Today, I got up at 11am, and I MADE myself do so, cause I absolutely did not want to! I had a relaxing bath and got a bit more organized than I had been…never really took the time to unpack until then. About 12noon, I left, walked around the corner from the hotel and had chicken curry for BK and lunch! The coffee here is very strong, stronger than we make it, even at Starbuck’s. I used the whole little jug of milk and still it was dark!
Yesterday, I’d purchased a bus/tour pass that allows me to use the ‘hop on hop off’ buses, the city buses and the transportation back and forth to the airport. Some things here are a deal, like that, it was 25E ($40) for 3 days, and yet the food is very expensive. You are hard pressed to eat for anything less than 10E (which is $16.00 for us). My lunch would not have cost $10 at Curry Village. As I write, I am eating a stale cookie and a latte which was $8.00. Believe me I am not eating at fancy places!
I took the whole bus tour, about 90mins, to try to get my bearings around the city; there are few or no street signs, and where there are, they are tiled into the sides of bldgs about 10 feet into the street, so very difficult to spot, and nearly impossible at night. There are almost no straight streets, either, and the street names change frequently, kind of like Johnson becomes Queen Mary Rd, except it happens everywhere, and in just a single block sometimes. By the end of the night last night, I was pretty frustrated…lack of sleep didn’t help any though.
After the bus tour, I went to the tourist office to ask a few questions about the bus pass, so that I have it clear in my head for the trip back to the airport (I took a taxi to the hotel yesterday). Then I walked around the Trinity College Campus, and took a tour through the library and to see the Book of Kells. The entire area is so interesting. Much like the rest of Europe, and unlike Canada, because the buildings are SOOO old! Everything around you was built 1600-1800. After that, I took a city bus trip out to one of the suburbs to see how the average folk live. It wasn’t very exciting, but I got a good walk in and saw how little $650,000 buys you here. I guess the closest comparison I can make would be some of the row houses just north of Queen on Montreal, just passed Artillery Park. Yep, that’s all you get! It just left me wondering how people live here. Like London ,England, I guess, where most people just don’t own a home. (I later learned they almost all do though!)
The economy is really bad here too, much worse than home. The Irish Times said that they could be looking at 17% unemployment in the next year. There are innumerable places ‘to let’. (Funny thing about that phrase ‘to let’…..Every time I saw a sign on the first day, I kept thinking “toilet’. I seriously thought they were signs for public washrooms. I’m sure it was the lack of sleep; my mind unconsciously registered toilet.) I don’t know what to do this evening. The staff at the hotel said that O’Donoghue’s was a good bar where they have music, so I will probably try that out, but not until I have Thai food at a place down the street called Papaya. The thought of finding the bar overwhelms me right now. I also want to go for a swim in this hotel’s pool. It looks amazing. I think I will eat my granola bar, and do that, then go out for supper. My back still aches from carrying around my laptop all day. (dumb, I know) Actually, I have to edit something for Graham first….not enough hours in the day when you get up at 11!
Yesterday, after arriving at the Merrion Hotel about 9am, I left my bags with the concierge because the room wasn’t ready, and headed across the street to the National Art Gallery for a couple of hours. When I came back, I tried to sleep but after 3 coffees, that wasn’t about to happen, although I did force myself to lie there for 2 hrs. I had supper at a restaurant called Grand Central, just down from the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s National Theatre Co. Shakespeare’s, A Comedy of Errors was playing. It was modernized, with regards to the set and costumes, and a bit of music and dance. I didn’t enjoy the first half, probably, mostly because I was falling asleep, and having trouble understanding. By the 2nd half, everyone was laughing, including me. I met a really nice mother/daughter team from England. The elder was born and raised in Cork, so we got into a big discussion about how 1 day was definitely too little time, and what I should do in the one day that I have, and about the Choral Festival, and about Dublin in general. It was fun. That's the kind of thing I hoped would happen on this trip. I saw them walking near Trinity College today!
As I write this next part, it is 320am, Horowitz it playing Chopin on the blackberry, and I cannot sleep so what the hell, I'll tell you about the rest of my day......
