Plane image I borrowed from the internet

We flew just over six hours to Dublin on Ireland's airline Aer Lingus, which I think is an unfortunate name. The definitions on Google that aren't related to the Irish translation usually mention a penis. We hope the clover logo with three leaves is still lucky. Their in-flight card advised not interlacing your fingers in the emergency crash position, so we took that to mean, when you're praying, use a palm-to-palm position.

I ignored the nice selection of movies and TV, trying in vain to get sleep in the few hours between dinner and breakfast. I'd maybe slept half an hour when we landed around 5am. Yawn.

On our way to baggage claim, we stopped at a restroom. Inside the door was the sign on the right.

Apparently there's been confusion before.

We got stamped through immigration and dragged our roller bags through the terminal in search of a money changer. The woman who helped me was awesome and not only gave me small-denomination bills (hooray), but also let us buy tickets for the Airlink right then and there. (I'd earlier read it was one painless way to get to Dublin's city centre. Indeed, the pamphlet lists all hotels at every stop along the way.)

Six Euros each later, we waited at the bus stop for the first bus of the day. It was a double-decker bus. Did we go up to the second level? You bet we did!

The guy at our hotel couldn't check us in eight hours early - it was still only 7:30am - but stowed our luggage, made a joke about Colorado ("Has crime just gone DOWN there?"), and said to come back and try again in half an hour. What he actually said was, "Try again at half nine" but us sleep-deprived Americans did not decipher that Irish-ism until we wandered around in the rain for half an hour (perusing menus of restaurants not open yet) and returned.

With, at best, another 1.5 hours of brain-dead time to kill, we read through pamphlets on display (a place called Epic Ireland looked interesting) and then walked two blocks to eat at a place that advertised "Real Coffee" and "Cooked Breakfast." We arrived five minutes after it opened at 8:30, and got one of the last tables. We enjoyed eggs, bacon, (real) coffee, and sugar packets with trivia on them.

Then we waited in the lobby, hopeful and half asleep, until shortly after 9:30am when one of the clerks behind the desk gave us the good news. "A room is available." We both exclaimed "Yay!", one of many times we were of one mind during this trip. He did us the favor of setting up an extra bed so we didn't have to share. Hooray!

We proceeded to make use of those beds until about 1:00pm (three hours of sleep makes a world of difference) then searched out more (real) coffee, letting the excitement of being in a new city and country propel us through the rest of our day.

While we walked the generous wet sidewalks of O'Connell Street wondering why none of the walk signals at intersections ever lit up green, I noticed some trash, but a street sweeper machine rolled busily on the sidewalks cleaning. Being early Saturday morning, few people were out, some transients, though no one bothered us. On this main thoroughfare, we passed a Starbucks, two McDonalds, two Burger Kings, and a Subway.

We crossed the river. My sister, on a whim, walked into a bookstore. I noticed a sign that said "coffee shop upstairs" and this turned out to be the best coffee shop of the trip, though I couldn't tell you the name. Literary quotes on the walls, art hanging everywhere, books to peruse, obvious history, personality, and most of all, a STICK OF MELTING CHOCOLATE in the mocha. Yum.

All mochas should be drunk this way.

All right, time to be tourists. We have a Lonely Planet and we're not afraid to use it.

Luckily, most of the top sights are in walking distance of each other, all near where O'Connell St. meets the river.

It's a good thing we brought raincoats.

We navigated construction zones in search of "Trinity College", something all the guidebooks and sites agree on, and struggled to remember to look the correct way for traffic when crossing an intersection.

Turned out that, in order to get the walk signals to light up at crosswalks, you MUST press the button. Not ideal for germaphobe me, but better than not knowing when to cross. Every walk signal after that worked now that we knew the trick.

Let me say as a disclaimer that Dublin, and indeed all of Ireland, is very tourist friendly. But the addition of these two simple signs at popular sites would save confusion:

"LINE TO BUY TICKETS" →
← "LINE IF YOU HAVE TICKETS"

That's all you need. Then you wouldn't have to hire someone to stand in front, wear a funny hat, and answer the same question over and over. Once we got into the correct line (with built-in rain protection!), we moved quickly. I listened to the Japanese conversation ahead of me, trying (badly) to translate in my head.

Lonely Planet says the Book of Kells exhibition and the Long Room (in the same building at Trinity College) are a top-ten destination in Dublin and indeed, I'd agree with the recommendation, even if all the other tourists are reading off the same list...

