Ireland, Part One

Let me begin by reassuring my family members who are following this that I have neither died nor run off to live in a cottage in rural Ireland (though I was sorely tempted). I am well and safely in London after a rather whirlwind 10 days of Irish wandering.

Before I actually begin chronicling my holiday, I'm going to vent my complaint about Ireland, just to get it over with. Ireland is astonishingly expensive. I'd heard that Ireland was expensive, but I thought, "Well, I've been living in London, and London is expensive. It'll be fine." Ireland is more expensive than London. I didn't think that was possible. Anyway.

The week before I left was not a particularly good week for me. I really didn't have enough time to completely recharge from France. It was midterms, which meant that I had a couple of papers due, which meant that I was staying up until the early hours of the morning doing homework...then leaving home in the early hours of the morning to go to work and deal with unruly teenage girls all day. I was also worrying about my grandfather (who is now at home recovering nicely, I've been assured). My flight to Dublin was on the night of Thursday the 26th, and honestly by the end of work on Thursday I was wishing I'd gotten a Friday morning flight. I was too worn out to be excited, and anxious about making it from work to home (to pick up my bag and change) to the airport on time. I'd only just booked my return flight late on Wednesday. Those four days between France and Ireland were the worst I've had this semester.

Nonetheless, once I was safely in Luton Airport (after an hour's ride home, a 35 min ride to Kings Cross, a 25 min train, and a 5 min shuttle) I began to relax enough to feel excited. I checked my backpack (my faithful black Jansport, serving me well since 2002) and had my messenger bag as a carry-on. I'd dithered quite a bit over luggage while packing and finally settled on this arrangement, because it would allow me to leave the bulk of my stuff in my room while keeping my irreplaceable items (passport, wallet, Oyster card, house key, journal, iPod, etc) with me on my excursions. And that messenger bag was essentially glued to my shoulder the whole ten days.

I flew to Dublin on Ryanair, the UK's cheap airline. And by cheap I mean my flight to Dublin was 5 pounds. On the flight I actually dozed off, so I suppose I was still too tired to be either truly excited or anxious. I've also decided that one of my more irritating qualities is that I can fall asleep on a 50 minute flight but can't for the life of me even doze on a red-eye trans-Atlantic flight.

I landed in Dublin around 9:30, and by 10:30 I was completely in love with Ireland. The immigration officer was friendly--I have never encountered even a polite immigration officer, let alone one that smiled and cheerfully wished you a good holiday. I got some euros at the airport, then caught a city bus to get to the city center. Luckily, the bus driver was as friendly as the immigration officer. I knew the name of the stop for my hostel, but of course had no idea where it actually was. Rather hesitantly I asked the bus driver, and he instantly offered to announce the stop for me. And so he did, and the stop was right across the street from Avalon House, my hostel for the weekend. By the time I checked in and got settled in my room it was after 11, and I was far too exhausted to even think about going out. I was far too exhausted to even begin to comprehend that I was in Ireland. That night I was the only one in the room (a four person room) and I fell right asleep.

Avalon House was a nice hostel--it was quite big and felt much like a college residence hall, which worked fine for me. There was a free breakfast of cereal, toast, orange juice, tea and coffee, a big and well-stocked kitchen, free wireless, and a comfortable lounge. My first morning I had a lot of trouble with my key (they ended up having to change the lock on the door) and the staff were quite helpful and nice about it. I noticed an advertisement at reception for a free walking tour of the city, and I decided that would be an excellent use of my first morning in Dublin.

Conor, the tour guide, was awesome. He came to the hostel at 10:40, and I was the only one there for the tour. He walked with me over to City Hall, where there was a large crowd and a few other tour guides. Conor and his fellow tour guides worked for an organization that provided free walking tours of many major European cities, on the philosophy that everyone should be able to get the most of their travels, regardless of budget. It's a sweet deal for student travelers, and for the tour guides--they work on a tips-only basis, and most of them probably make decent money for a morning's tour.

So the tour officially departed from City Hall, with a group of about twenty people. There followed three entertaining hours of walking around central Dublin and trying to absorb at least some of the city's vast and complicated history. I fell in love with Dublin completely. It's a gorgeous city, big enough to be exciting and busy, but small enough to feel welcoming and accessible. Less overwhelming than London or Paris or New York. And, of course, its literary history and significance is a big selling point for me, too. Particularly because Dublin really honors and celebrates its literary tradition--there are memorials all over the city not only honoring the writers, but events that happened in their works (you can't escape the shadow of Ulysses anywhere in the city, and I am a bit disappointed in myself for not making a point of reading it before going).

After the tour, I meandered my way back to my hostel, grabbing a sandwich for lunch as I walked. I decided to put off all of my sight-seeing until tomorrow, because everything I wanted to see closed at 5, and by the time I actually got to anywhere today it would be almost four. So rather than try to rush anywhere, I just took my time and enjoying being in Dublin. The weather was actually decent, if a bit chilly. Food there is ridiculously expensive, so I stopped and got some groceries so I could cook dinner in the hostel both nights.