I did in fact eat at Papaya. It is located in the basement of a beautiful set of Georgian row housing. The wine was great, the main course was fantastic: shaved beef, with coriander and asparagus, and a tonne of yummy garlic. The spring rolls left a lot to be desired and they were surely frozen from a box and not homemade like around the corner from my office. Eating alone is interesting isn't it? There were three groups of people, two of which celebrated birthdays for the men in the group (do men ever organize a birthday party for their wives?), two couples and myself. My waitress was middle aged, say 50ish, an Irish woman. (I make that distinction because she was the only one there who was not Asian.) She was excellent, sensing my hesitation at being offered a chardonnay (sorry Shelley, I know you're a true believer!) and after I'd agreed to it, came back with two bottles, one chardonnay, and one pinot grigio. I switched my choice. After my meal, she asked me where I was from, saying she couldn't quite place my accent. I thought that was sweet. Once I said I was Canadian, she gushed, and shared about family in Canada, and having recently been to Cuba, about all of the great Canadians she'd met there. I have noticed that the Irish are apologetic if they call you American. In fact, they apologize for even thinking you were American! It has happened to me several times in 24 hours. I take no offense at all, but they are truly mortified that they may have slighted you in some way. It's too funny. I don't think they like Bush here much either--taxi driver and the odd comment gave me that impression---welcome to almost everyone I know!
After supper, I walked around the corner to a bar called O'Donoghue's. It was PACKED! Friday night of a holiday weekend. I was quickly spotted by a young-25-Irishman with short red hair. He was cute enough, but the blue eyes were gorgeous! He was half in the bag, but polite and very friendly. He introduced himself, and his friends, another single man, and a young couple, James, Stephen, Cathy. I forget his name, sorry. It doesn't matter, he served his purpose; it got me gabbing with folks. Not long after he came up to me, he approached the couple behind me, and I overheard that they were from Holland, so after about 15mins of gabbing with Stephen and Cathy, I moved over to Mariel and David. We had a great discussion, and over the next 2 hours, I learned how to spot a man of Irish decent...Mariel had it down. Our red-headed friend introduced himself to EVERY woman who walked past him; he was highly entertaining, but he certainly would not have been able to be any fun for anyone, cause with all that beer, he would have definitely suffered from 'limp dick' tonight! Like Mariel said: He has more alcohol than wisdom. What a great expression; one I hope I won't soon forget.
Later, I tested Mariel's theory an how Irishmen look: there was a man, at the bar, talking to my new Irish acquaintances. He looked to be in his 50s, with a woman, his grey hair tied in a small ponytail; I said: so is he Irish. Absolutely not! she says. He spots us and comes over the 4 feet that we are apart, and opens with some funny line about Bush. I said oh, he's from the Northeast USA. No, he says, from Utah/Oregon. That was it, now there were 4 of us gabbing, all visiting the city. About 30 minutes later his wife joined in. Their names are Cindy and Kim. They are avid runners, and came her last year to do the Dublin Marathon. They've done Boston many times. Kim is an optometrist (Come on, being North American, we had to talk about what we do for a living.) and Carol runs his business. When they get home next week, they have to pack up and move to Oregon, to be closer to two of their children and grandchildren, where they are starting a new practice. We got an famously, talking about book clubs, children, the markets, Ireland, relationships. So, tomorrow, we are meeting at 830pm to go out together---the 5 of us. I'm so excited!!!! This is exactly what I wanted to have happen....well that too but, I'm not going to be stupid about it....and if I am, I won't tell you about it!!!!
