Leprecahuns didn't always wear green...
Ireland, The Emerald Isle....I'm finally here!
Wednesday morning I arrived on the island that is Ireland. The very first thing I did was spend almost 45 minutes in the customs line, waiting to get my passport stamped. One of the guys behind me said he felt like he was at Wal-Mart, all these people in line and 2 lanes open. I wanted to disagree and comment snarkily in my head about the uncouth Amrerican, but I saw his point. The line had to be over 150 people and there were only 2 lanes open for checking passports. Ugh!
But eventually I made it out of the airport and in to Dublin. My first order of business was to get rid of my bags, so I checked in to my hotel. O'Donoghue's is a pub with rooms above it. The two older men who run the place couldn't be sweeter, and even carried my bag up to my room. I went from London with 1 bed and barely any space, to Cardiff with 1 bed and lots of space to Dublin where I have a decent amount of space and 2! beds! There's a double bed and twin bed in my room. I must admit it's been nice to have somewhere to put things other than the floor. The shower in the room is what I imagine drowning feels like. There is SO MUCH water coming out of the shower head with SO MUCH pressure, it's overwhelming! But at least I feel clean when I finish, i could have the opposite problem...
Now I've done my research on Dublin, but research is nothing to real life experience, so my first destination was the tourism office. I got brochures for lots of great things to see, and right outside the office is where the hop on-hop off bus tour stops. So I hopped on the bus and wound my way around Dublin, past St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Kilmainham Gaol (jail), past the Guiness Brewery and the Jameson Distillery as well as many other interesting sites.
After my bus tour I headed over to the Gaiety Theatre to buy some tickets. Riverdance is in town for it's 20th anniversary tour. I'll talk more about that later though.
After a spot of lunch I headed back to my room to get ready for a night out. I had planned to do the Traditional Music Pub Crawl, which is a bunch of people going to different pubs to hear music. Well it turns out that there were a limited amount of spaces and they were all pre-booked. So I went to dinner. Where I got a bit annoyed. I am traveling by myself. So when I go to a restaurant I eat by myself. I am amazed at the number of host/hostess people who give me this surprised look when I say table for 1. Seriously people, it can't be that rare an occurrence that someone wants to eat by themselves. But I had dinner and returned to my room to plan my 3 days in Dublin.
Thursday I went to college, Trinity College to be exact. Trinity is a beautiful campus but the reason everyone goes there is to see The Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a beautifully illuminated (illustrated) book which was hand-written by some monks and it's the 4 gospels. It's truly a beautiful thing to see, then you continue on in to the long room, which is exactly what it sounds like a long room, FULL of books. Over a million of em' I wanted to stay there forever but alas that's not possible...
My next adventure lead me to jail or should I say Gaol. The Kilmainham Gaol was built in the 1700's and held prisoners until 1924. The leaders of the Easter Uprising of 1916 were held and executed there. The stories that were told were heartbreaking, and seeing the conditions that some of these prisoners were kept in, was unthinkable. Its definitely something everyone should see, quite the experience.
So after such a heavy experience, my next stop was the Jameson Distillery. It was a cute tour, bringing you through the history of the Jameson name and their distillation process (it's triple distilled) and of course no liquor tour would be complete without a "free" drink at the end. You could either have a Jameson neat or a Jameson Sour. I had the sour because straight whiskey before dinner didn't seem like a good idea.
After touring Jameson I returned to my room to get ready to go to Riverdance. I was so excited to get to see Riverdance again. I had seen them once before in 2002. Mom, Grandma and I went to see the show in Duluth during my senior year of high school. The show was great. I had some flashbacks to Studio B tap dancing! The speed at which these people move their feet is unimaginable, and they don't even look like it takes any effort! Overall an amazing spectacle.
Friday brought me to Dublin castle. Dublin castle isn't so much a castle as the others that I've seen. It was never meant to be the home of a monarch. It was more a political hub. Most of the rooms were closed so we only got to see the chapel and the under-croft. The Under-croft was pretty impressive though. Its where the original foundations and such from the original castle buildings can been seen. The guide was a bit idiosyncratic but very knowledgeable.