Friday night I went on a literary pub crawl, and it was a spectacularly good time. At the end of it I clearly remember thinking that I couldn't recall the last time I'd enjoyed an evening so much. It was led by two actors who gave various short performances throughout the night, from works by Beckett, Joyce, Wilde, Behan, and Heaney (and I think a few others). The performances were interspersed with entertaining historical anecdotes concerning the pubs we went to and the writers' lives. The actors were thoroughly talented and knowledgeable, and quite friendly. I very nearly won the quiz at the end, but lost by a question to an Irishman from Kilkenny. I ordered my first Guinness with no small amount of trepidation; I expected it to be on par with the British ale I'd tried, and figured I'd just choke down a pint to say I'd had Guinness in Dublin. But much to my surprise it was quite good, and I enjoyed not only my first pint, but all the subsequent pints I had on my travels in Ireland.

Saturday I woke up early-ish to begin my full day of sightseeing. First I went in search of Oscar Wilde's house and the statue of him, and was pleased with the memorial. It was a statue of him sprawled out on a rock, smirking wryly. I went to the National Library, which had an excellent exhibit on Yeats. While there I went to the Family History Centre, but although I had names and counties my information wasn't specific enough to come up with anything else (you need to know the parishes, apparently, in order to really track anyone down). My next stop was the National Museum, which seemed to be roughly the same genre as the British Museum, but smaller and Irish. They had a really great collection of Celtic artifacts, and some disturbingly gross mummified bodies that had been recovered from bogs. In the interest of accuracy I should say they had partial bodies recovered from bogs. There were also excellent exhibits of Viking and medieval artifacts. I left the museum and went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells.

The Book of Kells is among the most famous early medieval manuscripts, because of its wonderful condition (it was lost for some centuries in a bog, which preserved it nicely) and its spectacular illumination. It is a manuscript of the four Gospels. I was irritated by the admission price to see it--8 euros--but not irritated enough to pass on seeing it. There was a nice exhibit leading up to the Book, and the Book itself was just as fascinating as I could have hoped for, but I still felt like Trinity was robbing people. As an added and unexpected bonus, the ticket also got you into the Long Room of the Trinity College library. It had an exhibition on detective fiction, which I could not have cared less about. But what I cared very much about was that this room provided the inspiration for the look of the Jedi Library in Star Wars Episode III (I maintain that Revenge of the Sith is a fantastic movie, and will be happy to debate anyone on this point). I enjoyed pretending like I was wandering the Jedi Archives (no shame).

I stopped by City Hall and Christchurch Cathedral on my way to the Dublin Writers' Museum. City Hall was an impressive and beautiful building, but I must admit that Christchurch Cathedral didn't do much for me. It was pretty, but not nearly as stunning as Westminster Abbey or even the college chapels in Oxford and Cambridge. It had crypts you could go into, which were kind of cool--mostly only because they were really old, though, and I enjoyed feeling the weight of time. The Writers' Museum was a far more rewarding stop for me.

It was a bit of a hike to the museum from where I was in Dublin, maybe a 25 minute walk, but it was up O'Connell St, Dublin's main thoroughfare. It is a beautiful street, lined with stately memorials to various Irish heroes (there's a lovely statue of Joyce off to one side of the street), with a gorgeous bridge over the river Liffey. I walked up and down that street several times throughout my couple of days in Dublin and never tired of it.

The Writers' Museum was an excellent little museum. It was not as extensive as I hoped, but the audiotour was really great and it covered all the big names in good detail. The memorabilia was good, with notebooks, manuscripts, first editions, letters, etc. What I liked most about it was the way it chronicled the history of Irish literature--it started with oral Irish folklore and traced the development of Irish literature through the 20th century.

By this time it was nearly five, and I was tired. I made my way back to my hostel, detouring to find the bus station along the way and buy my ticket for Sunday. After cooking dinner, I rested for a bit before going out for another pub tour--this time, I did a musical one. I felt a bit touristy, doing two pub tours, but I figured it was a good, safe way for me to get a taste of the pub scene and better than just aimlessly wandering into random pubs.

I was quite glad I did go for the musical pub crawl. There were only seven in the tour group, which the two musicians who led the tour chalked up to the big rugby match (Ireland-England); apparently there are normally upwards of 50 people. Aside from myself, there were four girls from New Zealand (all of whom were currently living in Ireland) and a couple from Greece. At each stop the musicians played a few traditional songs, described how the instruments are used in Irish music, and a bit about the music's history. They were clearly quite passionate about music, and they were very down to earth--very genuine. They also provided tips for distinguishing authentic trad sessions from touristy gimmicks. At one point, they asked everyone in the group to share a song. A couple of the New Zealand girls sang a traditional Maori song, and I spent a couple minutes trying to avoid singing anything. But after some persistent cajoling from one of the musicians, and hearing them talk about how music should be shared (indeed, they opened every song they played with a story about where they got it from), I surprised myself by giving in. I don't know much in the way of American folk music, so I sang a short Simon and Garfunkel song I know pretty well, which I figured was close enough to American folk. I apologized for having a terrible singing voice, and one of them explained that it has nothing to do with whether you can actually sing and everything to do with interacting with the people around you. They finished with a couple of reels, and as I walked back to my hostel it occurred to me that there are probably very few things more enjoyable than listening to traditional Irish music played live by passionate musicians to a small group in a pub in Dublin.

This will be continued at a later date, when I am less tired and have less homework.