At 1230am, I came back to the Merrion, and just about everyone here was wasted. I'm dead serious! I didn't feel tired at all, so I came to the bar here called No 23. There wasn't a soul in there and the bartenders were bored, so I ordered a Tipperary spring water and started up a conversation with the young bartender. He's lived here since he was 6, and seemed interested in my travels; just being polite, I'm sure. 5 mins in, 2 drunk men came in, one was really loaded, to the point where he couldn't talk. I helped him find the bathrooms in the basement; I thought for a moment that it wouldn't be so smart to walk down the stairs with him but seriously, he couldn't have hurt a fly in that shape. I came up and left him there to find his way back.....by some bloody miracle, he did! By then, there were for men in the bar, all heavily intoxicated (none as bad as the washroom man though). They were using the fuck word and apologizing; I said not to worry, I use it all the time myself, but they did actually stop. (There's an old-fashioned politeness here.) I eventually took my water out into the seating area and sat on a comfy couch. Now that's when the action started!!!! No sooner had I sat down, and another man of about 65 came in, also drunk! (Still not as bad as washroom man!) He went to the bar and got a water, as I had, and sat down in the comfy chairs too. His eyes were very heavy and he was a little unsteady. Within minutes, a young woman, who'd been seated in the room, walked up to him and sat on his lap!!!! No shit!!!! I burst out laughing and immediately began 'pinning' a friend to tell them the blow by blow. She told him she wanted to be his friend, and where was she and could he talk to her friend to come get her, and blah, blah, blah. I couldn't believe mine eyes!!! They had not seen glory, that's for sure. Humanity at it's finest, it was not. It wasn't long before staff knew something was up, and they started loitering around the room, with walkie-talkies. The older man did finally get her off of him (at first, I don't think he minded at all, but he soon realized that she was royally fucked up, and had enough sense to go to his room asap). I tried to be Florence Nightingale-like and get her to go to the reception area too, thinking that she might be reasonable with me. (she'd already ask the staff to be her friend too and to hug her and hold her.) But it didn't work at all, she latched on to me and kept asking me to be her friend and not to ignore her. Hey Dr Paul Weston, analyze that! I just ended up ignoring her and the staff blocked her physically from coming any closer to me. There was another couple my age there for a drink together, so we all have a story to tell our friends. It wasn't funny in the end, cause she was strung out on some drug. I can't believe I saw behaviour like I've never seen before and I had to come to the Merrion Hotel to get it! Who wouda thunk it!
Good night cause now, it's nearly 430am (1130EST) and I'm finally feeling tired. Guess I'm getting up at 11am again!
Adieu, adieu, adieu from Dublin my friends!
Yesterday, I’d purchased a bus/tour pass that allows me to use the ‘hop on hop off’ buses, the city buses and the transportation back and forth to the airport. Some things here are a deal, like that, it was 25E ($40) for 3 days, and yet the food is very expensive. You are hard pressed to eat for anything less than 10E (which is $16.00 for us). My lunch would not have cost $10 at Curry Village. As I write, I am eating a stale cookie and a latte which was $8.00. Believe me I am not eating at fancy places!
I took the whole bus tour, about 90mins, to try to get my bearings around the city; there are few or no street signs, and where there are, they are tiled into the sides of bldgs about 10 feet into the street, so very difficult to spot, and nearly impossible at night. There are almost no straight streets, either, and the street names change frequently, kind of like Johnson becomes Queen Mary Rd, except it happens everywhere, and in just a single block sometimes. By the end of the night last night, I was pretty frustrated…lack of sleep didn’t help any though.
After the bus tour, I went to the tourist office to ask a few questions about the bus pass, so that I have it clear in my head for the trip back to the airport (I took a taxi to the hotel yesterday). Then I walked around the Trinity College Campus, and took a tour through the library and to see the Book of Kells. The entire area is so interesting. Much like the rest of Europe, and unlike Canada, because the buildings are SOOO old! Everything around you was built 1600-1800. After that, I took a city bus trip out to one of the suburbs to see how the average folk live. It wasn’t very exciting, but I got a good walk in and saw how little $650,000 buys you here. I guess the closest comparison I can make would be some of the row houses just north of Queen on Montreal, just passed Artillery Park. Yep, that’s all you get! It just left me wondering how people live here. Like London ,England, I guess, where most people just don’t own a home. (I later learned they almost all do though!)
