8/1/07 Day 3 Part 1: Dublin City

OK, so now that my finger is more-or-less healed up and I can type again, I'm back. Day 3 in Dublin was quite an eventful day for we three intrepid adventurers, so I have decided to break it up into two posts. Quit your whining. I promise I will post part 2 within 2 days. It's already written, see?

So without further delay, here is Day 3 , part 1.

Since it was our last full day in Dublin, we planned on exploring the city as much as we could. We got up early and hit the buffet for the first of many included “Full Irish Breakfasts”. You may wonder what constitutes a “Full Irish Breakfast”. Pretty much every place we would stay would offer the same general fare: eggs, both the watery scrambled kind and the poached-in-copious-amounts-of-oil kind; Irish bacon, which is cured in salt (and lots of it) rather than smoked; rashers, the most disgusting sausages I’ve ever eaten (but not that Dad’s eaten—that would happen soon enough in Killarney); fried tomatoes; fried potatoes; fried mushrooms; and black and white puddings (more on these culinary delights later). If nothing above struck your fancy, there was always Weetabix and/or Irish oatmeal (very soupy wherever we went). Most places also offered a selection of cheeses, fruits and smoked salmon. Nothing really spectacular, but it filled us up until well after noon.

We decided not to use the rental car in Dublin, as it’s a royal pain in the ass to find parking. Rather we opted for the ubiquitous Dublin buses to get us around. We found that several companies offered a “hop-on, hop-off” bus service; it stops at 27 key locations around the city and one pass is good for 24 hours. It’s a circular route and buses hit any given stop about once every ten minutes or so. The beginning of the bus route was on O’Connell St., so once again we hoofed it there from the hotel.

Along the way we stopped at the Garden of Remembrance, a small park in Parnell Square opened by Eamon De Valera himself to commemorate “those who died in the name of Irish freedom”. Within, there’s a somewhat odd-looking statue of people with what appear to be swans rising from their backs. The three of us regarded it in silence.

“What the hell is that supposed to be?” asked Dad.

“People who died for Irish freedom,” I said. “And some big birds.”

“I know what it is,” said Seth, taking a dramatic drag of his cigarette. “I’ll tell you guys what it is, seeing how you’re both ignorant. Those are the people who died, and those swans symbolize their souls rising towards heaven.”

Dad and I exchanged looks. This level of symbolic thinking was uncommon in my brother. Seth grinned smugly.

I had my own theory. “Maybe they’re were-ducks.” Seth looked at me like you’d expect.

(Actually, it turns out we were both wrong. Unlike my brother and my Dad, who obviously couldn't care less, I took the time to look this up. I’ve since discovered the statue is named “The Children of Lir". Lir was the lord of the sea, and his children were cursed by their wicked stepmother to live as swans for 900 years. Lir found out and banished the stepmom, but that didn't stop the next 900 years from sucking out loud for the kids.)

We picked up the bus on O’Connell St. First stop: Temple Bar, where we continued the shopping we barely started yesterday. I had a few things on my shopping list, things I would continue to look for, mostly in vain, throughout the rest of my trip. First and foremost among these was a bangle for my mother; something silver with a stone in it and a “celtic theme.” (Longtime readers of this blog may recall my mother requested something different—a necklace containing the birthstones of my brother and I. Of course, since we were both born in the same month, we both have the same birthstone. Once she remembered this she changed her mind.) I was also looking for old books and straight razors. I found neither. But on Dawson St., a few stops up from Temple Bar, my brother found the Celtic Whiskey Shop and dropped about €60 (roughly $83.00) on a small bottle of handcrafted single malt for a friend of his.

A friend. Not his brother. In other words, not me.

Back outside, we waited patiently or the bus to come pick us up. Soon, a yellow and green bus came around the corner, and my brother moved towards it like a lemming on a fateful course cliffward.

“Hey, boy,” Dad said to Seth. “We don’t want that one. We want the cream bus, not the yellow one.” (Remember: there are several different bus companies that offer hop-on, hop-off service.)

My brother stopped short and took out a cigarette. I walked up to him, making sure Dad was out of earshot.

“You know,” I said, whispering conspiratorially, “‘Cream Bus’ was my nickname in high school.” He looked at me with contempt. Whatever my brother was going to say was lost in the roar of the real cream bus arriving at the stop. We boarded, Dad wondering why I was laughing and Seth was shaking his head in disgust.

(To Dad and Seth: I refuse to tell my faithful readers the sordid tale of how, when I noticed the young lady sitting next to me was wearing a low-cut shirt that very clearly exposed her breasts, I, under the pretense of taking photos of Dublin, casually zoomed my camera lens to encompass her neckline and took not one, but two pictures of her hooters for posterity. My readers may think I’m a dirty pervert, and I have an image to uphold. Good thing I deleted them before Mom saw them.)

We continued our tour of Dublin on the top level of the bus, from which vantage point we could periodically snap some photos of the surrounding sights. Our first stop was Dublin Castle.

We didn’t actually plan on stopping at Dublin Castle. But seeing as how it was on the way, and it was the first castle we would see on the trip, and seeing how it’s the castle in Dublin, we figured a stop was in order. Actually, Dublin Castle was kind of a letdown. It was nowhere near as impressive as other castles we would see on the trip. Nonetheless we walked through the courtyard and snapped a few photos of The Record Tower and the Chapel , neither of which are pictured here, before moving on through.

Once on the other side, we stopped for a quick bite at The Queen of Tarts, the best damn pastry shop in Ireland. While none of us was really hungry after our Full Irish Breakfast, it didn't stop us from enjoying a few tarts. I had something with goat cheese and tomato on it that was fantastic, and because I'm a glutton, I bought a dark chocolate and pear tart for later. It, too, was fantastic.

We traveled through Merrion Square, where the famous statue of a young, not-so-portly Oscar Wilde reclining on a rock (the “queer in the square”, as our driver dubbed it) was just out of our camera range. We drove past Trinity College, where we didn’t stop to see the Book of Kells; past both Christchurch and St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

We got out on Grafton St. to do a bit more shopping. Speaking of tarts, we ended up spending some quality time with the “tart with the cart”, Miss Molly Malone. Molly was a fishmonger by day, “celibate” by night; as one driver said to us: “She’d sell-a-bit here, and she'd sell-a-bit there”.

We didn't find the bangle for Mom. Not for lack of trying. We didn't want to get the typical claddagh crap we could find anywhere in the States, and believe it or not, finding a simple silver bangle with a stone in it is way harder than you would think. One jewelry shop further disappointed me by informing me they didn't carry kilt pins. Soon enough, we abandoned our search and hopped on the bus again with a new destination firmly in mind.

Next stop: The Guinness Storehouse.