Give us a Guinness!
So the tale continues...after London we travelled to the land of good beer, lovely accents, leprechauns and we were hoping - pots of gold. In fact on the plane over we came to the realisation that we really had no idea what would fill our 2 and a half days in Dublin - apart from the stereotypes mentioned above.
We decided to ask our taxi driver what there was to do in Dublin, who promptly told us it was a town famous for it's lack of things to do apart from drink Guinness down at the local pub and that we should 'do as they do in Rome'. Jenny & I with our strong dislike for beer were so thrilled to hear this piece of local advice. On hindsight I think perhaps this was a cynical Irish man who didn't know the full array of wonderful entertaining activities his city had to offer (he was also a new taxi driver which made for a lot of fun - how often do you get to pull out your taxi driver's map and navigate for him?!).
My first impressions of Dublin were that it was really really quaint and "old school" - more like what I thought England would be like. We stayed first off with Jenny's Irish Dancer friend who lived in a suburb which reminded me of Eastenders. We also spent the first night in a gay bar (not sure why?!) and care of my friend Mike, had my first taste of Guinness - YUCK! I discovered Dublin pints are no smaller than London pints (unfortunately).
Other memories of our stay:
1) Not forgetting this was a culinary world tour - having a home-cooked meal made by the best Indian chef outside of India, our very own Mike Percival. He cooks a mean curry alright! And it was complete with Indian entrees and NZ wine - perfecto!
2) Getting fish and chips in Dublin, as we never managed to get around to doing it in London. The lovely old fish and chips man found it hard to understand that we were speaking English, but managed to engage us in a (more or less one-sided) conversation about the US, Iraq, the state of the world and how everything was about "bluddeh" power and money...how his son was studying accounting and kindly advised us that the best business to get into nowadays is religion (Jenny and I thought law was close enough). Yes, I must say Irish people are friendly indeed!
3) Visiting the famous Kilmainham jail and learning more about Ireland's turbulent history. For one, Ireland's flag isn't green white and orange just because the colours look good together - the green represents the native (largely Catholic) people of Ireland, the orange represents the British (largely Protestant) supporters of William of Orange who settled in Northern Ireland in the 17th century, and the white in the middle represents the peace between these 2 groups of people. ohhhhhhhhhh.
4) Spending about 2 hours waiting for a strange, unfamiliar Irish front-loading washing machine to wash our clothes, finally working out how to open the door only to find our clothes were PIPING hot (too hot to touch!)...and that Jenny and/or I had unadvertently managed to pop in something black...which ran through everything - boohoo :( The day continued to get better as I spent another 2 solid hours circling Dublin city looking for somewhere to cash in my travellers cheques without having
to pay half the value of my travellers cheques in commission (and in typical Teresa-style I discovered it turned out to be in a very obvious place, close to where I'd started searching from!). I've termed Dublin my bad-luck city since I also managed to leave my new Prague sunnies on a bus. It also rained for the first time on our trip! (actually that was quite nice)
5) Going on our last night in Dublin to a traditional local pub, listening to some lovely traditional Irish music being played, being merry and having a yarn with some great people. It really was a wonderful atmosphere and I can understand why the Irish love it so much that they can be found there all times of the day!
6) Saving the best for last of course - our visit to The Guinness Store House!!! Needless to say Jenny and I were strongly advised that we could not leave Dublin without going to find out about the legend that is Guinness beer. We were also keen to arrive in Canada and impress all the boys with our thorough knowledge of beer and all things beer-related hehe. It was decidedly a good decision to go as it was an amazingly interesting and interactive place - complete with smelling beer at different stages in it's production and watching archives of old Guinness ads. I also discovered that the Guinness Book of Records originated from this company and that Guinness really is good for you (see my photo album for details). Needless to say we also thoroughly enjoyed out free pint at the end (whyyyyyyy? why why am I a person that does not like to waste things?!)
Other random insights about Dublin:
- I love the way they say "grand"
- There really are the rows of coloured doors in Dublin that you hear about
- To my surprise the main street in Dublin felt busier than downtown
London and food was also more expensive than London!
- Jonah Lomu appears to be still in his height of fame in Ireland - he's on billboards everywhere advertising a sports drink wearing an All Blacks jersey which I found pretty funny
- I don't think leprechauns or their pots of gold are real
Oops this turned out to be longer than I thought it would. Ah well, Irish are well-known for their grand story-telling so it's fitting really!
Once again, for those who can't read ;p or would like to see my story in pictures - my London and Dublin album can be found at:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=vjrceuf.2vq86oqf&x=1&y=4brooy
Tales of the south side Bronx (or south of Bronx) will be coming soon.