The economy is really bad here too, much worse than home. The Irish Times said that they could be looking at 17% unemployment in the next year. There are innumerable places ‘to let’. (Funny thing about that phrase ‘to let’…..Every time I saw a sign on the first day, I kept thinking “toilet’. I seriously thought they were signs for public washrooms. I’m sure it was the lack of sleep; my mind unconsciously registered toilet.) I don’t know what to do this evening. The staff at the hotel said that O’Donoghue’s was a good bar where they have music, so I will probably try that out, but not until I have Thai food at a place down the street called Papaya. The thought of finding the bar overwhelms me right now. I also want to go for a swim in this hotel’s pool. It looks amazing. I think I will eat my granola bar, and do that, then go out for supper. My back still aches from carrying around my laptop all day. (dumb, I know) Actually, I have to edit something for Graham first….not enough hours in the day when you get up at 11!
Yesterday, after arriving at the Merrion Hotel about 9am, I left my bags with the concierge because the room wasn’t ready, and headed across the street to the National Art Gallery for a couple of hours. When I came back, I tried to sleep but after 3 coffees, that wasn’t about to happen, although I did force myself to lie there for 2 hrs. I had supper at a restaurant called Grand Central, just down from the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s National Theatre Co. Shakespeare’s, A Comedy of Errors was playing. It was modernized, with regards to the set and costumes, and a bit of music and dance. I didn’t enjoy the first half, probably, mostly because I was falling asleep, and having trouble understanding. By the 2nd half, everyone was laughing, including me. I met a really nice mother/daughter team from England. The elder was born and raised in Cork, so we got into a big discussion about how 1 day was definitely too little time, and what I should do in the one day that I have, and about the Choral Festival, and about Dublin in general. It was fun. That's the kind of thing I hoped would happen on this trip. I saw them walking near Trinity College today!
As I write this next part, it is 320am, Horowitz it playing Chopin on the blackberry, and I cannot sleep so what the hell, I'll tell you about the rest of my day......
I did in fact eat at Papaya. It is located in the basement of a beautiful set of Georgian row housing. The wine was great, the main course was fantastic: shaved beef, with coriander and asparagus, and a tonne of yummy garlic. The spring rolls left a lot to be desired and they were surely frozen from a box and not homemade like around the corner from my office. Eating alone is interesting isn't it? There were three groups of people, two of which celebrated birthdays for the men in the group (do men ever organize a birthday party for their wives?), two couples and myself. My waitress was middle aged, say 50ish, an Irish woman. (I make that distinction because she was the only one there who was not Asian.) She was excellent, sensing my hesitation at being offered a chardonnay (sorry Shelley, I know you're a true believer!) and after I'd agreed to it, came back with two bottles, one chardonnay, and one pinot grigio. I switched my choice. After my meal, she asked me where I was from, saying she couldn't quite place my accent. I thought that was sweet. Once I said I was Canadian, she gushed, and shared about family in Canada, and having recently been to Cuba, about all of the great Canadians she'd met there. I have noticed that the Irish are apologetic if they call you American. In fact, they apologize for even thinking you were American! It has happened to me several times in 24 hours. I take no offense at all, but they are truly mortified that they may have slighted you in some way. It's too funny. I don't think they like Bush here much either--taxi driver and the odd comment gave me that impression---welcome to almost everyone I know!
After supper, I walked around the corner to a bar called O'Donoghue's. It was PACKED! Friday night of a holiday weekend. I was quickly spotted by a young-25-Irishman with short red hair. He was cute enough, but the blue eyes were gorgeous! He was half in the bag, but polite and very friendly. He introduced himself, and his friends, another single man, and a young couple, James, Stephen, Cathy. I forget his name, sorry. It doesn't matter, he served his purpose; it got me gabbing with folks. Not long after he came up to me, he approached the couple behind me, and I overheard that they were from Holland, so after about 15mins of gabbing with Stephen and Cathy, I moved over to Mariel and David. We had a great discussion, and over the next 2 hours, I learned how to spot a man of Irish decent...Mariel had it down. Our red-headed friend introduced himself to EVERY woman who walked past him; he was highly entertaining, but he certainly would not have been able to be any fun for anyone, cause with all that beer, he would have definitely suffered from 'limp dick' tonight! Like Mariel said: He has more alcohol than wisdom. What a great expression; one I hope I won't soon forget.
