining restaurant, dubbed “The Latino”) and it turned out to have musicians that evening playing Americana music that quickly got extremely popular moments after our arrival, a theme for the day. (Amy noted that, from the freedom with condiments, to the attitude of the drivers, to the attitudes in general, that the Irish seemed a much nicer and less sarcastic people than the British did in her months living in Leeds.)
Back at the hotel, as an entirely random aside, there was a channel with a caption stuck on it for the duration of our stay. It read, in confusing simplicity, “Will it be lovely Luke?”
(To be continued…)
Add comment April 4th, 2009
