Dracula at the Gym, Mongolian Bono and Molly Malone’s Shiny Big Boobs

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No one expects to find Dracula at the gym, or at least, not until they've been to Dublin and then it may seem quite normal. For at Clontarf there is a Dracula Experience at Westwood Gym, a rather unusual place to rock up at (being a rather large health and fitness centre), and then be escorted past all the fitness posters, equipment and various treatment rooms to the Dracula Hall of Fame, then ultimately to his castle. Naturally it was dark, loud and extremely disorientating, populated by the undead waiting to scare the bejesus out of every silly tourist without fail. Talking of undead, I was beginning to feel this way by the time we'd reached the castle as throughout the day, I'd walked over 30,000 steps...

My first 1,500 steps had been between midnight and 1.30 as Glyn and I arrived in the dead of night and had to find our way without the help of an uncommunicative bus driver to Ballsbridge where our Air B'n'b accommodation was situated.

We eventually found the house situated behind iron gates with a key code and were welcomed by John, a guy in his 40's who owned and worked at a nearby music studio. The walls were lined with framed music front pages of the Pixies and AC/DC. John doesn't normally talk to guests as they're usually 'boring as f***', but once we started chatting about music and I impressed him with a recent photo of me with Al Jourgensen on the tour bus, he regretted being on the last glass of his bottle of wine and thus had none left to offer us. We really liked John and spent a fair bit of time shooting the shit.

I would say that due to having limited time in Dublin, we got up early; but anyone who reads my blogs will know that I always make Glyn get up early on holidays, then make him walk many many miles, usually up hills and in hot weather, so nothing new here. And I was in luck, as it was an unusually hot day (for Dublin). So we walked a few kilometres into the centre of Dublin and started off with Trinity College.

I knew nothing of Trinity College, but my tourist map had marked the ‘Book of Kells’ as being situated there and I'd vaguely heard of that. The college was an impressive old building with a massive square where a student donning shorts, t-shirt and now out-dated scholarly gown regaled us with history, anecdotes and famous people who had studied there - most notable to me were Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde.

Afterwards we queued in the hot sun, to see the ‘Book of Kells’. The queue took place by a building that was a replica of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, although the latter never actually existed and the former was covered in an acidic concrete that killed all foliage that attempted to hang there. An epic fail, but gave us all something to laugh at which was needed as Glyn and I were stuck in this queue behind the type if American tourists who are loud, proud mines of mis-information, including the fact that Loch Ness is in Wales (or was it in England now?) and that Northern Ireland was part of Ireland having the Euro and all. I could see Glyn melting into despair next to me and I anticipated us being alone so that he could do some really impressive impressions. He did not let me down.

The Book of Kells Exhibition was lined with large illuminated pictures of various pages, which is helpful because when you get to the actual book, it is heavily guarded by French tourists who will never move - they are still there now. It is behind a thick glass case ever since Queen Victoria visited and graffitied over it - the proof of this being she tagged it with her own name. The actual Book of Kells is a 1200 year old bible that was badly written but looks really cool with a variety of colourful pages. It was hand painted on vellum by a group of lonely monks cooped up on a tiny island with no company, entertainment or booze for many years. Some pages are really ornate whilst others a bit dull, and a page is turned everyday so chances are that even if you do battle with the French and get to see it, you could end up sorely disappointed.

Next stop was the Spire, which is a 120 metre spike that cost €5 million to erect, originally to celebrate the new millennium but wasn't built in time. Apparently not so popular with the locals due to the cost and has other names such as Spire in the Mire; The Stiletto in the Ghetto; The Nail in the Pale; The Stiffy by the Liffey; The Pin in the Bin and The Erection at the Intersection. I thought it looked alright, a bit different. Originally Nelson's Pillar had stood there, similar to Nelson's Column in London and a relic of British rule, so the IRA tried to blow it up in 1966, but only partially damaged it and it became unsafe. So the Irish Army finished the job, with so much explosive, they shattered most of the windows on the street. At least it got the job done.

At the Spire we met Chris, a tour guide to go on a pre-booked free three hour walking tour. Chris, a young ginger guy whose face cracked into more lines than Nazca when he grinned, escorted the group of around 50 people around the crowded streets which were particularly chaotic due to the building of new tramlines. The tour was fully of light history of the southern part of the city, peppered with self depreciating Irish humour (if you want the somber tour of hundreds of years of oppressive rule by the English and starvation, go to the northern tour at 3pm).