Later, I tested Mariel's theory an how Irishmen look: there was a man, at the bar, talking to my new Irish acquaintances. He looked to be in his 50s, with a woman, his grey hair tied in a small ponytail; I said: so is he Irish. Absolutely not! she says. He spots us and comes over the 4 feet that we are apart, and opens with some funny line about Bush. I said oh, he's from the Northeast USA. No, he says, from Utah/Oregon. That was it, now there were 4 of us gabbing, all visiting the city. About 30 minutes later his wife joined in. Their names are Cindy and Kim. They are avid runners, and came her last year to do the Dublin Marathon. They've done Boston many times. Kim is an optometrist (Come on, being North American, we had to talk about what we do for a living.) and Carol runs his business. When they get home next week, they have to pack up and move to Oregon, to be closer to two of their children and grandchildren, where they are starting a new practice. We got an famously, talking about book clubs, children, the markets, Ireland, relationships. So, tomorrow, we are meeting at 830pm to go out together---the 5 of us. I'm so excited!!!! This is exactly what I wanted to have happen....well that too but, I'm not going to be stupid about it....and if I am, I won't tell you about it!!!!
At 1230am, I came back to the Merrion, and just about everyone here was wasted. I'm dead serious! I didn't feel tired at all, so I came to the bar here called No 23. There wasn't a soul in there and the bartenders were bored, so I ordered a Tipperary spring water and started up a conversation with the young bartender. He's lived here since he was 6, and seemed interested in my travels; just being polite, I'm sure. 5 mins in, 2 drunk men came in, one was really loaded, to the point where he couldn't talk. I helped him find the bathrooms in the basement; I thought for a moment that it wouldn't be so smart to walk down the stairs with him but seriously, he couldn't have hurt a fly in that shape. I came up and left him there to find his way back.....by some bloody miracle, he did! By then, there were for men in the bar, all heavily intoxicated (none as bad as the washroom man though). They were using the fuck word and apologizing; I said not to worry, I use it all the time myself, but they did actually stop. (There's an old-fashioned politeness here.) I eventually took my water out into the seating area and sat on a comfy couch. Now that's when the action started!!!! No sooner had I sat down, and another man of about 65 came in, also drunk! (Still not as bad as washroom man!) He went to the bar and got a water, as I had, and sat down in the comfy chairs too. His eyes were very heavy and he was a little unsteady. Within minutes, a young woman, who'd been seated in the room, walked up to him and sat on his lap!!!! No shit!!!! I burst out laughing and immediately began 'pinning' a friend to tell them the blow by blow. She told him she wanted to be his friend, and where was she and could he talk to her friend to come get her, and blah, blah, blah. I couldn't believe mine eyes!!! They had not seen glory, that's for sure. Humanity at it's finest, it was not. It wasn't long before staff knew something was up, and they started loitering around the room, with walkie-talkies. The older man did finally get her off of him (at first, I don't think he minded at all, but he soon realized that she was royally fucked up, and had enough sense to go to his room asap). I tried to be Florence Nightingale-like and get her to go to the reception area too, thinking that she might be reasonable with me. (she'd already ask the staff to be her friend too and to hug her and hold her.) But it didn't work at all, she latched on to me and kept asking me to be her friend and not to ignore her. Hey Dr Paul Weston, analyze that! I just ended up ignoring her and the staff blocked her physically from coming any closer to me. There was another couple my age there for a drink together, so we all have a story to tell our friends. It wasn't funny in the end, cause she was strung out on some drug. I can't believe I saw behaviour like I've never seen before and I had to come to the Merrion Hotel to get it! Who wouda thunk it!
Good night cause now, it's nearly 430am (1130EST) and I'm finally feeling tired. Guess I'm getting up at 11am again!
Adieu, adieu, adieu from Dublin my friends!
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