Day 1: Travel and Dublin

The trip from Baltimore to Dublin was pretty uneventful. The Aer Lingus flight gave us our first taste of the Irish accent, but really wasn't different from US airlines (except the booze was free). We had to make an unexpected stop in Shannon to switch planes, since apparently, something was wrong with the one in which we flew over the ocean  :(


After going through customs, we took a cab to our first lodging, the Tavistock Guest House. This was a decent B&B that was within walking distance of downtown Dublin. Everyone was pretty tired, so there was some napping going on before we set out to explore the city. Dublin is a lot like the other big European cities I've been to. It has lots of old buildings, twisty narrow streets with tons of buses and trucks (and the associated diesel stink), and plenty of people walking around. It may have a few more pubs than the others (one guide said more than 700!).


We headed first for St. Stephens Green, the central city park of Dublin. Ireland has a lot of flowers planted around the city, perhaps to compensate for the rainy weather, and this park was full of them. The lodge in the park was supposedly built by one of the Guinness family, who seem to have played a very large part in the recent history of the country.


Next, we walked over to Grafton Street, where several streets were permanently closed to traffic. They need more places like this in every big city. It was really nice to walk down the middle of the street, not having to worry about the traffic ("Mind that bus! What bus? SPLAT!")  All of the stores here were really snooty and spendy, but it was still nice to look around.


Trinity College was the next stop. Our main goal here was to get a look at the Book of Kells, although the campus also had some pretty cool architecture. (Who is Lecky, anyway?) They wouldn't let you take pictures when looking at the book exhibit, to preserve it from flash-damage, but it was still pretty cool. Lots of very intricate illuminations with Celtic patterns. If you go to Ireland, be sure to budget in a bit of cash for entry into all of these attractions, since they usually aren't free.


Continuing our stroll, we walked across the River Liffey for a minute, checking out more buildings and people, and trying to stay awake with our happy-fun jet lag. After hanging out for a bit, we walked back across the Halfpenny bridge and went to the Temple Bar area of the city. This was billed as Dublin's bohemian quarter, and it did look like a fun place to hang out on the weekends. We found a place to eat dinner, The Shack, and had our first Irish food.  Overall, I didn't really dig the Irish food. There were some good things, such as the fish pie I had at this restaurant, but much of the food primarily relied on salt and pepper as seasonings, and was pretty heavy. Most meals had a side of cooked vegetables ("veg"), which was usually turnips and carrots.  Drinks were usually beer or wine, since most bartenders actually didn't know how to mix drinks.


After dinner, we headed back to the B&B, and the blissful sleep of the first night of jet lag.

Thus endeth day one of the Ireland trip.

Proceed to day 2: Dublin Part Deux: Tourists At Large...


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