There's a well known Irish song called 'Molly Malone' and if you haven't heard it, where have you been hiding? It's about a woman who came from a long line of fishmongers that sold cockles and mussels from a wheelbarrow up and down the streets of Dublin. The chorus goes on about how she sold cockles and mussels 'alive, alive o, alive, alive o, singing cockles and mussels alive, alive o' - you know it now? Anyway, everyone in Dublin knew her as she was pretty loud about her shellfish and the song goes on that even after death, she could still be heard singing with her wheelbarrow. This isn't spooky, but meant to show that even common people can be remembered and missed when gone. Lovely. So in the 80’s it was decided to place a statue of Molly near Grafton Street which is particularly cool as statues (which are meant to be inspirational and a tribute) of women are very rare, I think less than 10% in the UK are female, and mostly they are of Royals. But this statue was sculpted by a man who thinks very little of women and so Molly has a ginormous pair of shiny boobs popping out of her bodice. Upon arriving at the statue, it was being groped by a lecherous middle-aged tourist as his family squirmed and asked him to stop. Chris told us the reason why Molly's boobs are so shiny is that she gets groped like this daily and now the meaning of the song has changed throughout Ireland; Molly now is regarded as a desperate fishy hooker. On the plus side, Chris took us to his favourite statue which happened to be of a real and inspiring woman, Veronica Guerin, a journalist who insisted on exposing crime and corruption in Dublin during the 90’s much to the annoyance of the general public who preferred to read about winning Eurovision and other fluffy stuff. She finally got people to listen by getting shot dead by criminals in broad daylight in a public place. But at least in death, she is safe from pervy tourists as the statue is of her head alone.

Chris showed us many landmarks including the disappointing Dublin Castle where ancient walls were brightly painted bright primary colours, because the new architects 'like those colours'; let's not bother with boring symbolism that no one gets anyway. I like that attitude!

The tour concluded by St Patrick's Cathedral, one of two Cathedrals in Dublin, neither of which are Catholic despite being in a predominantly Catholic country because of red tape really. So both are pretty empty, the other being funded by craft and food shops and St Patrick's being funded by Jameson's Whiskey and Guinness over the years. Chris concluded the tour by being harangued by a rather withered and confused old man who he claimed was his dad. We tipped Chris €20 (the suggested rate) and headed to Kilmainham Gaol.

On the way, we stopped at Grainger’s Bar, a proper Irish pub in that it was full of old Irish people as opposed to an ‘Oirish’ pub which is fully of green things and tourists. Now I don’t like Guiness and so I had half a pint of Guiness. This is because products consumed in their country of origin usually are a lot more palatable and sometimes even nice. So this Guiness was quite nice if it wasn’t for that foamy head.

Considering the amount of historical attractions we have visited, we really should have thought to pre-book the Gaol but we didn't. And so we didn't get in and there's no spaces all weekend. Bugger. So we hopped on to the 'Hop on Hop off' city tour bus and got touring from the comfort of the windy open upper deck.

Hopping off near the Halfpenny Bridge, we headed to the Leprechaun Exhibition as recommended by the bus driver. To be sure there was little leprechaun action which was disappointing, plus a young lady overacting as she told us traditional Irish folktales in replica fairy woods. We did get to climb on giant furniture and take photos but in all fairness, I would say it was a bit crap really.

We soon hopped back onto the hop-on bus and sat ourselves in the open upper area despite it getting quite cold and windy - could be worse though, we could be on the Viking Splash tour where participants are made to wear horned helmets and look glum. At first I thought that my seat must have been recently occupied by a person with a very warm bum, but then it turned out that the seats were heated and it really was very nice. I could have sat there all day.

We arrived at Connolly Station where an extremely helpful rail guy put us in the right direction to catch a train to Clontarf Road which was only one stop away but would have been a bit of a walk. Arriving at Clontarf, there was absolutely no signage for the Dracula Experience and so we walked around for sometime in an unpromising and desolate looking area getting more and more lost. This is quite normal for us and so although we came close to giving up, we didn’t. We eventually realized that the map was wrong and we had been to the right place right at the beginning having walked away from it.

