In Dublin's Fair City

"You've got to go through the rain to get to the rainbows."
--Steven the Tour Guide

The Irish has a terrific sense of wit, particularly when it comes to life's frequent misfortunes. Chris and I passed through quite a few storms to get to Eire, but it was worth it to spend the time we did in Dublin.

The morning after our trek over from Shannon, Chris and I got going around 11 and went downstairs to meet up with the girls. Turned out they were still asleep, and we had served to wake them. Thus Chris and I left to go eat and give them time to get dolled up and what not. It being our first real morning in Ireland, I determined that we could do nothing else before we sat down at and at a true, full Irish breakfast. I had earlier found a recommended spot on the internet that was just around the corner, so we made for it. The little cafe was called the Kingfisher, and to my delight they were still serving breakfast. We took a seat amidst a fair mix of tourist and locals and ordered our fare. The food was delicious and hearty--and utterly unhealthy. Three kinds of sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, beans, mushrooms, and a potato cake all washed down with a pot of tea. I didn't end up eating again until that night (or when night usually is in places where the sun is up until 9.)

Back at Abraham House, the girls were ready and we headed off to cross the river and explore Old Town. First though, we stopped at the grand post office where the Easter Rising of 1916 took place. The office is still in operation and the whole of the outside is peppered with bullet holes in the coloumns and walls; some patched in some not. There are plaques and statues all in the lobby commerating the event.


As for the rest of our touring that day, I do not feel as though I need to delve too deeply into what all we saw of the sights. Surely the plethora of photographs we all four took--combined with my all the video footage--will tell that story more effectively than my words. Suffice to say, we hit the highlights as we marched across the city to the Guinness Storehouse which is the number attraction in the city.

The name that is literally scrawled on everything in Ireland.

Dublin specifically, and Ireland generally owes a great deal to the success and world wide popularity of the most famous of beers, thus it is only fitting that a giant, six-story museum built inside an old part of the brewery is dedicated to the drink and its place in history. The experience was good, informative, and very touristy (not unlike the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta.) On the top floor your ticket gets you a complimentary pint of Guinness as you look out over the city from a room with 360 degree glass windows giving you a panoramic view all the way to the Irish Sea in the East and the Wicklow Mountians in the South.


Leaving the Storehouse, we opted to take one of Dublin's omnipresent double-decker buses back into the city center. A return to the hostel followed for a respite, some blogging, and a change. Afterwards, we went to eat at a place called Fitzgerald's (which, we learned later that "fitz" comes from a latin word meaning "son of" and is left over from the Normans that tried to invade in the 1100's but gave up and settled with the Celts instead.) The girls got Shepherds Pie (with lamb, of course) and Chris and I finally got to eat some meat pies with chips. We finished the night off in the Temple Bar district where we saw a few live bands playing traditional Irish music and all sorts of complete absurdities like an Irish funk band (complete with fiddle, sax, and bongos), a man dressed like a vampire posing as a statue, and a real live Mexican mariachi band.

Today in Ireland was another grand, packed day including a tour out to the Wicklow mountains and the ruins of an ancient monestary in Glendalough. I hope to cover that in the next post, but we leave for London in the morning and I don't think our hostel there has free interent. Here's hoping for the best, however. I leave you with this most excellent cleaning product I spotted in the grocery over here: