Dublin Post-Mortum
Sorry about the lag in writing/posting these - I'll probably miss a few things, but I've been trying to settle into the hustle and bustle of DC the past two days...
So I've got to say that I didn't really fall in love with Dublin. It's a reasonably nice place and the people are incredibly friendly (two different people at various points in our first day asked if we needed help with directions simply because were were looking at a map and acting a little confused), but it just didn't grab me the way that (for example) Edinburgh did. No idea why...it is however a horrible city for pedestrians (especially slower moving middle-aged pedestrians and tourists who look the wrong way frequently) because almost none of the streets actually have crosswalks and with those that do it's pretty much a certainty that all traffic will have vanished and you'll have started venturing across the road before it will actually turn into the "you can cross now" symbol (which incidently will vanish quick shortly after it begins). But I digress...Dublin was nice, but I guess we weren't expecting the mini-metropolis that we got (~2 million people nowadays) and that probably contributed to our general lack of interest in the city...
In retrospect we had a reasonably low-key visit, but it didn't seem like it at the time. Our first day began with a bus tour of the city. We covered the Guinness Factory (gigantic!!!!!) - incidently they got the land in 1759, when Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per year for the unused brewery - and you thought the Lousiana Purchase was a good deal? The tour also covered a drive by the house of the Irish President, which bares remarkable similarity to the similarly colored house of a certain superpower...I was amused.
For lunch we tried Irish Stew, which was reasonably good even if the lamb was waaaaaaayyyyyy too tough and, of course, we had the traditional drink of the Irish, Guiness. We ordered a glass of both Guinness and Guinness with Blackcurrent Cordial added (a favorite of the ladies were were told). The general consensus was that Guinness was actually much less bitter than we were expecting and that the cordial didn't add much...so I still despise beer, but Guinness is definitely not at the top of my dislike list.
After lunch, I headed back to take some closer pics of St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ's Church Cathedral, while the rest of the group went down to #29 [something street] where there was a restored and furnished Georgian house. The Churches were nice, though I have seen more impressive ones before, however they CHARGED you to go inside...this was a little outragous to me. It's one thing to say no pictures inside a house of worship (though the merits of that could perhaps be argued), but it's utterly ludicrious to me that one would need to pay to enter...bleeding tourists doesn't sound like a very charitable thing to me...I didn't feel like paying but was able to enter Christ's Church by way of the gift shop (and my expressed desire to buy a postcard), so though I stayed in the gift shop area, I was able to get a nice glance around the interior.
Dublin was also home to a bunch of souvenior/gift shopping...A wonderful way to begin the summer where I'm a poor little dual volunteer in DC ;-).
On Friday, we took a brief trip out to the seaside "village" of Howth to attempt to satisfy my mom's desire for a one-street Irish village visit, though we didn't really get that, it was a nice little place and we had a good lunch in a well-known pub (~Abbey Pub).
Once we got back into town, there was a little more shopping and then we split up. Michael and Barb went to the Archeological Museum and mom and I headed to the National Art Gallery. The Art Gallery was nice and in 2 hours of reasonably fast-pased walking, I was able to see all the static pieces - though not the temporary exhibits that you had to pay to see. I wrote down the names of some 30+ paintings/artists that I liked, so more stuff has been added to the lists of what I want prints of when I'm rich ;-).
And that was pretty much Dublin...
So I've got to say that I didn't really fall in love with Dublin. It's a reasonably nice place and the people are incredibly friendly (two different people at various points in our first day asked if we needed help with directions simply because were were looking at a map and acting a little confused), but it just didn't grab me the way that (for example) Edinburgh did. No idea why...it is however a horrible city for pedestrians (especially slower moving middle-aged pedestrians and tourists who look the wrong way frequently) because almost none of the streets actually have crosswalks and with those that do it's pretty much a certainty that all traffic will have vanished and you'll have started venturing across the road before it will actually turn into the "you can cross now" symbol (which incidently will vanish quick shortly after it begins). But I digress...Dublin was nice, but I guess we weren't expecting the mini-metropolis that we got (~2 million people nowadays) and that probably contributed to our general lack of interest in the city...
In retrospect we had a reasonably low-key visit, but it didn't seem like it at the time. Our first day began with a bus tour of the city. We covered the Guinness Factory (gigantic!!!!!) - incidently they got the land in 1759, when Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per year for the unused brewery - and you thought the Lousiana Purchase was a good deal? The tour also covered a drive by the house of the Irish President, which bares remarkable similarity to the similarly colored house of a certain superpower...I was amused.
For lunch we tried Irish Stew, which was reasonably good even if the lamb was waaaaaaayyyyyy too tough and, of course, we had the traditional drink of the Irish, Guiness. We ordered a glass of both Guinness and Guinness with Blackcurrent Cordial added (a favorite of the ladies were were told). The general consensus was that Guinness was actually much less bitter than we were expecting and that the cordial didn't add much...so I still despise beer, but Guinness is definitely not at the top of my dislike list.
After lunch, I headed back to take some closer pics of St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ's Church Cathedral, while the rest of the group went down to #29 [something street] where there was a restored and furnished Georgian house. The Churches were nice, though I have seen more impressive ones before, however they CHARGED you to go inside...this was a little outragous to me. It's one thing to say no pictures inside a house of worship (though the merits of that could perhaps be argued), but it's utterly ludicrious to me that one would need to pay to enter...bleeding tourists doesn't sound like a very charitable thing to me...I didn't feel like paying but was able to enter Christ's Church by way of the gift shop (and my expressed desire to buy a postcard), so though I stayed in the gift shop area, I was able to get a nice glance around the interior.
Dublin was also home to a bunch of souvenior/gift shopping...A wonderful way to begin the summer where I'm a poor little dual volunteer in DC ;-).
On Friday, we took a brief trip out to the seaside "village" of Howth to attempt to satisfy my mom's desire for a one-street Irish village visit, though we didn't really get that, it was a nice little place and we had a good lunch in a well-known pub (~Abbey Pub).
Once we got back into town, there was a little more shopping and then we split up. Michael and Barb went to the Archeological Museum and mom and I headed to the National Art Gallery. The Art Gallery was nice and in 2 hours of reasonably fast-pased walking, I was able to see all the static pieces - though not the temporary exhibits that you had to pay to see. I wrote down the names of some 30+ paintings/artists that I liked, so more stuff has been added to the lists of what I want prints of when I'm rich ;-).
And that was pretty much Dublin...
posted by Will at 12:18 PM
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