The Book of Kells is essentially the Gospel, but lettered and illustrated with extraordinary attention to detail in a time when colored ink would've had to be handmade. (The Book of Kells is apparently famous, but I admit I'd only heard of it because of this animated movie.) The exhibition had a few original pages (you can squeeze through the crowds to look) but the well-lit enlargements were enough to understand the tremendous effort it took to create such a document. As any place in the world where you aren't allowed to take photos, you will find hundreds of photos of said thing on the internet.

Then you go upstairs...

And enter the Coolest Library Ever.

The dark wood, the endless books, the Long Room is a vision of a "perfect library" in my head. And we were allowed to take photos!

I wonder how all those books fit so perfectly. Seems like you'd add one book and then spend a week shifting the rest. Loved the hand-written letters to organize by, though.

The rain came and went as we made random turns in the area we later discovered is the oldest part of the city.

We saw a lot of buses on the streets, most of them double-decker tourist buses. None of the streets appear big enough for double-decker buses. But that did not deter them.

Observations about Dublin

Buildings are mostly red brick, some concrete, nothing more than 5 stories tall
There's always a sidewalk and plenty of crosswalks (it's very walkable)
Very few trees or plants, but lots of lampposts
Awesome drainage. It rained all day, but there were no big puddles
Street signs were on the sides of buildings
Predominantly White

So, which way do you pass a stranger on the sidewalk walking in the opposite direction? Usually, in countries that drive on the left, you also walk on the left. No one acted consistently here, but that may have been because a sizable percentage of people walking around downtown in the rain were tourists from right-side-driving countries.

But it was open. And at 4:30pm, tourist sites are thinking about closing, so we were happy to get in.

The guided tours were sold out (not the first time this would happen) but we could look around in the State Apartments on our own. We couldn't, though, go below ground to the Viking Excavation or see inside the Royal Chapel.

The opulence of the state apartments and furniture reminded me of Russia's Catherine Palace. Rooms like the Drawing Room reminded me of Downton Abbey and Pride and Prejudice.

One thing I'll say about Dublin Castle is that the restrooms are nice.

We followed signs like the one on the right looking for St. Patrick's Cathedral (open till 6pm, whoo!)

Part of the confusion with these otherwise helpful signs is that there are multiple ways to get to the same place and the fastest or most direct way might not be what the sign is telling you. (This also happened to us at Cliffs of Moher.)

We got turned around, confused by other church-looking structures in the area (there are a lot of medieval buildings in the center of the city), but eventually located St. Patrick's Cathedral, even older than Dublin Castle.

We approached the gate but a man in uniform was closing it. Were we late? Then he told us we could enter from the side. Whew. With the number of tourists we saw inside, I wonder if it is one of a few attractions open after 5 (indeed, it was pushing 6pm at this point, though nowhere close to getting dark.)

The cathedral itself, with its soaring vault and the Gothic pointed arches I adore, still felt foreboding and dark, even with the well-lit gift shop in the back behind the pews.

But, like many cathedrals, endless details hid in plain sight.

The most remarkable thing in the church is along the far transept: a war memorial. Flags, monuments, and a wreath honor soldiers who fought in various wars over the years, including WWI and WWII, many fighting for the British Army. A moving memorial. No photos here. (Though there's some on the official site.)

We stepped out onto the sidewalk, returned to the main thoroughfare, and both started in opposite directions. "I was thinking of heading back downtown," I said. "Yes, but it's not that way," my sister replied.

So, we decide, at the same time, to point to where we think the center of town is.

We point in directions 180 degrees from each other!

After laughing ourselves silly, we consult the map, turning it around a few times to figure out where we are in relation to the Cathedral, having to look up the street to another Cathedral to orient ourselves. The center of town is perpendicular to either of our guesses, 90 degrees away.

Crowdsourcing for the win.

We were hungry. We heard that Temple Bar is a cool and famous place to check out (and we hoped to beat the weekend crowds by eating early) but our maps couldn't agree where it was located.

We found out later that this is because Temple Bar is both a place and an area. Ah ha! So we were in Temple Bar without knowing it. As you'd expect, it's a happening neighborhood full of bars and restaurants. We walked along, looking at menus, as live music poured out of several places.

But not the live music we were expecting:

The Gambler was stuck in my head for hours afterward. We settled on The Shack, across the street from the original Temple Bar (I think, anyway. Since half the buildings have the word "Temple Bar" on them, it's hard to tell.)

