This time, I stayed with a close childhood giftie friend, Susan Z. Yes, my name-twin (I've never met anyone else my age with my name and the only one I did was in the same class as me for 9 years). Susan Z's husband Eoghan has Irish citizenship so they moved here from Texas, 2 years ago.
My flight over went well, I purchased a bid upgrade to move to premium economy which helped a little with sleeping on the plane but a lot with the extra leg room (super useful for my 5" nothing, haha).
I took the bus from the airport (direct!) to Susan & Eoghan's place in Portobello (South Dublin, about 30 mins to city centre) and after way too long of a jet lag nap, we grabbed some Arepas (Arepa's Grill) and headed to a local pub (J. O'Connell) for a mandatory first Guiness of the trip!
Howth - Coastal Town
The next day, I took a day trip to the seaside town of Howth, recommended by both my host and another friend who recently traveled here (Hilary). Accessible from Dublin City Center via the DART in about 30 minutes, it was a great day trip. It was a gorgeously hot and sunny day (did I bring the good weather? She smugly states).
On the ride there, I was "treated" to a group of about seven 18-year-olds heading to the beachside stop of Sutton (shoutout to my maternal family's last name!). Now that I've seen Derry Girls set in the 90s, this was Dublin Girls set in the 2020s, and my eavesdropping on their not-so-quiet conversations lent quite an informative experience learning about the youths here and how to celebrate 18th birthdays. Side note: They were blaring and singing along to the Space Jam theme song from when I was a kid, so I felt cool (or cringe; either way).
I was sad that I didn't think to bring my bathing suit on this adventure, because I would have loved a dip in the sea to cool off (as I saw some people doing!). I ended up completing the 6km Howth Cliff Walk (Green Route) over a few hours. Now, I'm not in the best shape of my life, but I felt like I could do this hike; while I won't be posting the videos where I'm desperately wheezing at the top, I will post some of the beautiful views I had.
After the hike, I was starving so I popped into the Abbey Tavern for some fish and chips (and five gallons of water). I even got to witness an Irishman blast the bartender for pouring his Guinness poorly. A legendary sighting to be sure. In the end, it was abysmal service but amazing food.
Also, coincidentally, those same teenagers boarded back on the same car as me when going home and they were VERY tired and drunk. Hahaha.
St. Stephens Green
The next day, Susan Z took the day off, and we explored Dublin city. The first step was to purchase a raincoat, since I discovered a week ago in Toronto that my old one was no longer waterproof. We went to the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre, which is definitely one of the prettiest malls I've ever been to, and grabbed a great jacket from Trespass.
We then took a wander through St. Stephen's Green (which I had visited back in 2010), viewing the swan on the lake, plenty of statues, and people having picnics and relaxing on the lawns. I found my favorite Henry Moore statue, which commemorates Yeats, before enjoying some paninis for lunch.
National Print Museum
As two former history nerds (albeit for different eras), we visited two museums next. The first was the National Print Museum, a tiny one-room museum packed with as many artifacts about printing presses and mid-century print as you could ever imagine. The most fascinating thing we saw, in my mind, was an example of the printing press used to print the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916.
I learned that, since the printing had to be done in great haste, a few small typeface errors had to be problem-solved. There weren't enough "e"s in that font, so they swapped in some other "e"s (and a few were upside down!). Also, some letters had to be altered due to a lack of supply, such as adding sealing wax to a "P" to make it an "R" and altering an "O" to make it a "C" in the "IRISH REPUBLIC" title line. This picture shows all these small adaptations:
National History Museum - Archeology
Next up, bog bodies.
Yup.
Bodies found in bogs. *Murdered* bodies found in bogs from as early as 200 - 400 BC. The Clonycavan Man was the most intact and they even made a facial reconstruction of it.
They were preserved by the bogs, and due to fancy scientific tech I don't fully understand, researchers could determine things like their diet based on their fingernails. It was pretty creepy, but equally SO interesting. We also explored the rest of the museum fairly quickly (seeing some cool Viking artifacts and an exhibit on gold), but were feeling pretty gassed. So we headed home for a rest before heading out to find an Irishman to sing to me.
Devitt's Pub
The first time I came to Ireland, Dan and I looked for some traditional Irish music (basically, I just wanted to feel like I was in P.S. I Love You and have someone sing "Galway Girl" to me). We kept hearing a ridiculous amount of cover songs so when I grilled Dan's cousin Sam on why this counted as Irish music, he said "well they are singing in an Irish way... and they are sitting on a stool". So that now remains my bar for Irish music, accents, fiddles and stools. ๐
Susan Z and I accomplished those criteria, along with a hilarious variety of 90s/2000s pop & rock covers (he knew his audience) at a bar on Camden St. We had plenty of Guinness and a cute Irish twenty-something sing to the bar. I believe the three Irish pop songs he sang were by the Pogues, Cranberries and Aslan.
The National Botanical Gardens
Eoghan joined Susan Z and me as we travelled north to the National Botanical Gardens the next day. We explore most of the Gardens (with the exception of me stating, "we have those trees in Canada, we can skip that area") we some special attention given to the hilarious names we came across.
The Rose garden was gorgeous, as were all the succulents and palms found inside the greenhouses.
There was a calming river bubbling through along the path which allowed us to spot some wildlife when we saw a little turtle and a goegeous heron who would have won first place in a statue contest.
A Caren Night Out
When Dan and I traveled here in 2010, we stayed with his cousins and aunt/uncle and the boys (Sam, Hugh, and Luke) toured us around. Flashforward 7 years to 2017 when I'm doing my solo trip, I randomly message them and they bring me out to dinner and drinks over a few nights. Flashforward ANOTHER 7 years to 2024, and here I am again, bugging them to show the Canadian around.
And they obliged. ๐
I met up with Sam and Luke at Cobblestone Pub to hear some traditional music. It was quite amazing! The musicians just gather at the front of the bar and have a little jam session. They don't necessarily know each other, they all have different instruments (I saw fiddles, guitars, flutes and an accordion), and they just like *know* how to play together. It was really impressive.
Hugh joined us and after some debate and discussion amongst the Dubliners, we settled on sushi for dinner. It hit the spot and our bloated bellies continued onwards to another pub (The Boar's Head), where Luke bid us adieu. We wandered down to Drury Street which had a great open air / pedestrian only bar crawl vibe. Lots of stringed lights, friendly vibes and the interesting experience of Sam and Hugh buying a drink for a random street dude and having him drunkenly serenade me... Well, I did want to be sung at by Irishmen. Sometimes, you take what you can get. ๐
so you didn't find your Irish husband? next time!
ReplyDeleteHaha, nope not yet!
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