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Published: December 27th 2006
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Think you're a dedicated drinker? Are you dedicated enough to wake up every morning and drink Irish coffee? -- three at a time -- in a row. How about, are you willing to commit yourself to step dancing wasted for seven hours on a hard-wood floor, waking up with shin splints and doing it all over again? ... Yeah? Well what are you waiting for -- get your ass to Dublin!
That was my little advertisement. A high alcohol tolerance helped me survive Dublin -- that and some common sense.
Stay at Barnacles Temple Bar hostel. It's on Temple Lane, a cobblestone road in the heart of the Temple Bar district, Dublin's cultural center. Barnacles is two doors from the famous Temple Bar -- a very touristy bar, but a fun bar nonetheless. (I'm going to pull an Alice Cooper now: Sir William Temple founded the bar a long time ago, and it's the oldest still-standing bar in Dublin.) More importantly, Dublin’s Music Centre -- a venue that holds free techno and rock concerts -- is across the street. It's open later than most bars in the city, so once you're hammered you can stumble on in before you
go to bed and catch some live music across the street from your hostel. Also, Chat-R-Net Cafe is across the street, and it's a cheap, cute place to make long-distance calls and send emails home. I spent many a day in that glass phone booth.
Grafton Street is a quick walk across the River Liffey on the Ha'Penny Bridge. Grafton is a great place to shop, but there's a vintage punk-rock store, Ad Hoc, that has reasonable prices and is a street over from Barnacles.
Banks are scary in Dublin. They enact lots of security measures: You can't walk in until they buzz you, and only X-number of people is allowed in at once. So consider using the ATM at the bar, like I did. Temple Bar has an ATM. I woke up every morning and drank Irish coffee (with Jameson's) and withdrew my day’s money, all in one stop.
Do not miss the Cafe en Seine!
This is not your typical cafe. It's the greatest bar in the land. It looks like a quaint cafe from the outside, but when you walk into those doors you walk into an enhanced world: Look up, and you’ll see
Gogarty's pub and Emily
Awesome place! This is where we step danced all night and made ketchup sculptures. five stories of bars, trellises, roses, crazy lights, gold sculptures and hundreds of people. Straight ahead is a dance floor and to the left is one of the five bars in the "cafe." Each story has its own bar, so you never have to walk far for a drink. On each story you can look down to see all the other floors and the dance floor at the bottom. The place is insane: like something out of a movie.
Don’t go to Dublin expecting to jam-pack your day with cultural, touristy activities. The museums and St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Jonathan Swift’s home are definitely worth seeing. But be cool, be un-stressed and enjoy yourself. Go out with roommates from your hostel - you can bond easily with fellow travelers and share tips on where the good bars are. If you meet someone at the bar and think they're too nice, they likely are. Emily and I came across one guy who seemed very cool, but we had the feeling he was too friendly. Sure enough, when we were dancing to a street performer's rendition of Oasis' "We Were Getting High" in the street with 20 strangers, an under-cover security
Street near Grafton, I think
This is where Emily and I stepped off the bus and walked four miles with our thousand-pound backpacks looking for our hostel. guard pulled Emily aside and told her he'd noticed our new friend was eying her purse.
Street performers
This brings me to one of the most under-rated aspects of Dublin entertainment: street performers. Dublin’s street performers are the best ones in Europe, in my opinion, anyway.
One Irish group’s fiddler played his fiddle with his crotch. Drunkards from all over the world gathered ‘round on the cobblestone to pretend they could step dance.
On the same corner the next night, a Jamaican man turned on some reggae and did handstands on two-by-fours.
Down the street, a performer sporting pasty face makeup and piercing blue contacts stood atop a milk crate, still as a statue. When select tourists stopped to look, he’d jump in their face and bulge out his eyes, scaring the shit out of them. About 40 people were gathered to watch. I walked up, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Can I please have a hug?” He looked at me like I was crazy and everybody laughed. “Please?” His game-face melted, and he laughed and gave me a big hug and a kiss, the crowd laughed and applauded, and some old lady
Drunk with a mouse
Some club made a mouse pass out cheese on a platter to get street walkers to come in. We were drunk and took a picture with the mouse and some other guy. told me I made the show.
I’ll end with a corny Irish quote that I learned from my grandma. While in Dublin, you’ll do well if you do like the Irish: Dance as if no one’s watching, sing as if no one’s listening, and live every day as if it’s your last. But while you’re dancing, singing and living, keep an eye out for pickpockets.
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