Even though we looked travel-worn (still riding on three hours sleep after a six-hour flight), we were attended to quickly. We got brown bread and butter, then both ordered from the Traditional section of the menu. Sis ordered Irish Beef Stew with onions, carrots, and potatoes. I went for the Guinness Casserole with beef, onions, and mushrooms.

Our meals arrived quickly.

"That was fast!" we said. "That's what my wife says," the waiter replied. Hahaha.

Turned out, mine was not so much a casserole as a stew with slightly less liquid. Which is fine, since I like stew. The portion of meat was generous and it came with potatoes because every meal in Ireland comes with potatoes. I'm convinced even sushi restaurants will serve you potatoes.

At the restaurant, sister realized her black cardigan was missing, dropped somewhere along our wandering. Hopefully, someone in Ireland is enjoying a free garment...

We left a 15% tip even though 10% is quasi-standard (and, per the internet, many places either don't expect tips or add a service charge) but I'm guessing touristy places like this are looking for something. It's hard for me not to tip.

After crossing one of pedestrian bridges over the river, we headed back in the general direction of our hotel, passing some sketchy-looking casino fronts, and then we turned onto a smaller street.

For no explicable reason, we both got creeped out, so we took the first turn back out to the riverfront. Whew.

On our way back, we stopped at Carroll's, the Irish gift shop that is ubiquitous in Dublin.

The interior was... shockingly green. So, so green. Here was also the first place we heard traditional Irish music. I started to get the impression that any reels and jigs I hear are solely for the enjoyment of visitors like us, not for locals, who apparently prefer Neil Diamond.

Nothing in the store, none of the shamrocks or leprechauns or mugs or T-shirts with witty jokes about alcohol or carved Celtic knots, said where they were made. I have to assume China.

Regardless, it's always an interesting cultural experience to see what ends up in gift shops for a particular country.

17,620 steps, 7 floors, 7.1 miles

We didn't sleep too badly tonight, considering. A couple middle-of-the-night-wide-awake moments then up a bit earlier than our planned 7:30am Full Irish Breakfast. But all good.

Half our hotels this trip had separate hot and cold faucets.

I saw no benefit of extra hardware to ensure your water is either scalding or freezing. Sometimes I was moving my hand from one stream to the other to get a good temperature. So I Googled "benefit of separate faucets for hot and cold" and it turns out that, long ago (or maybe still now), hot and cold water came from different sources and only the cold water was safe, so you wouldn't want to contaminate it by mixing them.

That jives with other advice I read on the internet which says not to drink bathroom tap water. Mystery solved.

Not sure whether it's still something to worry about. But I didn't chance it. Since the bathroom tap was our only source of (free) water, I asked the kitchen staff every morning if they would fill up our water bottles for us. They always did, kindly.

Also, every hotel we stayed in had a generous amount of outlets to plug our devices into. We did need to bring a US -> UK converter and remember to flip the little switch on the outlet to ON, but otherwise we charged our various phones, tablets, and cameras, no prob.

Traditional Irish Breakfast

Yum. We originally thought we weren't getting the "full" breakfast we paid extra for since it was just a buffet, but as we realized over the course of the trip, it did have all the special ingredients that make it Irish: sausage, half a cooked tomato, eggs, baked beans, and bacon that's more like ham. Oh, and potatoes, I cannot forget the potatoes.

Of course we didn't eat like this eight days straight!
(Just six or seven of those days...)

I flagged down a staff member, asking again if we could get coffee as well as tea. She said it was already on the table. Ha! So it turns out the smaller metal tea container has coffee in it!

I assume it's real coffee.

Kilmainham Gaol

After breakfast, we went directly to jail.

We did not pass an ATM. We did not withdraw $200. But we did pay €2.70 to take the bus almost door to door. (Props to the Dublin bus system for being easy to understand and use.)

The two of us (and another pair on the bus also going to the jail) arrived at 8:30am, a half hour before opening. So had a dozen other tourists, probably who were online last night and noticed like we did that all the time slots for Kilmainham Gaol tours were sold out! We were there early hoping to get in on the unknown number of "walk-in" tickets the web site mentioned.

For 40 minutes, we milled about near the one random door in a giant stone wall that we assumed was the entrance. No sign was on the door. No sign was in the vicinity except back by the curb. Two couples asked us if this was where we bought tickets. I replied, "We're hoping so!" Finally, at 9:05, a man walked out of the imposing door and said "If you want to buy tickets, line up over here. If you have tickets, line up over there." He repeated the information about six times in the next half hour. My two suggested signs above would have helped here! (He wasn't wearing a funny hat, though.)

