Our foray into Dublin

Why is Dublin the world’s largest city? Because it just keeps on Dublin, and Dublin, and Dublin…. Okay bad joke but it’s time to head into the big city.

We dropped off Eileen and took an Uber into the city, we were staying at the Clarendon Suites, which is more of VRBO apartment setup. We were given the apartment code to get into the building but while we were able to get into the building for some reason we couldn’t get the code to work for the apartment.

There is a bar downstairs that the owners have a relationship with so they recommended talking to the bartenders and they could help you. I traipsed downstairs and they got us in. It was later in the day so after we settled into our new home for the next few days we decided to hit up the bar downstairs for dinner. They apologized ahead of time, as the waits were long as it was a bank holiday the next day so they were busier than expected tied into the fact there was a marathon downtown earlier in the day driving more people into the area.

The not fun part of dinner, I don’t know why as I mentioned earlier in the day I had a little sun allergy kicking in but at dinner I was having trouble swallowing a bit. I figure it was due to being tired or whatever but just finished dinner a little early.

After our early dinner/late lunch we wandered down to St. Stephen’s Green to wander and explored the park.  Here we had a wonderful time greeting the magpies that were exploring the park as well, the park was brimming with all of the people out for a stroll. As we wandered out of the park we stopped at Fusiliers Arch to find some of the remnant’s/bullet markings from the Easter Rising, the first action in the Irish Rebellion.

 

On our way back to the apartment while being serenaded by the sound of the horse hooves clacking down the street and the flautist playing a little ditty down the road, we decided to give into all of the ice cream sign temptations we have been seeing the entire trip and indulge in a little ice cream.

Kilmainham Goal

The next morning, gross/gag, I found that I had picked up a little hitchhiker I am guessing from the Hill of Tara, a little tick had camped itself along to the big city. Blrgh!

Shaking off the creepy crawlies from the creepy crawly. We grabbed an uber to our first destination of the day, but as we got their early it was past time for me to introduce my sister the a proper croissant, the pan au chocolat. Bakeries in America have nothing on Europe, man these croissants are great over here.

Continuing on the Easter Rising theme, we had tickets to have a tour through Kilmainham Goal, where many of the Easter Rising leaders were imprisoned. They were not particular in this prison, keeping men, women and children here. I think they mentioned the youngest was a 5 year old who was imprisoned for stealing food. Conditions weren’t the greatest but if you had influence you had a little more of a hotel styled room vs the cell block the others had, but even then life wasn’t all roses. They focused on the 3 S’s as a way of life in the prison.  Solitary, Supervision, and most important of them all Silence.

 

Lisa and I liked to hang in the back and really get a good sense and feel of the place. I think places have energy and certain hallways just felt heavy with despair, while the main hall which was so bright and airy felt like it had hope.

Trinity College

Now onto the main event for the day, we had been dreaming of this place for years, drooling over the thought of finally visiting here. Off to see the Book of Kells and specifically the Old Library in the Long Room in the library at Trinity College.

The place was swarmed with people. They only let so many people into the section where the Book of Kells is located at a time. Avoid the long lines and buy your tickets and timeslot online ahead of going there, or go first thing in the morning. We purchased our tickets the night before for the first available timeslot which was around 11 AM. It was so busy! I am glad we were able to walk right up to the front and be ushered in.

After visiting the section where the Book of Kells is located you get to enter the Long Room in the Old Library. Oh if only you could bottle up the smell of books, I could breathe that in all day. I only wish we were able to visit where the crowds were smaller, maybe the first or the last group of the day. This place feels like pure magic…

Since we didn’t get a chance to swing through the Aran Islands, I stopped by the Aran Sweater store and picked myself up a nice Irish wool scarf (it will take up less room in my suitcase than a sweater). We grabbed a quick lunch at Farm Restaurant (which appears to no longer be open).

