Tuesday, November 29th – Twenty Four

5:15AM, Dublin
Here I sit in the Dublin Airport.  On my North Face duffel bag.  I bid goodbye to my new/old Irish friends and left the last pub around 3AM.  Showered, packed, and sat realizing that I did not really need to leave to the airport until 5AM.

Last year, I took a trip to New Orleans to see the Tulane-Ole Miss game.  It was a whirlwind tour that took us from the streets of New Orleans, to the game in the Superdome, back to the streets of New Orleans, off to the airport, and finally to Raljohn (Palmer Park), Maryland to see the Redskins-Cowboys Sunday night opening game.  I had mentioned to my friends that if we found ourselves out in Bourbon Street past midnight on Saturday, we were better off buckling down and pushing through the night rather than going back to the hotel and sleeping for five or six hours.  Sure enough, that time came and we decided to push.

Morning came to the Bar Lafitte.  I would be the first to leave New Orleans so I headed back to the hotel to pack and catch a cab.  My friends followed.  Their flight would be a few hours later.  As I dropped them off at their room, and they lay down in their bed, I told them, “Do not fall asleep. You will miss your flight.”

They gave me their house keys and said, “Do not worry.  We’ll just be a few hours behind you.”

Well, as I sat in their house, watching their TV, eating their food, and looking at their Redskins tickets, the phone rang.

They had overslept.

Through five alarms.

And missed their flight.

It made no difference to me.  I had a couch and food and four tickets to the Redskins game.

That is why I am sitting in the Dublin Airport, one hour before the Continental check-in even opens up, waiting for my day to begin.

6:43AM, Dublin
My bags are checked and I am wolfing down an Irish breakfast.  Whatever that potato cake thing was it was definitely NOT like a hash brown.

7:25AM, Dublin
I have cleared the Preclearence at US Customs and entered the holding pen.  It looks like something out of V Is For Vendetta.

I still have an hour plus to go before I even get on the plane.  That gives me a chance to take inventory.

I was in Ireland for six days – five days in Dublin and one out.  I saw one college, three parks, four libraries, one jail, one castle, three art galleries, four museums, one boat, two megalithic gravesites, one distillery, one brewery, three churches, two cathedrals, one zoo, and far too many pubs to count.  I saw where St. Patrick baptized, the Vikings pulverized, famished citizens mobilized, Arthur Guinness fermentized, Pádraig Pearse oratized, England capitulatized, and James Joyce and others philosophized.  Not a bad trip, no surprise.

9:15AM, Dublin
Wheels up and in the air.  Nope, the seats have not gotten any bigger.

11:45AM, New York
Wheels down and into the gate.  I’m going to hop the NJ Transit and meet my brother for lunch in New York City.

3:00PM, New York
Lunch complete.  The city does not seem that crowded.  Of course, we are up by Central Park.  Off to the subway.

5:16PM, New York
Back at Newark and awaiting a 8:25PM flight to San Francisco.  I just want to get on the plane so I can go to sleep.  I am starting to dread going back to the Bay.  It’s probably just that post travel depression starting to set in.

9:24PM, New York
Wheels up and dinner served.  I should probably put dinner in quotes.  I think it is some sort of vulcanized chicken.  I think I ate better when I slept through breakfast on the previous plane.

1:33AM, San Francisco
Riding Super Shuttle back to the city.  What a disaster this service has become.  It was an hour wait just for a van that I had a reservation on.  The plane was at the gate by midnight and I had my bags and was curbside by 12:15AM.

I have only two complaints on this trip – Continental’s seat sizes and Super Shuttle’s curbside service.  If those are my only issues, it ain’t been a bad trip.

3:05AM, San Francisco
Finally back in SF and lying in my bed.  In between the cat naps on the airline, I have been up since 9AM Dublin time on Monday.  Today is Wednesday.

This trip accomplished a few things.  First, it did get me the 744 miles I needed to maintain my Premier status on United Airlines (benefits noted in the first post).  Second, it broke in my renewed passport (very important).  Third, it got me out of San Francisco and moving again (if only temporarily).  Finally, it helped me remember one thing and forget another.  But I still haven't found what I am looking for...

