Wearin' of the grin

With apologies to Bugs Bunny for lifting that title:

I'm happy to be in Dublin at last. Crammed into steerage on a jammed airbus for 7 hours is a hard way to go, but I was able to get some sleep in between baby wails and odd smells wafting off fellow travellers. And the cold muffin and tepid coffee for breakfast? Divine.
My hotel is small, clean and cute - located on Fishamble Street. Who knew fish could amble? Here they do. It's far enough from Temple Bar to avoid the crews of lads on a tear and pre-wedding hen parties of smashed gals dressed like tarts. What's that? All my male pals are suddenly booking flights to Dublin?
But back to the hotel, it's the George Handel, marking the fact that the Messiah had it's first public performance on this spot.
I'm blogging from the hotel bar - free wifi! Called the Karma Bar it's all Asian themed with Chinese lanterns and Thai statues and plenty of red lights. I like it. Not terribly Irish, but it is very Dublin.
Decided to force myself to stay away with an activity, so I bought a ticket for the hop-on-hop-off bus - a great tour of the city that helped get me familiar with landmarks (like the pubs I want to visit and the hotel owned by Bono). The city is just jammed. What recession? Music pours from every pub - I've heard Black Velvet Band about a dozen times, including the rather passable version the bus driver sang to us. Dublin is a city made for strolling around in. It's very compact and easy to navigate and the tiny cobblestone alleys and streets hold all kinds of shops and artists. I even found a fishing tackle shop and bought you a prezzie Mark (he's my fishing-mad nephew, London's Gil Fisher). I'm anxious to explore tomorrow. So I'm off to the Bull and Castle just round the corner for dins - I think Irish stew is in order. An early night and I'll be ready for face the day tomorrow.
I'll just finish this Smithwicks and be off. More tomorrow.
Slainte,
Linda

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Part of trip: Ireland

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