Ireland was Green

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So, it's taken a little while, but I just finished packing up my stuff for Greece, so I decided I better write about Ireland before I leave again.

We left Thursday night from Gatwick Airport which was a lot smaller than Heathrow and we had a lovely dinner at an American-Italian place. I had really good spaghetti, although it made me a feel a little sick later. When we got into Dublin it was pretty late, and we had to find the bus to our hotel which took a bit. But we finally found it and got dropped off across the motorway from our hotel, so we had to run across it and we were there! It was a pretty decent place, no frills, cheap, a TV (I was so excited, I haven't watched any TV besides Office Episodes since I left), but it was an inconvenient 50-70 minute bus ride from Dublin (depending on traffic, which was pretty horrendous when we were there). I think the cheap factor made up for that though, it would have been way more expensive to stay in the city. And the bed was surprisingly comfortable, so that was wonderful.

On Friday we got up really early and finally figured out how to take the bus into Dublin City. Then we met Greta (a girl from STA ) for a lovely breakfast at this amazing bakery that I am really sad that I didn't get to go back to (you know how I love sweets). Then Greta walked us around town a bit before heading out to Cork with a friend. We immediately took out our cameras and started taking pictures. We started in St. Stephen's Green, where Greta left us, it was so beautiful. It was like Hyde Park, but different at the same time. It was so green but also full of fall trees, which were lovely - I miss the fall. I also saw some gray swans which were really pretty, I've never seen any in real life before.

Then we walked down Grafton Street, which is where all the expensive shops are. Everything was decorated for Christmas which was exciting. You'll see some of that in the photos; I love Christmas decorations! We walked down to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells which is one of the oldest surviving illuminated books - I think it's 800s? It had a combination of ancient Irish and Christian decoration. It was really interesting because there was a whole exhibit on early book making and illumination, but the viewing the actual book wasn't that exciting. It's in four volumes, one for each gospel, but you only got to see two of them and they weren't open to especially exciting pages. But they had two other older books and we got to walk through their library which had a collection of books for viewing, which was neat.

After that we decided that we would try to find the Guinness Museum, since we weren't sure exactly where it was and the map we had was not very good. The problem with European roads is that they don't really label them and they don't usually intersect at right angles so it's easy to accidentally cross over onto another road. So we got a little side tracked on the way there, but finally found it. It was pretty neat, and really big. The building was really neat architecturally speaking. I was a big fan. I also found that I preferred the taste of Guinness to Heineken, which was surprising (although I can't say that I really enjoyed it), but the Heineken Museum was much more exciting, I have to say.
We walked down to Temple Bar Area, which was not as exciting as I had expected it to be, or as touristy really... We had lunch somewhere, but I honestly have no idea where/what it was. Then we just wandered some more around the River Liffey and and back up to O'Connell Street, where we thought we could catch the bus. It turns out that the Irish bus line likes to change it's mind about where or when it will stop. So we ended up walking about a mile to get to a different bus stop - even though the next day we found one that was a lot closer. Traffic was horrible and because we got on a 41C instead of a 41, 41A, 41B, 41K, or 41X, it didn't stop by our hotel (like every other 41 bus) and we ended up riding the bus all the way until the final stop and then back again. Luckily the driver was pretty nice about it (although he did make me feel a little dumb at first about getting on the 41C, although it seems like pretty easy mistake to make, especially since every other one stops there (and we looked at the schedule at the stop later, and it says that the 41C does actually stop there - so that is another reason why I say that the Irish Bus Drivers just do whatever they want...). So, that was an interesting night.