By the time I finished with Dublin castle it was time for me to do some more laundry. I was wearing the last of my clean clothes! I packed up all my stuff and asked the old man who runs the place if there was a laundry nearby. Well he didn't know but his friend that he was talking to knew who would know, so he called his friend Pat (don't know if that's a man or a woman). Pat thought he/she knew of a place nearby, so instead of just explaining to me how to get there, the friend walked me to the place. I've heard that the Irish are a friendly people, but this was something else. Well we found the place and parted ways. It turns out the place wasn't a laundromat, but a laundry place. So I dropped off my clothes and was told to come pick them up about 5:30. All of a sudden I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't have anything planned because I knew laundry would take a good couple of hours.
Nearby is #29 Georgian House. It's a Georgian House that is all set-up like the houses of the time would have been. It was a beautiful house and the guides could answer any question we could come up with.
After the Georgian House, I still had time so I went to the National Gallery. The National Gallery was a bit disappointing because they're under construction so not everything was available for seeing. :(
Finally it was time to pick-up my laundry. It was great, all clean and folded, yes I did have to pay for it, but not that much more really than if I had to wash it myself.
I wandered down to Grafton Street for dinner and stopped at the Disney store to pick-up something for my babies.
This morning was a lazy morning. I took my time getting ready. My first stop was the Jameson Distillery to pick-up something from the gift shop, after that I got back on the hop on-hop off tour and went out by Glasnevin Cemetary and Croke Park before going to the Leprechaun Museum. Yes I said leprechaun museum. It was fantastic. It's one of those places where you just go with it and everything is cute and funny. Along the way our guide Noel (pronounced like knoll) told several stories about Irish folk-lore. There was a Giant's Room, and a wishing well, a rainbow hallway with thousands of strings hanging down in the order of the rainbow for you to walk through. If you ever come to Dublin with kids (or enjoy that kind of thing) definitely see the Leprechaun Museum
Tomorrow I begin the scariest part of my adventure. Tomorrow I pick-up a car at Dublin airport and DRIVE in Ireland. Luckily I will be doing very little city driving, but I WILL be on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road. It should be interesting. I'm sure I'll get in the wrong side of the car more than once!
Tomorrow is also my babies' birthday party. I will unfortunately miss it, but I will FaceTime in so I can wish Meredith and Thomas a Happy Birthday, though their actual birthdays aren't for a few more days/weeks.
Well until next time. Slainte!
Wednesday morning I arrived on the island that is Ireland. The very first thing I did was spend almost 45 minutes in the customs line, waiting to get my passport stamped. One of the guys behind me said he felt like he was at Wal-Mart, all these people in line and 2 lanes open. I wanted to disagree and comment snarkily in my head about the uncouth Amrerican, but I saw his point. The line had to be over 150 people and there were only 2 lanes open for checking passports. Ugh!
But eventually I made it out of the airport and in to Dublin. My first order of business was to get rid of my bags, so I checked in to my hotel. O'Donoghue's is a pub with rooms above it. The two older men who run the place couldn't be sweeter, and even carried my bag up to my room. I went from London with 1 bed and barely any space, to Cardiff with 1 bed and lots of space to Dublin where I have a decent amount of space and 2! beds! There's a double bed and twin bed in my room. I must admit it's been nice to have somewhere to put things other than the floor. The shower in the room is what I imagine drowning feels like. There is SO MUCH water coming out of the shower head with SO MUCH pressure, it's overwhelming! But at least I feel clean when I finish, i could have the opposite problem...
Now I've done my research on Dublin, but research is nothing to real life experience, so my first destination was the tourism office. I got brochures for lots of great things to see, and right outside the office is where the hop on-hop off bus tour stops. So I hopped on the bus and wound my way around Dublin, past St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Kilmainham Gaol (jail), past the Guiness Brewery and the Jameson Distillery as well as many other interesting sites.
After my bus tour I headed over to the Gaiety Theatre to buy some tickets. Riverdance is in town for it's 20th anniversary tour. I'll talk more about that later though.
After a spot of lunch I headed back to my room to get ready for a night out. I had planned to do the Traditional Music Pub Crawl, which is a bunch of people going to different pubs to hear music. Well it turns out that there were a limited amount of spaces and they were all pre-booked. So I went to dinner. Where I got a bit annoyed. I am traveling by myself. So when I go to a restaurant I eat by myself. I am amazed at the number of host/hostess people who give me this surprised look when I say table for 1. Seriously people, it can't be that rare an occurrence that someone wants to eat by themselves. But I had dinner and returned to my room to plan my 3 days in Dublin.