Monday, November 28th – All Things Must Pass

Here is what Poolbeg Lighthouse looks like:

It would have been cool to see.  On a sunny day.

I was pleasantly surprised by a 9AM phone call from Ms. Mary Gibbons herself.  There was space for me and I could go on her tour.  I just needed to be at the bus stop within the hour.  Excellent.  It was to be my last day on the Emerald Isle.  I planned to take advantage of it.

The bus pick up was about the same spot as my drop off the first day I arrived.  It was an eighty seat touring bus.  Kind of like the ones we used to take to hockey games when I was a kid.  Except without the bathrooms in back and the drunken parents in the front.

Mary Gibbons greeted us at the front.  She was a stodgy middle-aged Irish lady who could have been a middle school teacher at any of a number of stateside prep schools.  That said, she brought a full set of knowledge and opinions to the trip (do NOT get her started on modern architecture or the IRA).

As we settled in for the bus ride outside of the city, we were informed to fasten our seat belts.  It’s Irish law.  On a bus.  All I could think of was this politically incorrect scene from Old School.

I guess I should say where the tour would take us.  Mary Gibbons offers two tours – Powerscourt and Glendalough or Newgrange and Hill of Tara.  I wanted to see dwarves and druids so I was off to Newgrange and the Hill of Tara.  This trip would go through the Boyne River Valley.

The bus was about half full and it was a mix of old people and random one-offs – a girl from Australia, a dad and his son in on business from Germany, an uptight SUNY student, a gaggle of ladies from Spain, and various, elderly Americans.  Of the forty plus people well over seventy percent were AARP eligible.  We were only one fat lady away from a Magical Mystery Tour.

Mary gave us a running historical commentary as we wound our way out of the city.  She was quite good and I would recommend this tour to anyone.  I kept waiting for her to stop and take questions but she kept rambling on through.  An example of her dialog would be, and think of Mrs. Doubtfire when you read this, “Oh, and here is the house that Sean O’Casey wrote The Shadow of a Gunman in and, oh, look at that awful house next to it.  Such an eyesore!  Terrible,terrible.  It’s terrible, what they let people put up.  Anyway, Sean O’Casey…”  And so on.

The Boyne Valley was the site of the Battle of Boyne, one of the most important battles in British-Irish history.  Taking place in July of 1690, it was a classic Catholic versus Protestant battle.  Protestant King William defeated Catholic King James and resulted in the Treaty of Limerick that, surprisingly, did not begin with “There once was a man from Nantucket…”

We did not actually see the battle site, as that was not part of this tour.  The bus road through the valley and we saw many dilapidated Abbeys.  As mentioned earlier in this blog, when Henry VIII broke with Rome, the monks had to give up their lands and most of the Abbeys closed.  Ireland has a lot of things that seem to hang over them in a haunting way and these scattered Abbeys were definitely one of them.  They all seemed to be off in the distance as we rolled by, hanging as beautiful old shells on the horizon.

Mary also gave us a little overview of Irish folklore.  Most of the older sites in Ireland had some sort of legend around them involving leprechauns, fairies, or some sort of other protective spirit.  As children, the Irish were told these stories, usually in conjunction with some horrible ending, and explained that this is why no one goes near “there”.  The speculation is that the reason so many old sites are well preserved is because the folk tales were very effective at keeping most people out of those places.  And there are a few awkwardly structured sentences.

Our first stop was the Hill of Tara.  The Hill was the seat of the King of Ireland and, more importantly, the site of many sacred rituals.  One hundred and forty-two kings were crowned there.  We stepped off of the bus into a little bit of the traditional Irish weather as it was breezy and a little wet out there.

To get to the Hill, you had to hop through part of the broken wall at St. Patrick’s Cross Church.  This was a little challenging for some of the tour – almost like Pooh getting through Rabbit’s hole (which sounds awful unless you get the reference).  From the peak point of the Hill, you get a 360 degree view of Ireland.  On a clear day, supposedly you can see the coasts.  Today you had about ten miles visibility.  And with that visibility you could see were Ireland got its nickname, the Emerald Isle – there were a million different shades of green to be seen.