The right place was the Westwood Club, a very busy and large gym and as we arrived it occurred to use that we hadn’t pre-booked. Oh shit….

But luckily an elderly gentleman in black suit, lemon yellow shirt and dickie bow informed us that there was space and we were led with the rest of the tourists through the length of the gym until we arrived at the castle. The experience started with actors dressed as the mad Renwick and Bride of Dracula, Lucy insulting, hissing and spitting at us. Then we had to file through various dark and weird areas as other actors jumped out and made us crap ourselves. If there were too many of us, Renwick held us back to await our turns to be screamed at. Some English women in front of me were getting a bit upset and one was getting ready to punch the next ghost who kept popping out of picture frames. Half way through we stopped for a break where there was a bar or we could wander down the hall of fame to read up on Bram Stoker and find out about his life in Dublin. He was a bit odd really.

The second half of the performance was a one-man magic show which was pretty impressive and the magician claimed he had his powers because he was a vampire… or something like that. We were there for an hour and forty-five minutes, so better value for money than we’d anticipated.

Getting back to the main part of Dublin at around 9pm isn’t the best idea if you’re hungry because just about everywhere stops serving food. The expensive Oirish bars are full of tourists sing Bon Jovi songs with doormen thankfully keeping them inside. The area was getting pretty rowdy and Glyn was considering going to the Spar shop and living on crisps.

Luckily we came across a Mongolian Barbecue that wasn’t due to shut for another 45 minutes. It’s a sort of buffet in that you go around with your bowl and fill it with raw ingredients, sauces and spices and then take it took the chefs who stir fry it for you. It was really tasty and not expensive (for Dublin). Another bonus was they had a massive mural of Mongolians from way back when and I swear the leader was Bono – if it wasn’t, this guy had at least stolen Bono’s sunglasses. Maybe the other guys were the rest of U2, but I couldn’t say as I have no idea what they look like.

Close by was the Vat House Bar, a bit Oirish, but had an Irish band playing and wasn’t packed like sardines, so we went in there for me to have another Guiness that I now like and a coffee for Glyn. I also can’t stand whiskey, so I had a large shot of Jameson’s which I thought I might like because it’s made in Ireland. And I did really enjoy it, being surprisingly smooth with a nice flavour. I still wouldn’t drink it anywhere else though. Glyn had ordered the drinks - no ice in the whiskey and no milk in the coffee, the barman was well impressed. But not as impressed as I was listening to my husband singing ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ in his best Irish accent – what did they put in that coffee?

We took the bus back to Ballsbridge as I reckon 30,000 steps in a day is acceptable and to be honest, we were knackered.



On the Sunday morning, we got up early as we had little time left due to Ryanair changing the flight times. We wandered up into the city centre to find out most of it was shut. A young guy advertised a cheap all Irish Breakfast at O’Neils by holding a sign in the middle of the street but when we got to the pub, it was a lot more expensive and the barman blamed the young lad for being hopeless, but I think we were had. We stayed anyway because the table we had its own beer taps which totally fascinated me.

A bit more wandering was done because nothing was open and apparently it doesn’t until midday. So we hopped back on the hopping bus as our tickets were still valid for 24 hours after purchase. The bus driver was pretty amusing but we soon hopped off to see some striking sculptures depicting migrating sufferers of Ireland's Great Famine of 1845 to 1852 by the river. These starving people were heading to the ‘Coffin Ships’ thus named as most of them sank and were full of people trying to escape starvation. Ireland’s population had been over 8 million but it still now is just around 4 million as they don’t get many much needed immigrants. If we’d had time, I would have liked to visit the Famine Museum. Another thing of note was yesterday our ginger guide was saying that Ireland had been a net taker from the EU (whereas the UK was more of a net giver) and they had thrived as a result thank you very much, but our bus driver was telling us as we passed through the financial area that all the Irish money went in the building and out into Germany…. Hmm, seems that the Irish are fed the same misinformation we get in the UK. Sadly for them, they do have the Sun ‘news’ paper and other similar British propaganda publications like we do. Sorry Ireland!

We continued on the hopping bus until it took us far away from the boundaries of my map so that we could get off and get lost in quite a rich area with just an hour to get back to our accommodation. John, our Air B’n’b host and his girlfriend were just cooking breakfast as we arrived and said goodbye and headed back home.









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