Luckily, we were early enough to get in on a tour an hour later. WHEW. I wonder how the (ever-lengthening) line of people behind us fared. Also luckily, it was not raining while we waited. Per my weather app, there was a 0% chance of precipitation today!

We wandered around the museum portion until the time on our ticket was called. The tour started appropriately in the courtroom where men and women (and children, too, as the intro video reminded us using child actors) were sentenced to Kilmainham Goal for both petty and serious crimes.

As our serious-faced, professor-like tour guide walked us past the old, dank, dark corridors, she reminded us not to contribute to the tourist-made graffiti. "You could go to jail for that."

We were led to the impressive newer East Wing, full of natural light and cells that can be viewed from one central point, the latest paradigm of prison architecture at the time.

The tour ended (also appropriately) in the yard where fourteen leaders of the Easter Rising in the early 1900s were executed. The guide took us right to where the condemned were standing.

The three-story museum we checked out afterward displayed artifacts of prison life and related individual stories. One location tempted me with a display called "Last Words" but then didn't actually tell you the last words. Because they wanted you to buy the book with the transcripts.

One notable thing is the story the prison register tells. Kilmainham was already overcrowded during the potato famine years in the mid-1800s, but they discovered that people were committing crimes just so they'd be guaranteed a meal at the gaol.

I found Kilmainham Gaol to be worth the trip and the wait; I recommend checking it out, even if it can be intense.

After exiting through the gift shop, we decided it was time for a beer.

Although we took the bus this morning, the gaol (which is a word more commonly used in Britain for jail) is only 2 miles from the center of Dublin. The Guinness Storehouse is conveniently halfway, so we walked. The map says we were on a main thoroughfare, but to my eyes, it was narrow and curvy. (That's a theme of this trip. I concluded by the end that the definition of "highway" here is any road where two cars can squeeze by each other without stopping. If it's too narrow that someone has to pull off to the side to let another car or bus by, then it's just a regular road.)

On this major (ahem) road, we spotted two giant gates with the Guinness logo on them, but no entrance. (I'd already checked that was open on Sunday.) Luckily, we had the hotel's pamphlet and noticed the actual entry is from a not-obvious side street. Then we saw the mass of people and the inevitable worker in front explaining the lines.

Just like Disneyland, the line outside was only a precursor to the switchbacks inside. An hour-plus wait. But, despite that you can buy "timed entrance" tickets online, there is no guided tour or limit. We were afraid we would be turned away during lunchtime on a weekend, but we got in.

The inside also reminded me of (an adult-themed) Disneyland: a cool exhibit about beer with live hops then a wide-open six-floor space full of things to do. You can play the official Harp, learn how to pour beer properly, or taste Guinness varieties. We had lunch and split one of our free beers.

As beer goes for me, Guinness is not as bad as other beers. I took multiple sips even. You might be wondering why my beer-disliking self was interested in coming here at all.

It was because, as advertised, they have a bar on the 6th floor with a panoramic view!

Yeah, I'm a sucker for a view. We went up the fun crisscrossing escalators that bridged the wide space, then followed the signs to the Gravity Bar at the top.

Doesn't it go the other way?

The bar is the highest point in the building (and feels like the highest point in Dublin, even though it's only on the 6th floor.) And it has wrap-around windows. Love it!

Gravity Bargoers

Despite being packed full of beer drinkers, loud modern music, and a bachelor party, we managed to find a little couch and ottoman along the window to gaze out for a few minutes.

Observations: lots of construction, oh there's the ocean, no mountains (no surprise), and no high rises (a surprise there.)

View from Gravity Bar of Church of Mary Immaculate

Views of Dublin (and the dome of the Church of Mary Immaculate) from the bar

After we'd had enough, we took the glass elevator back down to the ground floor and wandered (we hoped) in the direction of central Dublin.

Old Dublin

Dublin has old stuff in it. Like, really old. As Americans, take this observation with a grain of "our country is not even 250 years old yet" salt.

For example, the bit of wall in the right photo (near the Christchurch Cathedral that was always closed when we walked by) is from the early 1600s or something! Whoa, dude.