Hairy Lemon

We have been so go, go, go the entire trip that even though we were now in the bustling city it felt like a good time to slow down so we stopped back at the apartment and took a nice leisurely nap. Naps are the best aren’t they? I love a good nap.

We spent some time trying to determine where to go for dinner, of course forgetting that one of our cab drivers recommended Brazen head was a great place to go. We cruised through the nearby places online and soon there was clear winner, no other option was allowed.

My sister and I like the movies, during the summer months off of school we would play a game to guess what movie the other person selected just by watching the previews (yes this was before the day and age of Netflix, iTunes, and DVD’s where you could go straight to the main event), you had to fast forward your VHS tape or just watch all of the previews just to get to the movie.

Well one of our favorite movies was The Commitments. If you haven’t seen it, that’s fine but you need to go take a listen to the soundtrack. It’s fantastic. Anyways, a part of the movie was filmed at The Hairy Lemon, so of course that is that is where we are headed for dinner.

We popped into the pub, ordered a pint, my sister ordered herself a cider (she’s not a brew person) and her cider was really good (Appleman’s I believe). The food was really good so I can recommend a stop in, I had the traditional bacon and cabbage and I think my sister had the cottage pie. Portions were very healthy and you left quite stuffed.

So noticing we had a theme of movies/tv shows we love that were filmed across Ireland we started to create a little list.

The Commitments, Princess Bride, Star Wars, The Quiet Man, Braveheart, Game of Thrones, The Italian Job, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and on and on. We actually had a discussion about it with the barman at the Hairy Lemon, he said yeah, its not hard to throw a rock and hit a filming location of a movie in Ireland.

We strolled the streets afterwards, wandered past the famous Temple Bar and Ha’penny Bridge, we strolled back to the bar at our apartment as they have live music nightly. However there was no sign of a band coming (beyond just a reserved table) so we retreated to our room, 2 hours late the music started but we had already called it a night.

Farewell to Ireland

The next morning was an early day, we strolled down the street to a bakery we scoped out the night before to get a pan au chocolat (although the one we had the day before was far superior) before our uber came to collect us to take us to the airport.

We had one last pure Irish experience on our way to the airport, it was during rush hour as our flight was out in the morning. There was a bit of construction and lanes needed to merge, however one utility van wasn’t so much for paying attention to the drivers around him and almost smashed into a car. An official road rage incident occurred, the man in the car got out and started screaming at the van driver. Honestly didn’t know what exactly what was going to happen but I had to laugh. For road rage, it was quite proper. He got out yelled (spit yelling in fact) but shoved a book in the van drivers face. It was the drivers manual or something akin to that. Don’t you know how to drive! Here read the book! It was so hard to not laugh.

Its only been a few countries I have been through where they treat the flight into the US as a domestic flight, meaning the US customs process is conducted in the originating country. Canada being one of those, Ireland is that one as well. I wish they would warn you of that ahead of time, you may need to account for additional time to get through exit and entry process from one country to the next.

So if you’re heading to Ireland and live in the States just plan a little extra time at the airport coming back to get through the process.

While waiting for our flight we had a good chuckle at a few things to buy, I don’t know why we didn’t try any Tatos even then but enjoyed the mascot, the ketchup was fun, but what we did buy was these white chocolate Cadbury things as we had been chuckling at this comedian in Australia who was losing his mind over them. They constantly are sold out where he lives so he becomes a hoarder when he finds them. We decided we had to get some to try. Ugh. No. White chocolate is bad y’all and this was straight up horrible.

Our journey was coming to an end and there was no better way to sign off on our trip than with a quick airport massage on our layover and a nice rainbow right before I had the final turn on my drive home.

We will miss Ireland. Our next trip we will spend more time in the country than in the city, hit up some spots we rushed past to complete our country tour over the past eight/ninish days.

All in all, roadtrips are fun. I can’t wait until the next one with my sister, Scotland watch out. We will be coming for you someday.

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