The Hill of Tara was Ireland’s political and spiritual capital from Gaelic times through to the 1100s.  Basically, the arrival of St. Patrick and the growth of Christianity slowly eroded its significance.  Many people still consider this a very sacred and spiritual site.  It appeared also to be a major grazing place for sheep as sometimes you were not so much standing on the Hill of Tara but on a pile of sheep droppings.

Tara means “place of great prospect”.  In the middle of the area was the Lia Fail.  This was the ancient coronation stone and was supposed to have roared when touched by the rightful King of Tara.  Alas, it made no sound when I touched it so I will not be able to add King of Tara to my resume.

Soon it was time to re-board the bus.  After a quick pass through the restroom and the gift shop, we were back on our way.  The collective tombs and passages throughout the countryside are known as Bu Na Boinne.  This includes sites at Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth.  The combined area is the largest and one of the most important prehistoric megalithic sites in Europe (megalithic has something to do with rocks and such).  We were specifically going to visit Newgrange.

The Bru Na Bonnie site is older than Stonehenge, a thousand years older than the Pyramids, and the oldest astronomical observatory in the world that has remained completely intact since the Stone Age.  All groups must pass through the Visitor’s Center to access the site.  At the Center you can grab lunch, take in a video overview of the site, and shuffle your way to the shuttle buses that move you up to the hill where you can walk to the structure.

Newgrange is the central mound of the Boyne Valley.  You queue up to pass through the gate and then walk up to the front of the tomb to get a brief overview from an archeologist.  Going into the tomb is a lesson in claustrophobia and European hygiene.  It is thirty plus people in a very small space.  I had to duck and turn sideways to get in to the end.  The way in is artificially lit and you are not aware how dark is can be until they turn out the lights.

Newgrange is aligned with the Winter Solstice.  For a few days a year, at sunrise, the morning light penetrates the tunnel and lights up the burial chamber.  To demonstrate this, the guide has everyone move to one side or the other, creating a path, turns out the light, and mimics the sunrise with artificial light.  It presents a quick opportunity to get close to your neighbor.  I swear I heard heavy breathing and the clacking of dentures banging together.

Once the lights come back up, you are given a chance to check out the three recesses that would have contained the ashes.  Since you are wedged in like sardines, you have to shimmy around the room nudging your neighbors along the way.  Many people quickly headed out the one exit and into open space.  Once you were outside, you had the opportunity to walk around the burial mound.  Then it was off to the shuttle and back to the Visitor’s Center and on to the bus.

The whole trip through the countryside took around six hours.  Mary popped in the overview tape from the Visitor’s Center for the bus ride back.  Since she was not such the Chatty Cathy, I was able to get a few nods before rolling back into Dublin.

Despite a little over fourteen hours left in the country, I still had a few more things I wanted to see.  I had not gone inside the Bank of Ireland and was hoping to do that but with Monday hours and closing times fast approaching I had to make choices.  The Bank was tossed to the wayside as I scrambled through Gratfon and made my way to Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church.  The Church contains the remains of two saints.  I specifically wanted to see the remains of St. Valentine, which had been donated to the church by Pope Gregory XVI in the nineteenth century.

Whenever I enter a church, I am always aware that these are active churches.  It is disturbing to watch tourists trudge through these things like they are museums.  Almost all the time there is someone in a pew, head down, and deep in prayer/meditation and I always wonder what the prayer is for.  Not my business, I know, but I do wonder and speculate.

Somewhere along the way, I rushed past St. Stephen's Green.  Not much to see in the dark but I touched the grass just to claim I had been there.  This was also a private park until 1877 when Sir Alec Guinness, uh, Arthur Guinness pushed an act through Parliament (funkadelic) to open the park to the public.  Once again, beer wins the day.

