Ireland!

Tuesday 15th September:

Henry (the new boy for those of you not yet in the know) & I headed off at the ungodly hour of 5.30am to catch the bus to catch the other bus to get to the airport. Made it there with oodles of time to spare, but we both would much rather sit around in an airport knowing we're there than rushing and stressing. So! Onto the plane we went. Ryanair - £2 tickets (return). Yeah baby! Even got seats together! (For the uninitiated into the ways of Ryanair, it's a mega-budget airline, you don't even get seats, it's first come, first serve (unless you want to pay extra) so there's always a mad rush when they announce boarding.)

Touched down just before lunchtime (after Henry'd slept most of the way - hrmph.) and caught the shuttle bus into Dublin. Decided to get some brunch before we checked into our hotel (seeing check-in wasn't for another hour or so anyway) so went to this lovely little restaurant & got an awesome big brekkie and the necessary accompanying coffee (boring filtered stuff but beggars can't be choosy). On the way we found a Henry St - very main shopping street it turns out. Hrmph again - no Karina Streets in sight! Anyway, once the energy (ie coffee (for me anyway)) was back flowing through our veins we ventured out again and decided to check out a church nearby which was on our list of things to see. Got there pretty easily once we'd worked out we were going the wrong way & had turned around (nice navigating Henry - yep, I'm blaming it on you!). Church was pretty nice, but more impressive was the sculpture of the big hand on the opposite side of the road! Picture included for your curiosity :)

Found the hotel (Adams Trinity Hotel - quite nice), checked in etc and headed out again, glad to be rid of the suitcases (esp Henry's which had a mind of it's own). Wandered in the direction of the Guinness Storehouse, our first touristy stop (we obviously had our priorities sorted), soaking up the sun (yes, SUN! in Ireland! It didn't rain once!!) as we went and happy snapping the lovely old buildings we passed on the way.

Managed to get into the Guinness Storehouse as a student (yay for people not checking ID properly!) and walked through the various information points, quite interesting for the most part. They go through an astronomical amount of water a day - can't remember the exact figure but it was a lot! Possibly made more poignant for me coming from dry dry Australia where every drop is sacred... Saw a lot of the old ads from back in the day too which was cool - especially liked one which depicted a kangaroo and a man - the kangaroo with the Guinness bottle in it's pouch and the man with the joey in his hand - tee hee! And one with a turtle with a pint of Guinness on its back. Not sure why this appealed to me, but there you go. At the end of wandering through the Storehouse, after we had a small taste testing, we came to the point where you could pour your own pint if you wanted to, so Henry had a go. His tasted really nice (as far as Guinness goes - gotta say I'm not really a fan, much prefer the good old normal beer!) - surprisingly! Haha, jokes :) Then we just chilled sipping at the Guinness and looking at the lovely view out the window over Dublin - beautiful & sunny & lovely!

Discovered a bar on the top level where you could get another free pint but we'd had our fill so checked out the view for a bit and headed back down. Stopped in at Christchurch Cathedral on the way back to our hotel but didn't (couldn't) go in because a) the priest guarding the door (that's seriously what it looked like he was doing!) wouldn't let us (a service was about to start, so fair enough, but he didn't give the best impression. What if we wanted to go to the service?! That wasn't even an option!) and b) it was 4 Euros to get in and I don't believe in paying to get into churches on principle (plus we were on a budget!). The sun was out though so we sat in the grounds for a bit soaking it up - Henry fell asleep - damn his ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat!

Headed back to the hotel to regroup (ie watch a bit of tv) and get ready for the night ahead - Dylan Moran! But first things first - food. We headed into Temple Bar district (just across the road) which is supposed to have a good selection of restaurants. Found a nice Mexican place which was advertising some good specials.

Once we were chock full of enchiladas, we headed off to Vicar Lane where Dylan Moran's show was. Found it easy enough - just followed the horde of people headed in the same direction (what else would all those people be out in Dublin for on a Monday night?!). Once we'd found our way through the haze of smoke encircling the entrance way (from people smoking, it wasn't just some fancy gimmick) and I'd dug the tickets out of my bag (new and HUGE! (my bag not the tickets :P) Fits so much in. Very exciting for me - not so for Henry apparently...) we went in and found our seats. Because it was a kinda last minute thing we couldn't get seats next to each other, so I was one side of the room and Henry was the other side. Was a fairly small venue for such a well known (and loved, let's face it) comedian, much smaller than I was expecting, and very cabaret in its layout - the main floor was covered in small round tables with four seats surrounding each table. A good way to get to know people I suppose! And be seated comfortably with a drink, perhaps the main motive for the seating arrangements. We were in Ireland after all :) We were seated around the edge a bit elevated from the rest.

After a bit Dylan came out & did his thing. Yay! So funny. There was a bit of recycling of material from the Adelaide show I saw earlier this year, but it was nice to have a refresher anyway. And it was still side-splittingly funny. "She comes in, walking on the floor, breathing the air like it's hers to breathe..." haahhahhahah! Hm, maybe you had to be there :) After it'd finished and we were all laughed out, walked back to the hotel and crashed for the night. Zzzz...

Wednesday 16th September:

Woke up reasonably early with the lovely sun showing its face again! By the time we were both up and ready to go it had disappeared again though. We had decided to go out and see a bit of rural Ireland while we were here so headed for the train station and a train to Malahide, a coastal town which had a castle. We missed the train by 2 minutes or something ridiculous like that so decided to have a wander of the streets of Dublin while we waited for the next one. Went to the docks part of town, saw some cool graffiti and an even cooler bridge (shaped like the harp that is a symbol of Ireland & is the Guinness logo) and made it back to the train station with seconds to spare. Literally. If the train hadn't been late we would've missed it again.

