Advertisement
Published: January 8th 2011
Photo 2
That there is the sea. Its December. They are mad.Happy New Year! I realise that most of the people who read this were probably with us, but i thought id write it anyway, for prosperity and such. For those that don't know, Annie and I decided quite a few months ago that Ireland for New Years was a good plan. We could escape our families, and pretend that we were travelling again, however briefly. Then my parents decided that they were coming too. Ok. We were there for longer than they were, so we could still have our holiday, and besides, it's only two extra people, and if they got drunk and embarressing, we could ditch. But then there was the surprise. My aunt and cousin were there too. We had gone to Ireland to escape the family and mine had followed us there. Sorry Annie. I didn't know. It was fun as it turns out.
We decided to go on a tour of county Wicklow. Our driver was called steve. He was funny. Quote of the day? "Don't worry about the red lights we're going through, they're only for decoration in Dublin." Or maybe, "I only watched P.S. I love you for research purposes...5 times." We went to
Photo 3
Our tour guide and driver with his bottle of jamisons. a number of places, picturesque lakes, pubs, tourist spots, a graveyard... yes you read right, a graveyard. Not sure why we were there, but it had a tower that, as the story goes, if you're single and run round it clockwise 3 times, you'll be married within a year. If you're married, do the opposite and you'll be divorced. I think the last bit was a joke...i think... The Jamison's at the end of the tour was a nice touch.
Somewhere along the way, not sure when exactly, we discovered how expensive it is in Dublin. Not just because the exchange rate isn't all that. A bottle of desperado = €6, a can of coke €2.60. You would think that in the city it's made, Guinness would be the cheapest drink. But no, that also you would be lucky to find below €5 a pint. Not that i like Guinness. We tried some in the Guinness factory, which, by the way, has a really well designed museum/tour thing. But no, Guinness doesn't do it for me. The best drink? :D Irish coffee. Its like sinful heaven in a cup. Sinful because of the whiskey and heaven because the whiskey
Photo 4
you can't really tell, but im stood on the bridge where the characters in PS i love you first meet. has no burn. I happen to like the burn of whiskey, but was happy to let it go for this beverage. Yum. I don't recommend having them all day though. I realised that night that i'd been drinking coffee all day.
Then there was New years eve. Picture it. Its 5 mins to midnight. We barge our way out of a packed pub on the river and make our way to the bridge, confident that it wouldn't really matter where we were, that looking up would suffice for the fireworks. The bridge was already lined with people, so we joined the throngs and watched the clock, counting down the minutes then seconds to the next year. The clock stuck 12, everyone cheered in anticipation and....nothing. What happened to the fireworks? Was the clock wrong? Had a connection broken? The taxi driver in the morning had told us that they were going to be at this bridge. Was it this bridge? Hmmm...00:10. I don't think there are going to be any fireworks. What a let down. No fireworks. Mum shed some light on the situation with "well, we are in a recession." I just think the taxi driver lied. Who
Photo 5
Guiness Lake said there were fireworks anyway? who first put that idea into our heads? I can't remember. There was no procession the day after either, not that we'd've known, we got to the pub about 10am. It was a good day. :D
The rest of our trip involved wandering around shops and then waiting to go home. I think we should have had less days after New year. Everything seems to go quiet. I apologise for the picture quality. I forgot my camera so they're from my phone.
Top tips.
Get the 16A bus into the city and to the airport. Its much cheaper (€2 one way rather than a €12 return) and comes every 20mins or so.
The temple bar pub in temple bar serves the best irish coffees :D
The wild wicklow tour is ace.
Either take lots of money, or parents who can pay for stuff. Dublin is expensive. Thanks Ray.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.141s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 59; dbt: 0.0541s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