Thursday I went to college, Trinity College to be exact. Trinity is a beautiful campus but the reason everyone goes there is to see The Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a beautifully illuminated (illustrated) book which was hand-written by some monks and it's the 4 gospels. It's truly a beautiful thing to see, then you continue on in to the long room, which is exactly what it sounds like a long room, FULL of books. Over a million of em' I wanted to stay there forever but alas that's not possible...
My next adventure lead me to jail or should I say Gaol. The Kilmainham Gaol was built in the 1700's and held prisoners until 1924. The leaders of the Easter Uprising of 1916 were held and executed there. The stories that were told were heartbreaking, and seeing the conditions that some of these prisoners were kept in, was unthinkable. Its definitely something everyone should see, quite the experience.
So after such a heavy experience, my next stop was the Jameson Distillery. It was a cute tour, bringing you through the history of the Jameson name and their distillation process (it's triple distilled) and of course no liquor tour would be complete without a "free" drink at the end. You could either have a Jameson neat or a Jameson Sour. I had the sour because straight whiskey before dinner didn't seem like a good idea.
After touring Jameson I returned to my room to get ready to go to Riverdance. I was so excited to get to see Riverdance again. I had seen them once before in 2002. Mom, Grandma and I went to see the show in Duluth during my senior year of high school. The show was great. I had some flashbacks to Studio B tap dancing! The speed at which these people move their feet is unimaginable, and they don't even look like it takes any effort! Overall an amazing spectacle.
Friday brought me to Dublin castle. Dublin castle isn't so much a castle as the others that I've seen. It was never meant to be the home of a monarch. It was more a political hub. Most of the rooms were closed so we only got to see the chapel and the under-croft. The Under-croft was pretty impressive though. Its where the original foundations and such from the original castle buildings can been seen. The guide was a bit idiosyncratic but very knowledgeable.
By the time I finished with Dublin castle it was time for me to do some more laundry. I was wearing the last of my clean clothes! I packed up all my stuff and asked the old man who runs the place if there was a laundry nearby. Well he didn't know but his friend that he was talking to knew who would know, so he called his friend Pat (don't know if that's a man or a woman). Pat thought he/she knew of a place nearby, so instead of just explaining to me how to get there, the friend walked me to the place. I've heard that the Irish are a friendly people, but this was something else. Well we found the place and parted ways. It turns out the place wasn't a laundromat, but a laundry place. So I dropped off my clothes and was told to come pick them up about 5:30. All of a sudden I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn't have anything planned because I knew laundry would take a good couple of hours.
Nearby is #29 Georgian House. It's a Georgian House that is all set-up like the houses of the time would have been. It was a beautiful house and the guides could answer any question we could come up with.
After the Georgian House, I still had time so I went to the National Gallery. The National Gallery was a bit disappointing because they're under construction so not everything was available for seeing. :(
Finally it was time to pick-up my laundry. It was great, all clean and folded, yes I did have to pay for it, but not that much more really than if I had to wash it myself.
I wandered down to Grafton Street for dinner and stopped at the Disney store to pick-up something for my babies.
This morning was a lazy morning. I took my time getting ready. My first stop was the Jameson Distillery to pick-up something from the gift shop, after that I got back on the hop on-hop off tour and went out by Glasnevin Cemetary and Croke Park before going to the Leprechaun Museum. Yes I said leprechaun museum. It was fantastic. It's one of those places where you just go with it and everything is cute and funny. Along the way our guide Noel (pronounced like knoll) told several stories about Irish folk-lore. There was a Giant's Room, and a wishing well, a rainbow hallway with thousands of strings hanging down in the order of the rainbow for you to walk through. If you ever come to Dublin with kids (or enjoy that kind of thing) definitely see the Leprechaun Museum
Tomorrow I begin the scariest part of my adventure. Tomorrow I pick-up a car at Dublin airport and DRIVE in Ireland. Luckily I will be doing very little city driving, but I WILL be on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road. It should be interesting. I'm sure I'll get in the wrong side of the car more than once!
Tomorrow is also my babies' birthday party. I will unfortunately miss it, but I will FaceTime in so I can wish Meredith and Thomas a Happy Birthday, though their actual birthdays aren't for a few more days/weeks.
Well until next time. Slainte!
sweet!!!! driving on the wrong side of the car and road!! id totally crash. im not good at this perspective thing that you need to drive. its good ive been driving for a while because id be totally screwed. :P LOL
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, I think I would love Trinity College and The Book of Kells! Neat!
ReplyDelete