Take care and hoorah I've found out what poutine is!
xo Tee in Canada
We decided to ask our taxi driver what there was to do in Dublin, who promptly told us it was a town famous for it's lack of things to do apart from drink Guinness down at the local pub and that we should 'do as they do in Rome'. Jenny & I with our strong dislike for beer were so thrilled to hear this piece of local advice. On hindsight I think perhaps this was a cynical Irish man who didn't know the full array of wonderful entertaining activities his city had to offer (he was also a new taxi driver which made for a lot of fun - how often do you get to pull out your taxi driver's map and navigate for him?!).
My first impressions of Dublin were that it was really really quaint and "old school" - more like what I thought England would be like. We stayed first off with Jenny's Irish Dancer friend who lived in a suburb which reminded me of Eastenders. We also spent the first night in a gay bar (not sure why?!) and care of my friend Mike, had my first taste of Guinness - YUCK! I discovered Dublin pints are no smaller than London pints (unfortunately).
Other memories of our stay:
1) Not forgetting this was a culinary world tour - having a home-cooked meal made by the best Indian chef outside of India, our very own Mike Percival. He cooks a mean curry alright! And it was complete with Indian entrees and NZ wine - perfecto!
2) Getting fish and chips in Dublin, as we never managed to get around to doing it in London. The lovely old fish and chips man found it hard to understand that we were speaking English, but managed to engage us in a (more or less one-sided) conversation about the US, Iraq, the state of the world and how everything was about "bluddeh" power and money...how his son was studying accounting and kindly advised us that the best business to get into nowadays is religion (Jenny and I thought law was close enough). Yes, I must say Irish people are friendly indeed!
3) Visiting the famous Kilmainham jail and learning more about Ireland's turbulent history. For one, Ireland's flag isn't green white and orange just because the colours look good together - the green represents the native (largely Catholic) people of Ireland, the orange represents the British (largely Protestant) supporters of William of Orange who settled in Northern Ireland in the 17th century, and the white in the middle represents the peace between these 2 groups of people. ohhhhhhhhhh.
4) Spending about 2 hours waiting for a strange, unfamiliar Irish front-loading washing machine to wash our clothes, finally working out how to open the door only to find our clothes were PIPING hot (too hot to touch!)...and that Jenny and/or I had unadvertently managed to pop in something black...which ran through everything - boohoo :( The day continued to get better as I spent another 2 solid hours circling Dublin city looking for somewhere to cash in my travellers cheques without having
to pay half the value of my travellers cheques in commission (and in typical Teresa-style I discovered it turned out to be in a very obvious place, close to where I'd started searching from!). I've termed Dublin my bad-luck city since I also managed to leave my new Prague sunnies on a bus. It also rained for the first time on our trip! (actually that was quite nice)
5) Going on our last night in Dublin to a traditional local pub, listening to some lovely traditional Irish music being played, being merry and having a yarn with some great people. It really was a wonderful atmosphere and I can understand why the Irish love it so much that they can be found there all times of the day!
6) Saving the best for last of course - our visit to The Guinness Store House!!! Needless to say Jenny and I were strongly advised that we could not leave Dublin without going to find out about the legend that is Guinness beer. We were also keen to arrive in Canada and impress all the boys with our thorough knowledge of beer and all things beer-related hehe. It was decidedly a good decision to go as it was an amazingly interesting and interactive place - complete with smelling beer at different stages in it's production and watching archives of old Guinness ads. I also discovered that the Guinness Book of Records originated from this company and that Guinness really is good for you (see my photo album for details). Needless to say we also thoroughly enjoyed out free pint at the end (whyyyyyyy? why why am I a person that does not like to waste things?!)
Other random insights about Dublin:
- I love the way they say "grand"
- There really are the rows of coloured doors in Dublin that you hear about
- To my surprise the main street in Dublin felt busier than downtown
London and food was also more expensive than London!
- Jonah Lomu appears to be still in his height of fame in Ireland - he's on billboards everywhere advertising a sports drink wearing an All Blacks jersey which I found pretty funny
- I don't think leprechauns or their pots of gold are real
Oops this turned out to be longer than I thought it would. Ah well, Irish are well-known for their grand story-telling so it's fitting really!
Once again, for those who can't read ;p or would like to see my story in pictures - my London and Dublin album can be found at:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=vjrceuf.2vq86oqf&x=1&y=4brooy
Tales of the south side Bronx (or south of Bronx) will be coming soon.
Take care and hoorah I've found out what poutine is!
xo Tee in Canada
posted by Tee at 2:12 AM
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