I expected the worst when it came to the weather, especially as it’s been raining in Mainz for weeks, and I know London’s been the same. Surprisingly though, I was greeted with sunshine and temps so hot I couldn’t wait to change from jeans to shorts! Here’s a sunny view of the Ha’penny Bridge:
As I walked to my hostel, which was as central as you could get, really, I viewed Dublin’s latest attraction, which is quite ingeniously called “The Spire”
Not quite sure what it was for, but it seems every city worth its salt has to have some kind of tall, pointless monument (Stefan’s Tower, anyone?). Plus it was nice and shiny, which is always a winner for me.
I went to the hostel and chatted briefly to a German girl (yes, the first person I met in Ireland was German), then headed to the tourist info centre and grabbed a few brochures. I then set about viewing tourist attractions in the area, but I soon became frustrated with the crowds, tired of dodging the millions of buses and avoiding the people shaking their money cups at me…
…so I jumped on one such bus and went on a bit of a journey up the coast. Half an hour later, I reached Clontarf.
This place kind of reminded me of St Kilda and also a bit of Glenelg. It definitely had an Irish feel though, and I convinced myself the green stuff next to the water was peat, for that extra authenticity.
The primary reason for me going to Clontarf was to see St Anne’s Park and Rose Garden, which I’d jotted down as something to see, during my extensive 20mins of Dublin research on Friday night. Here’s the entrance to the park – admire the greenness!
There were also a few castles around, just to remind me how old the civilisation is in that country:
As I was wandering around, taking in the beauty, I heard a rustle from the forest floor to my left. Ever-vigilant when it comes to a possible snake attack, I did what every well-trained Aussie does when they hear a rustle in the bushes and jumped back a few metres. Then my brain kicked in and I remembered the whole St Patrick, no-snake story, and I realised my attacker was actually a cuuuuute little squirrel.
Calming down again, I continued on, determined to find the aforementioned rose garden. When I did eventually find it, in the middle of the vast parklands, I was not disappointed. This place was suitably large and impressive, and with the heady scent of roses filling my nostrils, I wandered around happily, looking at all the funny rose names. These included “Sexy Rexy”, “High Sheriff”, “Cathedral Splendour” and “Royal Philharmonic”.
I sat down next to a particularly pretty rose-bed for awhile (yes, I stopped to smell the roses… ba-boom-ching) – this variety was called Anna Livia.
Okay, I just wasted 20 mins trying to work out photoshop in German, so I could put these photos all together in a mosaic, but it was too damn hard, so if you want to see photos of roses, click on the numbers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
I spent awhile in the park, planning my touristy Sunday, then I went back to the hostel, determined to find some friendly backpackers to hit the town with. What I found instead was a Kiwi who had been living at the hostel for three months because she couldn’t be bothered finding an apartment, a Spanish girl who seemed kind of bored with me whilst eyeing off the Spanish guys in the corner, and the most extreme Bad American Stereotype I’ve ever met. So, my plans of Irish Craic slowly fading away, I walked up the road to find wine. I then decided it would be pathetic to drink wine on my own, so bought a packet of biscuits instead, and headed back to the hostel. As I passed one of the dingy pubs nearby, I caught sight of the German girl (Nadine) who I’d met earlier, sitting at the bar chatting to the bartender. Seconds later, she invited me out to meet a Canadian couple she’d been drinking with the night before, so I put down my biscuits, grabbed my handbag and we left for the Temple Bar:
This bar was in a very trendy part of town (supposedly), but to me it looked like the Dublin equivalent of Fortitude Valley. We couldn’t find the Canadian couple, but we did notice a whole bunch of men wearing swagman hats:
Curious, I asked them if they were Aussies, but no, they were Poms. They were in Ireland celebrating the upcoming nuptials of Jamie, dressed here as a leprechaun, but who had the previous night been dressed as Captain America, apparently:
It soon came to light that Jamie had lived in Redcliffe for awhile (which he claimed was in Brisbane, but I argued otherwise), and was quite fond of our country, hence the hats. The guys were pretty amusing, so we stayed around to watch Jamie try to complete the dares set by his mates. We also became acquainted with a blow-up kiwi, who was standing in for another Pom who couldn’t make it because he was in NZ (kiwi seen below kissing “Junior”).
As the night wore on, I found I was slowly becoming accustomed to drinking beer, and the boys became quite jovial…
…but then they turned the lights on and kicked us out. Pubs in Ireland shut at 2:30am – BOOO!! Oh well, twas a good night anyway.
After we got back to the hostel, I began to fully comprehend something I had suspected during check-in – the hostel was a s**thole. An overpriced s**thole at that (25 Euros). I had 14 people in my mixed dorm which had ridiculously lumpy mattresses (even for a hostel) and in place of a functioning light, the room had an EXIT sign that glowed all night. At least I was far away from it. The staff didn’t give out keys, instead escorting people to their rooms every time they wanted to get in (including after going to the bathroom, which was on another floor). Which brings me to the most annoying bit – the bathroom. There were only three showers, with see-through doors (for ultimate privacy), and to make them produce water, you had to press a button every 10 sec. In addition to this, there were no rubbish bins or toilet paper, so the place was pretty gross. At least I’d had a few pints of Carlsberg, so I could tolerate it for the few hours I had left.
Sunday morning, feeling pretty off after having only 5 hours of interrupted sleep, I checked out of the craphole and walked up the street to my second hostel, which was only 12 Euros per night, in a 10-person all-girls dorm, with in-room bathroom and breakfast included.
My touristy sights for the day included Dublinia, a very interactive museum that re-created medieval and viking-period Dublin. I learned that Vikings didn’t actually have horned helmets, that the cure for earache used to be stuffing a knob of garlic in your ear, and I even learned who the real “Strongbow” was!
Here’s a photo of Dublinia (left) and Christ Church Cathedral (right), from which some fantastic choral music was resonating.
I then did a tour of Dublin castle,
which had the typical grand ballrooms and underground passageways, and finally I had a look inside the Chester Beatty Library, which housed a massive collection of Christian, Islamic and oriental religion books and scrolls. I was impressed by the age of the stuff (some was dated at 50AD-ish), but by then my feet hurt so much that I couldn’t be bothered reading much. When I did read a couple of signs, it became apparent that some kind of background knowledge of the Bible would have made the whole thing a lot more exciting.
Not to be beaten by my aching feet, I decided to squeeze in one last attraction before dark. That attraction was Phoenix Park, which was a lot further away from town than I had anticipated. 3km after leaving central Dublin, I found the park and sat down and ate my nutritious raw 2-minute noodle dinner, then walked around trying to find the war memorial I had read about. Once I found it, I wondered how I ever could have missed it, because this thing was huuuuuuuuuuge! See the man in the blue shirt to the right of the memorial, for size reference.
I stood at the base of the monument for awhile, gawking, then made the painful 3km journey home. My feet had actually started to go numb by the time I got back into town. By then it was 9pm, and time for me to go to bed, seeing as I had to be up at 4:30am to get my flight. As I lay down and tried to block out the chatter of my roommates, I thought about how the room was still five-star, compared to my previous hostel. Zzzzz…
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