Caught our breath on the train (so unfit!!) and were in Malahide a half hour later. Found the castle no problems - had to walk through this really lovely forest to get there, everything was so incredibly lush and green! The amazing amount of green over here still gets me. Walked out through the trees and then - lo and behold - there the castle stood, half overgrown with ivy, standing stark and old against the gray sky - it was everything I imagined in an Irish castle. Went on the tour which was quite interesting and grabbed some lunch in the tearooms before heading back to the town to look around.

Wandered down to the moorings - very picturesque with all the boats and the sea and the sun. Walked around to the beach - and it was surprisingly like a beach too: sand, seashells, water :P - I had a much different ideas of what beaches in the UK were like - but I guess Ireland technically isn't part of the UK anyway. It was beautiful in any case and the sun once again came out for us as we soaked in the view (it counteracted against the cold breeze as well to great effect!). Could've stayed there forever but unfortunately the train was a-calling us, so we trundled back to Dublin.

Once back we made our way to the Jameson Whiskey factory for some more alcohol testing! We just made the last tour so headed inside. Interesting fact - Guinness and whiskey aren't made all that differently, it's just the last bit of the process that's different! At the start of the tour they picked out five girls and five guys to take part in a tasting and I was one of the lucky five girls - twas quite funny actually, they asked for female volunteers and had people saying, oh, I suppose so, and just made up the five, and then they asked for the male volunteers and pretty much every male hand in the group went up! So poor Henry missed out. The tastings were quite interesting actually, we tried American whiskey (distilled once), Scottish whiskey (distilled twice) and Irish whiskey (distilled thrice), and you could really taste the difference between them! Not that I enjoyed it overly much - I'm not a fan of straight whiskey! But then we all got a glass of Irish Jameson whiskey at the end however we wanted, so I had it with good old coke :). Sacreligious to some, maybe, but that's how I like it.

Headed back to the hotel to chill for a couple hours before making our way to this naff American diner for some healthy *cough* dinner. Was pretty cool though - looked like the typical American diner you see in all the movies and TV shows, with the shiny vinyl booths and stools at the counter. They even had a mini jukebox on our table where you could choose a song (for a price) and it'd play over the sound system. I had the most enormous milkshake. We needed another rest after all the food! Back to the hotel...

Once we'd digested and dragged ourselves away from awesome movies like Clueless (haha!) we went to the pub across the road in the hope of finding some Irish dancing. Alas, they'd already finished, but there was some awesome traditional Irish music being played, and the violin player did at one point do a little jig, which almost counts... They were really good and very chatty - good show. Drinking our pints I noticed they had sport on a TV near the back of the pub - and not just any sport - AFL! But wait! Not just any AFL - highlights from the Collingwood - Adelaide semifinal I'd missed most of cos our Internet at home was playing up! I know it was a depressing game but hey - this was the first AFL I'd seen on a decent sized TV since leaving our fair country so I went and sat in front of it and proceeded to explain to Henry the rules of our awesome game (whether he wanted to hear or not). Even though it was a heart breaking game, I was glad I finally got to see it properly. I never thought it'd be in an Irish pub though! Great night.

Thursday 17th September:

Our last day :( We packed up and checked out and went in search of breakfast. Found this place nearby that had some of the most delicious looking scones ever made, so bought a selection (and a coffee for me) and went on our way. We decided to swing past St Patrick's Cathedral and have brekkie there - and what a great idea! The cathedral had the most beautiful grounds, all green lawn and bright colourful flowers... perfect way to start the day. And MAN the scones were good! Once devoured we headed round to the entrance to the cathedral but once again they were charging to get in - 5 euros! No thanks. Seems so wrong somehow...

Walked on, exploring the city. Found another lovely patch of garden on our way to Trinity College where we looked around the grounds a bit. Found this one sculpture thing of what looked to me an eaten away world, and we were wondering what it did / meant when lo and behold a tour group came up and the tour guide explained it all! Very interesting but also long and involved - can't be bothered writing it up. See me for more details (if I can still remember) :)

We were headed in the direction of this new development place where I'd read my new workplace (Speirs & Major Associates) had designed the lighting for a public square. Thought I should check it out, you know, while in Dublin... eventually found it - would've been more impressive at night (the red sticks have LED lights in the top half so they light up at night) but pretty cool nevertheless.

Back on the road, past the awesome harp bridge again, up some hills, down some hills, round the corner and down the lane and finally we were at the Dublin Writers Museum! Yes, my feet were sore and yes, I complained. :) Poor Henry. Was all worth it though - I really enjoyed the Writers Museum. I hadn't realised just how many of the famous writers were Irish! And they were censored so much during British reign, yet they persevered... was all very interesting.

Walked back to Temple Bar taking in some more of the city on the way and found a nice restaurant where they served Irish stew for our last meal in Ireland! Well, I had Irish stew, Henry had something without meat (he's vegetarian). Was quite yummy, nice and hearty tasting! Wrote a couple last minute postcards while we finished off our meals, then headed to Dublin Castle for the last bit of sightseeing on our list. Unfortunately, all the guided tours (which you had to go on to see the castle) were booked out for the rest of the day (seriously! As if that happens!) so we collected our luggage and headed for the airport instead, detouring past another lovely garden with a statue of Oscar Wilde and some really big chairs!

By the time we found the bus station, had got on and was stuck in peak hour traffic on the way to the airport I was stressing a little that we weren't going to make it on time. Henry meanwhile had fallen asleep on me, so wasn't much help alleviating the stress... But we made it in plenty of time in the end and then our flight was delayed by another 20 mins! Eventually got on the plane and bade farewell to Ireland (well, Dublin) til the next time we meet........