So, I was forced to stay late because some older guy wanted to chat w/ me for an hour. He’s had six heart attacks and one herniated (sp?) disk and doesn’t expect to live until February, so I didn’t feel right telling him to fuck off. But now I’m here at 6:00 pm, drinking a flat diet Pepsi®, and so what the hell. Some details of the trip if anybody is interested?
We had the good luck to fly out of the local airport, had a layover in Chicago, and then on to Dublin. The flight sucked. I took a sleeping pill and was as awake as could possibly be for the entire flight. Even worse, I didn’t have a window seat, so I had nothing to lean on to even try to fall asleep. We arrived early Friday, Sept. 18 and were met by a gentleman holding a sign with my name slightly misspelled.
(Customs was very intense; someone pleasant checked our passport and then when we got to the customs guys, they were sitting leisurely and waived us past without comment. U.S. customs on the way back was about as strict.)
Taking the advice of the driver, and a small dose of common sense, we didn’t go straight to sleep, instead we went out and got lost. The hotel was great, BTW, and a mix-up with scheduling was quickly solved by the staff. Anyway, instead of turning left on what’sit street, we turned right and ended up nowhere special. So we stumbled back to the hotel after figuring out our error and decided to freshen up. I didn’t intend to take a nap, but I did, so there you have it.
We called TwistofFate and we all agreed that we were too tired to do much but take a stroll and go to bed. My sister let me have the double, and she took the single, which was nice. So we went out for a stroll and found Grafton Street, which is a nice pedestrian shopping street. We kept walking and, at this stage of the game, it’s pretty hazy what happened. Keeping things like this distinct in my mind is not a skill I have, so what happened on what day is not going to come out as a coherent story. Regardless, we ended up around Temple Bar, we think, and weren’t too happy with the area. So we started our trek back home, figuring we’d find a place closer for a bite and a pint.
We found Sheehan’s and the Spanish Lady by whom I was so heavily smitten. If my comparison of her to Laura doesn’t communicate how beautiful she was, then I’ve no words to help you.
Hungry, we went to the Italian place across the street and ate. Yum.
Thus ended day 1.
Day 2, Saturday, we go out and find Dublina, a Viking/Midaeval Dublin museum. It was quite interesting, and then went straight to Christ Cathederal. Very nice. That’s where we saw Tom & Jerry, the cat and rat mummified in one of the organ pipes and discovered in the 19th C. There was a restaurant in the crypt, which is just too damn creepy, IMO. Later we returned to the hotel and phoned TwistofFate and arranged to meet him & Tir Tinivul, which I know I’m misspelling—my apologies for that—and had a few pints. I also had a sandwich.
Sunday found us meeting out front of Drury’s (sp?), just off Grafton, to go watch the hurling championship. Jody, TwistofFate, & I found a nice pub with a good view of the screen, and then they turned on Irish music loud enough to make our ears bleed. So we went to a hotel, where I got a great Andy Warhol photo (I hope it turns out), and then we all got kicked out of the bar. The hotel had two conference rooms open with Very Large Screens, i.e., 20’ corner to corner. The crowd was riotous and the view was spectacular and the game was amazing. I think I’ve spoken about that already; however, when the actual Win was won, I was out of film and so I didn’t get a shot. I asked the girl behind me to email me the shot since she had a digital camera, and I’ve yet to receive it. (I gave her my business card and everything!)
On Monday we took the Walking Tour, which begins at the gates of Trinity College and is led by a Trinity history graduate. Needless to say, it was very cool and we saw a lot of cool stuff. Waiting for the tour was when we met bubastis, BTW, as you’ll note above. I don’t have any references w/ me right now, so I cannot list what all we saw. It took about two hours and was well worth the ten euro. After the tour we saw an audio-visual presentation at the college, which was cool, but ended fifteen minutes too late after a lot of flag waving. It was about the History of Dublin. I think that was the night we took the Ghost Bus Tour, but as I’ve noted, I’m having trouble keeping everything straight.
Something definitely happened on Tuesday, although I can’t place what it was. Gosh, I’m going to have trouble until I can get the photos back and start putting things back in order in my head. Well set Tuesday aside for a bit.
Wednesday we went to Newgrange, an impressive new stone age, giant rock site. It predates the pyramids at Giza, we were told, but no one really knows what went on there. At the winter solstice, the sun shine down the hall and into the central chamber. It was pretty cool…well worth it. The bus stopped at an abbey whose name I’m forgetting. There wasn’t much of it left, so the tour concentrated on what would have been there if the structures remained. Nevertheless, it was pretty neat.
On Thursday we went on the city bus tour and visited a couple things we didn’t see before. We went to the Guinness Storehouse—which we did do before, but had to do again. Since Guinness was the sweepstakes people, but we didn’t get entry to the storehouse, one of the bartenders slipped me an extra pint.
We also went to Jameson’s. Far better site to see than Guinness, in terms of the set up of the old distillery and seeing how whiskey is made. After the tour everybody got a glass of whiskey, but I volunteered for the tasting and ended up a certified Irish Whiskey Taster. I didn’t know that whiskey doesn’t have to taste like puke; the Scotch is made specifically for the pleasure, by smoking the ingredients with peat. Yum. That afternoon we got a bottle of whiskey for my liquor-store guy, something that cannot be had in the States, and when I gave it to him he was very, very happy. 
Most significantly, on Thursday night we met TwistofFate again and went to meet several other Dopers. I hope no one will be offended if I don’t list names right now, it’s been a long day. Anyway, I really want to get lit up, at least once if not more, and so that was the night for me. I got hammered. We had a total blast.
Friday we went on the Viking Splash Tour, which involves riding in a WWII amphibious vehicle and roaring at toursits and coffee drinkers; i.e. Celts. Then into a large resevoir (sp?) designed to connect to the river and canals; however, the railroad killed it, so now there’s a six-acre (IIRC) lake in Dublin.
After that we went north of the river to a newly developing area that is quite posh. We took many photos and walked around, enjoying the buildings and the play of new against old. We found a shopping mall that was modern and boring, and then another pedestrian shopping street that was pretty neat. Then I broke out in hives. Badly. We rushed back to the hotel, I took two Benadryl, a cool shower, and a nap, and it started to clear up. So we went out one last time to meet TwistofFate for a couple of pints and a good-bye.
Ah, now I recall some of Tuesday: we went looking for some of the ghost spots that we had seen on the Ghost Bus. We went up and down the Haunted Step looking for the ghost called, IIRC, the Sandman. Cheesey, but fun.
I took a shitload of photos, since that’s the only way I can communicate Dublin to people. Hopefully I’ll be able to scan some and put them on my Yahoo photos page.
Anyway, it’s been an hour now, and I’ve got to run.