Saturday we slept in a little bit, which was nice, then went into town and took the DART (the Dublin Area Rapid Transit - basically a glorified light rail) to a city called Howth that is on the coast about 30 minutes away. It was a beautiful little town, and we got there pretty early, so the sky was still holding onto some of it's early morning brilliance. Actually the sky remained lovely all day - hopefully the pictures will show you what I mean. We walked down to the tourist office and got a local area map. (This becomes more important in the story later - but for now let me just say that it was hand drawn, had no scale, very little detail, and was supposed to cost €2, but since they just had them sitting outside in a pile with other brochures and no person there to collect the money we took them. And I'm glad, because the maps were not worth the paper they were printed on. But, more about that later.) Afterwards, we ate at the first decently priced pub/restaurant we could find. Luckily, we happened to pick a quite nice one, and I had an amazing homemade clam chowder (I took a picture - you'll see why it was so good there).
After lunch we decided we wanted to try to find Howth Castle because it's description was quite lovely and it is supposed to be home to a tomb called Aideen's Grave, which is were some queen was buried after dying of a broken heart when her husband died in battle. (I was just reading up on it online, and apparently it actually existed about 300 years that story took place, around BC 200). The Castle Gardens are also supposed to be beautiful. So, we took out our trusty map and saw that it only had one road on it that went to the castle and didn't really show any buildings except for the restaurants that I'm guessing paid to be put in it. So, we started up a road that corresponded roughly to where the road was on the map. Needless to say we got completely lost. I knew that we were headed in the wrong direction, but every time we tried to go the right way, we hit a dead end. So, we just kept going up (the peninsula is a giant hill cliff basically, and we just headed straight up it) and also to the left, which was completely wrong because the castle (according to the map was on the right from our perspective). We just didn't know where to go. We did see some pretty neat stuff, and got some great views of the harbor below us, but we were totally lost. Finally we asked a random guy who we happened to see walking past us how to get there. He was super nice about it and told us that we would have to walk through a golf course to get there quickest, apparently the castle was in the middle of the golf course. So, he showed us where to cut through into the golf course. So, we did - and that was really awkward. There were people out there playing, luckily there didn't appear to be anyone playing directly over where we were walking, and they were just starting at us, especially because we kept stopping to take pictures. And the grass was supper saturated with water, so it seeped into my shoes and my socks were quite wet (I'm not complaining, because it doesn't really bother me to have wet feet-and my shoes are pretty cheap, I'm just saying, it was really wet!).
We finally found the castle only to discover that it actually isn't open for tours, it's mostly dilapitated, and the part that is in good repair is now a private cooking school. So, it was neat to see, but basically a waste of time. Especially because we later saw the Abby that would have been a lot easier to get to and was a much nicer example of ancient ruins - but we were too tired out to walk up to it. Also, we followed the road back down to what we guessed would be about where we started, because we figured out that it was the road from the map. That road was actually quite a distance from were we had started, and the road on the map was not even close to where it was in real life. Ridiculous.
We also wanted to take a boat out to the Ireland Eye, which is supposed to be some neat island and was the original reason we came to Howth. Maggi clams that she saw a sign saying to go the the west pier for ferries to the island. Well, let me tell you; first of all - there were no ferries anywhere in site of where we were, and second, there were no signs that even mentioned the Ireland Eye. So, that was irritating. I just reread some info on the "howth is magic" website - where you can see the terrible map - and it says you can take "boat trips," but it doesn't say anything about how, when, or where. So dumb. If you want people to take vacations or be tourists in your area, you would think that accurate and useful information would be a key point focus of your group. But now, the Howth tourism board must really blow...

On Sunday we were taking our tour to Blarney Castle, the one that Maggi thinks her ancestor's once owned. (Maybe I'm just being skeptical, but McCarthy isn't a super uncommon name is it? I don't know, I didn't want to ruin her parade because she was so excited, but I just wasn't sure...) I would've rather have done the tour to the Cliffs of Moher, which is on the complete other side (the Atlantic side) of Ireland because I thought that would be wild. But, Maggi was excited about her family connections and the Blarney Stone, and I let her pick, since Ireland was kind of her trip, since her family was so into it. Anyway - off topic. We had to take a taxis to the tour meeting point because it was too early to take a bus. We had to be there at 7:00, we told the taxis company 6:40 - just to be safe, and they said they would pick us up at 5:30! I was a little concerned - would traffic really be that bad on a Sunday morning? (So far, the Dublin traffic I had seen was horrendous, so I didn't really put it past them). So we got up super early and got the taxi. On the bus it had been taking about an hour to get to the city center. On the Taxi, that early in the morning, it took 15 minutes! We were so early! And everyone kept saying, "oh, that tour doesn't leave until 7." Ridiculous. But, we did get to watch some tv while we waited - I fell in and out of sleep watching some weird "how it's made" show.
It was kind of weird, because we rode with people who were going to the Cliffs to Limerick. And then we took a private coach to Blarney because we were the only people who had signed up for that tour. Apparently it's not a very popular one (that's what the guide said). That was weird. I spent most of the time sleeping. The ride to Limerick had been really weird though - we had this old guy named PJ for a driver and he was funny and nice, but kind of annoying. He kept saying that he would let us sleep for a bit because it was so early - but then he launched into a tour presentation of what we were seeing as we drove out of Dublin. Then again he said we could sleep, then he started singing and telling weird jokes and just randomly asking if we were awake. Oh, I have to tell you the "story" that he told us. Here it is, as close to word for word as I can. Just imagine an Irish accent, and lots of stumbles and long pauses where you think he might have forgotten what he was talking about, and then suddenly he would launch back into it, completely throwing you off...
"Are you folks awake back there? I've got to tell you this story. This is a story about a man who was born in Ireland but left when he was young . He immigrated to America when he was 14. He lived in New York. Is anyone here from New York? No? Well, he lived in a specific place in New York... He lived in Long Island. Has anyone ever been to Long Island? Now, this man lived to be a very old age, he was about 70 and his greatest wish was to see his family again; to see his brother whom he hadn't seen since he was 14; to see the land where he was born and where his family had lived for generations. That was his dearest wish in the whole world. He could never have this wish granted though, because although he had enough money, he had a great fear of flying and of boats, so he could never cross the great ocean to go back to his home.
"Now it happened that the man also had a great love of gardening. He had a beautiful garden at his house in Long Island with many different types of plants and flowers. He was out gardening one day, fairly early in the day, but he had been out there for a while. All the time thinking about how he would never see his family, his brother whom he hadn't seen since he was 14, the land where he was born and where his family had lived for generations. Then suddenly it began to rain, it was pouring rain, but it was also a beautiful rain, and a very short rain. So, very quickly it had stopped raining and the sun came out again. When the sun came out it created a huge beautiful rainbow right above the man's garden.
'Now, you all know what is found at the end of the rainbow. It's a funny little man... That's right, a leprechaun. Suddenly the leprechaun came into the man's garden and said 'Paul Barker,' for that was the man's name, and the all is known to the leprechaun, 'Paul Barker,' I have come here today to grant you one wish. Anything that you want, I will give to you. So what will your wish be?'
"Paul Barker immediately answered that his greatest wish was ... ... 'And Leprechaun, since I am too afraid to travel by airplane or boat, I would like it if you could build me a highway across the oceans so that I can drive out there and visit my family for a while, maybe a three weeks and then I can get in my car and drive home again. Can you do that for me Leprechaun?'
"The Leprechaun thought about it for a while and said 'it will be difficult.' He thought about it for a longer while and said 'it will be very difficult.' He continued thinking about it and said 'it will be very very difficult.' He kept thinking and said 'it will be very, very, very difficult. Is there anything else that you would want to wish for?'
"Paul Barker thought about it, and finally said, 'well, there is one other thing. Now I've always been a bachelor, and don't get me wrong, I've had a good time being a bachelor, but sometimes I wish I could have settled down and found a nice women to be with, to stay around the house with me, to have dinner ready when I get home from work, maybe have some children with. And now in my old age I know that it is a little late, but the reason that I couldn't ever be with a women is that I've never been able to understand them. Oh, Leprechaun, can you grant me the gift of wisdom in understanding women?'
"The leprechaun was silent in thought. He went to go sit in on some large rocks in the garden saying that he would need to think about it. He sat like that all day, while Paul Barker did all his work in the garden. Finally Paul Barker was done working in the garden and he came up to the Leprechaun. The Leprechaun turned to him and said 'so this highway across the ocean of yours, is it two lane or four?'"
"Oh, and by the way I live down there about a few miles. Yep, just past those trees."

