Dublin
We stayed in a great hotel in Dublin called Paramount. This place had a bath and towel warmers. What else could one want? It’s at the quieter end of the Temple Bar area and it seemed to be relatively quiet… until 1am. Once everyone had finished in the pubs below and were finishing their conversations on the street, the noise of a few voices on an otherwise silent street was suddenly quite loud.
On the first night we ventured onto the street in search of dinner. We were tempted by Irish Stew, but we knew what our (Irish) mothers would say if we paid 10-15 euros for this ‘peasant’ food. So the next obvious choice was Mexican. Obvious. Funnily enough we detected an Australian accent in our waitress and it turns out that she was from Figtree, a whole 10 minutes from where I grew up.
We were once again fooled by the late setting sun so by the time dinner was finished and some quick internetting was done, it was once again bed time. Days travelling just go too quickly.
Early the next morning we headed in search of more wool. We probably didn’t need anymore wool, and there certainly wasn’t any room left in our bags, but I’d seen some great scarves Amy bought at Avoca so I had to go there. I can see why Amy liked it. Lots of pretty, girly stuff. Lots of accessories. Lots of bags. Lots of things I liked too, but I didn’t get anything despite looking closely at some scarfs and blankets. (Blankets? How ridiculous. There’s NO WAY a woollen blanket would be fitting in my bag, but I looked anyway. Justine bought one and we laughed about her luggage later at the hotel. Oh how we laughed. We laughed like we were ‘keeping left’.) Avoca has a great cafe downstairs where we stopped for cake and, you guessed it, more tea.
We continued down Suffolk Street to find heaps of shops selling Irish souvenirs, but luckily Irish souvenirs are among the more tasteful in the world. I know, we didn’t need any more wool but who could resist? At least time we had presents for other people in mind, but upon returning to Australia I realised my guestimations at the size of my loved ones was just a little bit out.
Somehow the lack of sleep caught up with us. Maybe it was getting up at 6am to drop our hire car off in a “city” location only to find that it was quite far out of the city. Even after directions from three different people we still didn’t find it. We’d been driving around for about an hour and the low fuel light had been mocking us for most of that time (well, mocking Justine more than me… I quite enjoy seeing how many kilometres I can get out of a car). We were so close to the airport that we decided to drop the car off there and jump on an “express” bus to the city. Getting into Dublin at 9am is never going to be an “express” journey. Might I add that we were only so low on fuel because the Irish way of doing these hire car things is to make you pay for the first tank of fuel and then you supposedly give it back empty. I much prefer the Australian system of bringing it back full, but I think on this occasion we got our money’s worth.
Back to that afternoon. In our exhaustion we decided we needed a good solid meal with vegetables. We found a place in the main mall called Ann’s Bakery. The bread and cakes at the front didn’t excite us, but the serious food section at the back did. Both of us thought that the roast and eight veg was probably the way to go and it was. My memory is a bit hazy now, but I’m pretty sure we got at least two different types of potato, possibly three.
Later that evening Justine and I went to a pub around the corner (I think it was the Powerhouse) to meet up with Anna and her Sinead. I first met Anna when she came to Sydney for the year of backpacking and found herself working at Fox. It was so nice to be in a pub without smoke, but the only problem was that a wall of smoke hit us as soon as we exited. Nice cider, nice conversation, nice evening. When I got back to the hotel the guy behind the desk was the one who gave me directions to the hire car place. He asked if I found it ok. I lied and said it was fine. What a wimp.
Friday morning meant checking out of the hotel. Checking out of the hotel meant fitting everything into our bags. Somehow we managed this, but it wasn’t easy. We left our very heavy bags at reception and took off in search of jewellery. Justine bought some gorgeous celtic knot pieces, while I found a funky necklace at Whichcraft made by a local silversmith.
A trip to Dublin wouldn’t be complete without a wander around Trinity College. So that’s what we did with our final hour. Oh to be a student again, sitting on the lawn in the sun! I’m sure it’s overrated… or so I tried to convince myself.
We powerwalked back to our bags at the hotel, only stopping to pick up some delightful lunch from the earlier mentioned Avoca. Even though the train station was probably less than a kilometer away, we decided to get a cab. And just getting our luggage into the cab was enough effort. We thought we were at the train station with plenty of time to spare, but it seems that these Irish are a punctual lot so we had a hard time finding a space for our luggage and a space for ourselves.
Oh, and where were we going? Belfast of course.