In Dublin's Fair City

We arrived in Dublin around noon on Tuesday (Aer Lingus jet from London was more comfortable than British Air, by far!).  I faced my first culture shock, the Hertz car a VW Golf with manual transmission, steering wheel on the right, driving on the left.  I know one reason my sister Barbara likes to travel with me is that I drive and she does not.  I thought, after San José, Costa Rica, how could this not be a piece of cake?  Oh, right…roundabouts!

I will spare you the trauma of our drive to the center of Dublin from the airport, the squeezing through narrow lanes and parked cars and, God forgive me, Irish drivers.  I will send a thank you to the lovely Garda (police) near our hotel, seven of whom stopped traffic so I could make a U-turn ("Can I do that?", I asked.  "No worries, we'll help you.")  Anyway, I don't recommend driving and shifting in Ireland, mostly because you don't get to look at the scenery at all, what with the white-knuckled grip on the wheel, the passenger shouting about how close you are to killing her, etc.  Next time we go there I think we will do what the Irish do and take buses and trains which are ubiquitous and cheap!


Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath in Irish) is an ancient city whose Irish name Dubhlinn means "black pool".  The modern city population as about 1,112,000 and it is home to the Irish parliament, Trinity University, two cathedrals and a castle, as well as Phoenix Park the largest city park in Europe.  Originally founded as a Viking settlement, it evolved into the Kingdom of Dublin and became the island's principal city following the Norman invasion.  The antiquity of Ireland is mind-boggling and reminders of it's past are everywhere.  There have been people in Ireland since 9,000 B.C., 2,000 years after the last Ice Age there.  Current speculation is that these inhabitants traveled up the west coast from what is now Spain to what is now County Kerry in the south west of Ireland.  More about all this later.

We arrived at our hotel The O'Callaghan Mont Clare by Merrion Park and Trinity College.  Here's Hugh, one of the many friendly faces we met.  Our hotels could not have been more perfect.  They were all quaint, clean, convenient and comfortable.  Barbara made the arrangements through Exploring Vacations  who booked the car and the hotels, gave us travel tips and left us to our own schedule after that.

We set out to walk around the neighborhood.  Let me first say, I think we brought good luck (maybe from an Irish forebear O'Hara from County Cork?) because we had spectacular weather for our whole trip.  Mild and mostly sunny ranging from 45° to 65°, with only two cloudy and minimally rainy days.  Alas, we were the only ones strolling, everyone else was barreling along and we had to take care not to be knocked down. This is a really busy, diverse, upbeat city, very diverse. Every conceivable kind of food, big beautiful parks and squares, old alleys, Georgian architecture.  My son Anthony, an Uilleann bagpipe player (see below) who has made a couple of trips to Ireland, warned us we would not find enough vegetables and to watch out for scurvy.  Well, I think Ireland must have made progress since he was here ad fruits and vegetables were everywhere, including one outdoor cafe where we ordered coffee, tea and sides or sautéed spinach and fried pasta.  How civilized is that?

Well, I think Ireland must have made progress since he was here and fruits and vegetables were everywhere, including one outdoor cafe where we ordered coffee, tea and sides or sautéed spinach and fried pasta.  How civilized is that?

A note about coffee:  Cafe Americano is strong and black, almost esspresso, with creamy froth and delicious!  My sister (the main coffee drinker) was pleasantly surprised at how good the coffee was in general.

We were a bit jet-lagged so after walking, shopping, dodging the rushing crowd of Dubliners-on-a-mission, we decided to head for a pub we passed heading back to our hotel.  This place was fairly typical of the bigger pubs we saw on our trip with a mix of young and old, Irish, Americans, eastern Europeans, college students and professionals.  It was noisy and fun with great service and, like every place we ate over 12 days, nobody was rushing us to leave.  In fact the reverse: we had to ask for the bill every time.

The food was great, again pretty typical of pub food:  Irish stew with lamb and bangers and mash.  I know I should not even be allowed into Ireland as I don't like whiskey or beer, but my sister did the honors with Jameson's and Guinness stout while I had the first of many fine local hard ciders.

We dragged ourselves back to sleep in our cosy room with the window wide open (no bugs that we could discern in Ireland), listening to the busy street sounds.  A perfect first day.

Next up:  Oscar Wilde!  Kilmainham Gaol!

Maybe I'll get to Ireland...

Monday

I nearly didn't get to Ireland.  My sister was arriving on Saturday night and the two of us were to fly out on Monday from Montreal.  It had been a hectic few months and during the past week my brothers, Ed and I had moved our mother into residential care and were trying to dispose of her extra furniture, etc.  So I didn't start to pack until late Friday afternoon.  We were only taking small carry-ons, so that part was pretty easy.  Then I started to look for my passport.

I won't describe my hysteria when I couldn't find it (because I always put it away with documents after a trip, right???)  Suffice it to say, Ed and I tore the house apart, then Elizabeth and Anthony, who were over for brunch on Sunday, also had a go.  Elizabeth told Anthony to go through my car "like you are searching for drugs", and he did.  It was a nightmare.  I swear, my hair turned gray!  I was sure I had ruined my sister's vacation as well as mine.

Well, thanks to a friend's clear head, I was able to make an appointment at the U.S. Passport Office in St. Albans, Vermont on Monday afternoon (of course the loss was discovered on a Friday afternoon, leaving no days to try to fix things with officialdom except the day we were to fly out) and Debbie at the Charlotte post office snapped a new photo for me in the morning. Who knew we had a office in Vermont that could actually issue a replacement passport?  Not me.  The next nearest one is in Boston.  I was a wreck all day, but they did give me a replacement and we caught our flight after my brother and his sweetie gave us a ride to Montreal.  Ed isn't allowed in to Canada (another long story), plus he says he had scheduled the dancing girls to arrive at the house that evening, so….

Here's our cute waiter Franck at the airport where we decided we wanted a little wine before the flight.  We thought needed it after a fairly harrowing day.  I have a few comments about British Air.  The plane was clean and the attendants friendly, food was OK, too.  But they have obviously joined the American airline industry in minimizing space for coach/economy passengers as much as they possibly can.  It was excruciatingly cramped, to say nothing of hot and noisy.  I had such a backache after six hours that I had to take ibuprofen for a week.  We decided we are too old for economy, too broke for business class!

Adventures in Ireland in my next post.  Also in the next post: BUTTER!