Sorry about that diversion, it was just so weird. And if you think reading that story took forever, it probably took him about a 20 minutes to tell it...

So, anyway. The actual castle was beautiful. It was so different than going to the other castles because it was a real ruin. It had broken walls, and windows with no bars (and little children being allowed way too close to them), and you could actually crawl around in the different areas. It was so interesting. It had a dungeon that you could climb around in, and all the rooms were interconnected so you could move around freely. And there were no guides spying on you and telling you not to do things. Not that I was going to do anything weird, it was just nice to be able to explore it on your own. There weren't many people either, which was nice. The grounds of the castle were beautiful too, I wish we hadn't spent so much time in the actual castle so we could have explored them more. There was a whole rock garden that we missed, and there was a system of caves that opened up on the edge of the castle and you could climb into. We went in a bit, but it was really wet, so we didn't go too far. It was really amazing. And the weather was beautiful. It was so sunny and crisp - and the leaves were all beautiful fall colors. I love fall.
I don't know, I was saying that I don't really know if it was worth the money to go (it wasn't that expensive, but it wasn't cheap either0, since it was such a long bus ride and we didn't get to see anything else really, and we really could've had a good time doing more around Dublin, but it was such an idyllic day that I really can't be unhappy with it.

When we got back from the tour we went to eat at a pub in Dublin, just to say that we had the Irish pub experience. Basically it was the exact same as the British pub experience. I told Maggi that she had to get a beer or at least a cider, because she kept talking about it and saying that it was the true Irish thing to do. (Maggi doesn't really drink), but she didn't. I was a little embarrassed though, because we both ordered tap water to begin with (and I thought we were both going to get ciders, or at least sodas), and when we ordered our food the waitress asked if we were going to actually pay for some drinks, in kind of a rude but expectant voice. I just assumed that they weren't really supposed to give out water, so I ordered a cider, hoping that Maggi would at least get a coke or something, but she didn't. So I felt weird. But, it was a good meal.

Monday we slept in and then caught the bus back to the airport. We ate McDonald's and waited around for the plane... It was tedious, but we finally made it back, and that was good. I had a lovely time, and it was really beautiful.

This week has just been really long. I've just been trying to get as much done on my school work as possible. So I'm sorry if I haven't gotten back to emails, I promise I will! It's just been nuts. And I'm leaving for Greece on Thursday night, so that kind of cuts me week short. But, I do have free internet in the hotel, so maybe I will use some time for that. Although I'm also bringing some homework which I should try to do.


Well, thank you all for reading and I will update with Greece soon!

Love you all!
-Manon

The pictures!

Dublin and Christmas Decoration
Howth and Blarney

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