View from the top deck of Bus #40 and part of the (Really) Old Dublin City Wall

As we walked away from the wall, some random dudes we passed on the sidewalk said something in a difficult accent to understand. A minute later, we realized he'd said "sisters?" and indeed, it wasn't the last time someone guessed our genetic relationship.

We even have a bit of Irish in there too, I promise.

We soon unknowingly reached where the other end of the wall would have been. It's hard to believe how small an area the old city wall encompassed in the Viking days. It barely makes it from the church to the bars.

1600s wall in modern Dublin

So... we did have a destination in mind on the other side of town on the north side of the river (more on that below) but we still had a few hours before dinner, so we took our time getting there and enjoyed wandering central Dublin.

We passed this lamppost. Often.

The Official Dublin Lamppost™

Urban planners were all about lamppost consistency.

Needless to say, we never saw the lampposts in use. In truth, we never saw darkness. The sun set at 9:30 but it didn't really get dark until after 11pm since we were less than a month out from the longest day of the year.

Early to bed and early to rise...
is how jetlag rolls

We soon reached the river of life (I assume, based on the name.)

Watching kayakers on the River Liffey

Some of the bridges were pedestrian, some were for cars, some were functional, some were cute. We walked over different ones every time we crossed. The kayaking looked fun, too bad it is such a weather-dependent activity!

And we saw the writing on the wall

Dublin is proud of its literary tradition in a big way. Quotes like the above (and statues of famous authors) dot the city. I saw more references to literature than movies here, hooray!

Epic Ireland

So... yeah.

We discovered the "Epic Ireland" museum on a hotel pamphlet. It was weirdly hard to find (we realized later we were following a streetcar station map.) And it was, well, let's just say it wasn't crowded! There's that.

I'll define Epic Ireland as "Ireland in a nutshell". Information presented in digestible tidbits. Good for short attention spans (can't complain about that!) with "passport" stamps to keep children occupied between rooms. The beginning was interesting (read: serious and respectable) talking about the formation of Ireland, emigration, the hardships of war, the progression of women's rights, and so forth. Videos, event recaps, and quick explanations of things like the Catholic-Protestant struggles (I mean, Troubles) and the potato famine were enlightening at times.

Unfortunately, it degenerated.

The section with the Irish traditional music and dance samples was fine. But credibility soon disappeared as quotes and clips from Irish actors and entertainers turned into quotes from American actors and politicians (Reagan's great-great-great grandfather was Irish, come on, that's a stretch!) which turned into a weird stereotypical patriotism-o-rama then a room with St. Patrick's Day photos from other countries. Well, mainly the U.S. And so a photo of drunk Americans wearing shamrocks was one of the final images you were left with. Okay, the fake library with random glowing books and audio clips from Irish works of literature was entertaining. There'd been mention of genealogy exhibit on the pamphlet, but we saw no evidence of that.

We eventually exited the museum. Sis said, "I think we're in a mall." That about sums it up. Also, it didn't warrant as much as a sentence in Lonely Planet.

My Theory

Which brings me to my theory about Ireland: Although there are many Cool Things to See and Do here (historical sites, natural beauty, cultural heritage, you name it), there isn't enough supply to fill the worldwide demand to See and Do all said Cool Things. Therefore, the good stuff sells out quickly. And you end up at Epic Ireland.

Great, but when? How often?
How much? Can you be more specific?

Food Served Daily

For dinner, we ended up at a bar and grill on O'Connell street called Madigan's. While we updated our journals, we enjoyed mushroom-stuffed garlic chicken with a side of, naturally, mashed potatoes.

The TV in the corner showed Dublin's lacrosse team. That's a sport I've never seen at a bar before.

Madigan's was one of several places on the main drag that advertises "live traditional music" and, had it started earlier than 9:30pm, we may have stayed. But. Yawn.

All that aside, I made a happy discovery here:

Irish Cider!

Now this is my version of a Perfect Guinness.

(Totally stole this image)

Sorry, Guinness.

Fitbit Recap!

15,210 steps, 17 floors, 6.15 miles

Next >

The Trip Out

Welcome to the Rain

O'Connell Street

Navigating Streets with No Right Angles

If I was in Charge of Tourism...

Lots and Lots of Books

Exploring Dublin

Dublin Castle... does not look like a castle

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Our Sense of Direction, or the Lack Thereof

Traditional Irish Dinner

Wherein we don't get mugged

Tourist Ireland vs. Real Ireland

Fitbit Recap of the Day!

Really Early to Rise...

But First, Some Mundane Plumbing and Electricity Musings