One of the other things I wanted to see was the statue of Phil Lynott.  Phil Lynott was the bassist and front man of the Irish band Thin Lizzy.  He died in 1986 at the age of 36 but I’ll never forget hearing a live concert of theirs on the King Biscuit Flower Hour as beamed out from a Cleveland radio station.  The song they are best known for is “The Boys Are Back In Town."

The statue is located outside of Bruxelles where the band played.  The bar still has an active band scene as traditional Irish blues are played upstairs and heavy metal remains downstairs.  They also serve food.  I was hungry so I got the traditional Christmas meal of turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, and veggies.

At the table next to me appeared to be some aging rockers or moldy wannabes.  I overheard a lot of Spinal Tap-like road stories.  I ventured inside and listened to another band warm up.  Then I decided to take in a few of the pubs I had not seen, yet.  Temple Bar, Auld Dubliner, one pub led to the next and then it was another decision point.  I had to wake up by 4AM for my flight – do I go back and get a few hours of sleep or to I close this road trip out Irish style?

Documenting the hours between 10PM and 5AM would take another few paragraphs.  These are time and details that I am not willing to spend or expose.  As I type these notes up in the Dublin Airport, I prepare to wave this country goodbye.  All things must pass…

Sunday, November 27th – It Could Be the Whiskey

I woke up this morning to a congratulatory e-mail on my college football pool.  Apparently, I have picked nineteen of twenty-one games correctly.  Maybe I should leave the country more often.

When I looked at the map this morning, I realized that the things left that I want to see are on the opposite side of the city.  Specifically, I wanted to go out to Poolbeg Lighthouse and then all the way across town to Phoenix Park.  Based on all the walking I had already done, I was not going to do it on these legs.

But walk I must so walk I did.  I had not gone east down along the Liffey and this was a brilliantly sunny day.  I passed the Custom House which is a massive building that was built around 1790.  Like a few buildings North of the Liffey, it was gutted by fire during the 1921 independence battles.

Next along the way was the Jeanie Johnston.  The Jeanie Johnston is an exact replica of what was known as a “coffin ship”.  When the famine hit Ireland in 1845, the country was devastated.  Basically, the potato crop failed and the country continued to export any other food stuff so people in the nation starved.  Some people would actually commit crimes just to go to jail so they could get fed.

With food scarce, mass emigration began.  Many of those people went to America.  The ships taking people out of the country were known as “coffin ships” because so many people died on them.  On a positive note, the Jeanie Johnston made sixteen trips and lost ZERO people.

At first I was skeptical of taking a tour of a facsimile ship but I am glad I did.  The tour guide was really passionate about the topic and they have a project where they are trying to trace what happened to every person who traveled on the ship.  For the most part, my family is English/French/German/ Scotch (I know, it’s probably Scot but my family did drink a lot of scotch).  However, I am determined to find some Irish after this boat tour and this trip.

So, what happened to the original ship?  She went down at sea with sixteen people on board… and all sixteen were rescued by a passing ship.

Next to the Jeanie Johnston is the Famine Memorial.  It is a haunting and visual reminder of what happened to the country in those years.  The sculpture is seven stickly figures slowly moving along the Docklands.  About one million people died in Ireland and another million set sail for better hopes.  By 1890, two of every five Irish-born people were living abroad.   From the 1840s onwards, so many Irish emigrated that Ireland claims over seventy million people scattered across the globe are direct descendants from this diaspora.

I was still determined to see Poolbeg Lighthouse.  I don’t know why.  I did not see any pictures of it to draw me to it.  I just felt like I had to see the Irish Coast.  So I continued down the docks.

While there are a few modern buildings up along the way, there are still quite a few old ones that used to house pubs or be used for goods transfers.  If you squint, you can see the hustle and bustle of the docks in the early twentieth century.

I made it all the way down to the East Wall Road and O2.  O2 was where Rihanna played Friday (see notes from Thursday).  At this point I peered down the road and did not see any lighthouse.  Wisdom overran ambition and I turned around.

