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Dublin City Workingman's band
An older shot from their website. Hey everyone, I'm rounding off my days here and preparing myself mentally to leave. I already know that it's gonna break my heart to leave here, it nearly did the other day when I had to say goodbye to my kids. I had to finish up the units I was teaching to the other classes (I sort of went aroudn the school and did some lessons with the upper-classes) and they were all sad to hear that it was my last day. All day long kids form other classes stopped me in the hallways and said goodbye or told me they'd miss me. Several of those in my class brought me presents and cards and gave me hugs, as well as a class card and present, and the staff gave me a present as well. As soon as they all left for the day I broke down crying just as my teacher came over to say our goodbyes. I am the fourth student teacher that that class has had since the beginning of the year, so I really wasnt expecting them to latch onto me the way they did. I see them playing outside when I walk around my neighborhood and
it makes me want to cry all over again.
I said my goodbyes to the teachers Friday night. They are mostly younger and quite the partying bunch, and we bar-hopped for awhile before ending up at a gay club (sounds weird, but gay clubs are great when you are out with the girls and you dont want to be groped or hit on all night.) I didnt get in til 430 am - it was pretty ridiculous. Dublin has such a nightlife party culture that there are a zillion food places open til 5 am so we ate some crappy chinese food after the club. All in all it was a pretty full night.
Well, I've been trying to get out and about my last few days here, and I'm really glad that the weather has been cooperating. It has been a beautiful weekend, extremely warm and dry, very unlike Ireland. My family has gone to their vacation spot but I opted to stay here to catch up on the Dublin nightlife.
Thursday I went out with two of the American girls, Vanessa and Maggie, down to a touristy Irish kind of pub in the Temple Bar
making a mosaic
I went with the third graders to another local school where a mosaic artist has been working with them to create a mosaic. I was hoping it would be done before I left. It is gonna go up in the local train station. area. This is a cobble-stone street area composed of several blocks of almost nothing but pubs and clubs, named after the central pub called Temple Bar. It has become popular in the last ten years. Before then Ireland was very, very poor and people really didn't vacation here, but Dublin has become quite the international city and loads of people visit and immigrate here. You'll hear almost as many foreign languages and accents as DUblin ones.
Anyway, we had a good time at the pub, listening to traditional Irish music and cheeky jokes from the musicians. However, this isn't really considered by the locals to be a true 'Irish' pub, as they are mostly putting on a show for tourists. So Saturday night I went out on my own to see a band called Dublin City Workingman's Band, who play original Irish music and they were friggin amazing. The venue was called Slattery's and it was out of the Temple Bar area, so it attracted a lot more locals and the atmosphere was a lot different. After the show I met the band and had them sign the cd I bought (one of them said I was 'absolutley gorgeous'!)
rope bridge
from my visit to N. Ireland Today I walked into Killiney, which is a couple miles down the shoreline, home of Bono from U2. It's a lovely walk, and on the way I found the renmants of an old WWII lookout. It was just the foundations and some tall walls made of stone that set next to the cliff edge overlooking the sea. It wasn't marked as historical or anything, it was just sitting there overgrown with vines. I climbed around a bit and then headed into Killiney (no sighting of Bono, I'm afraid.) I stopped and talked to this older gentleman for ages, first asking him what the remains were and then just talking about everything. He was quite interesting, as old timers can be, full of stories.
The pictures I am about to upload are all old. Some of yall already know that I was mugged the other day, and I had my digital camera taken off of me. So no more camera, and though I would have liked to have gotten some pictures of the dublin nightlife and of the band I saw, I had pretty much gotten all of the pics I wanted. Still a shame. these are a couple
of pics of Dublin City workingman's band from their website and a few random others.
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