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Published: March 25th 2009
After a long overnight flight from NYC I arrived in Dublin with some time to kill, so I took a bus from downtown to the city center. This is my 2nd time to Dublin, but we didn't quite catch it all last time having only spent the better part of one afternoon downtown. This time I specifically wanted to see St. Stephens on the Green, and it didn't disappoint. Maybe the most pristine park I've ever seen. I also took a stroll through Trinity University, which has a beautiful campus in downtown Dublin. It was the day after the St. Patrick's festival, and there were still hordes of people in the city center nursing hangovers by shopping and doing some leisurely site-seeing, and being frayed around the edges from 24 hours with very little to no sleep I was getting claustrophobic so I just decided to catch the bus to Belfast to meet up with Karen.
Karen couldn't have been a better host. Almost too good of a host, because now I don't know if I'll ever go back to Ireland because I feel like I've pretty much done it all. The last time we focused on the southern part
of the island and a few days in Dublin, so this trip I got to focus solely on the Northern part. The northern part had a little different scenery ... not as many quaint, sleepy villages with small winding roads, but more striking skylines with mountains and oceans. After lounging away my jetlag and New York hangover we spent one day at the Giant's Causeway ... the actual rock formations were pretty much what you see in the pictures, but the overall scenery by the ocean was very nice. Saturday we visited a local national park which had a hike that displayed several waterfalls. Saturday Night might have been the highlight of the trip, as we went out to a local sports pub to watch the Ireland National Rugby team take on Wales for a chance to win some sort of European Championship they haven't won since 1948. The game went back and forth until the very end, with the shoulder to shoulder packed crowd going absolutely ballistic. When Ireland finally pulled off the victory it was absolute bedlam and pandemonium. Strangers jumping up and down hugging and kissing each other. Beer flying in the air. They all stood arms
around each other and sang Irish National songs as the trophies were being presented. As far as Irish pride it made the commercial St. Patrick's Days back home with cheesy green beer and “Kiss Me I'm Irish” buttons look kind of lame in comparison. Then they spilled out onto the pubs and bars to sing and dance to cheesey music .. and I do mean cheesy. Sure, we get the ubiquitous “Sweet Caroline” in bars back home, but I literally heard Abba, Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and Shania Twain's “I Feel Like A Woman” back-to-back-to-back as everyone, and I mean everyone, danced and sang along. I stood silently watching amused if not slightly cringing for all the guys singing along with Shania Twain.
The rest of the week trip was kind of low key. We went to a town called Downpatrick and visited St. Patrick's grave. The rest of the time was spent lounging around, watching movies and gaining energy for my ferry ride into Scotland for Edinburgh. Thanks again to Karen for a wonderful week.
I know I owe several of you postcards. They're on their way as soon as I can find a
post office.
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Chad
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Pubs
I wish I knew you were going to be in Belfast, I would have told you to go to Kellys Cellars. It's around 300 years old and cool as hell. It looks like a dive well it is kind of a dive but its a blast. Sounds like you have started your trip out right. Later Chad