The East Wall Road and Phoenix Park are three miles about.  I had seen most everything in between so I was not walking that again.  I used public transportation for the one and only time and rode the LUAS.  The LUAS is Dublin’s light rail system and it goes from The Point to Saggart or Tallaght.  At least this line did.  It was nice to view the city streets from a seat and soon I was at Phoenix Park.

Why did I want to go to Phoenix Park?  Well, for starters, it is Dublin’s equivalent of New York’s Central Park or San Francisco’ Golden Gate Park.  Except that it is over twice the size of Central Park and larger than all of London’s major parks combined.  It’s massive.

No, I was not going to walk Phoenix Park.

I had seen the Wellington Monument from The Royal Hospital earlier in the trip and I wanted to see Dublin’s Zoo.  They are both in Phoenix Park.  So is the Irish President’s residence as well as the United States Ambassador’s house.  I didn’t so much want to see these.

The Park used to be the lands of the Knights of Jerusalem.  Much of the good land in Ireland was part of the church.  When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the lands went to the crown.  Under the Duke of Ormonde, Phoenix Park was a royal deer park.  Finally, in 1745, Lord Chesterfield (he of cigarette fame?) opened the park to the public.

By the time I got to the Dublin Zoo I was pretty much walked out.  I did the mandatory lap and saw the animals.  They had a baby hippo.  Their African preserve area is nice.  They have a large heard of giraffes.  They had the usual lot of animals.  It was nice to see not everything was stuffed or mummified in Ireland.

I left the zoo and headed over to Wellington Monument.  The Tower looks like a shorter, fatter version of the Washington Monument.  Then I buzzed out of the park and expected to jump the LUAS, again, but felt obligated to check out the Collins Barracks.

The Collins Barracks are known more formally as the National History Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History.  The building was built in 1704 by the British to house the British Army.  And it did until 1922 when Ireland won their independence.  Britain turned the barracks over to the Irish government and it was renamed in Michael Collins’ honor.

I did not go inside.  I was losing the day and my next stop was more important.  I continued to walk my way back to the heart of the city and to the Old Jameson Distillery.

Well, this entry is getting long and I’m not sure what else you can say about another booze tour.  The original Jameson distillery was on this site.  The tour takes you through a cardboard-like replica, including a stuffed cat.  You get a free shot of Jameson at the end.  I was selected for the whiskey tasting so I got two free shots of Jameson at the end plus one of Jack Daniel’s and one of Johnny Walker Red (for comparison).  I felt compelled to have an Irish coffee after that which led to some questionable purchases at the Jameson store (Merry Christmas, someone!).

It was suppertime so I moved onto The Church to get supper.  They claim the church is one of Dublin’s top attractions.  I guess the opportunity to dine among the dead does not come up often.  The restaurant is not in the Old St. Mary's Church but IS the old St. Mary’s Church.  The whole thing - the pipe organ, upper deck pews, and wall memorials.  Supposedly, Handel used to practice on that organ.  The food was good and the dining experience excellent.  They had some live music by the bar and that was good, too.

From The Church I wandered home.  It was decision time – do I pub crawl my way through Dublin on my last day or do I take a coach tour out into the countryside?  I had also not seen a number of famous dead writer’s houses but I figured you’ve seen one dead writer’s house, you’ve seen them all.  So, that was out.

I sent an e-mail to Mary Gibbon’s Tours (recommended by Lonely Planet).  We’ll see if I can get on a bus tomorrow and see Ireland’s Stone Henge…

Saturday, November 26th – Off To Jail

I have discovered that my writing has become rusty.  It is much harder to crank out the words than the last time I did this.  That or maybe it’s the pints.  It seems like everywhere you sit you have to have one.  Lunch.  Dinner.  Breakfast.  Again, pens and pints don’t mix.  I don’t know how Hemingway did it.  Of course, he only did it for so long…

Today was the day I planned to go to jail.  In a city of uprisings, rebellions, and insurrections, much of the recent history runs through the jail.  I’m not going to recap thousands of years of Irish history, and Kilmainham Gaol only covers a couple hundred, but it seems like the Irish have a long history with being on the losing side of a fight.  This may explain why they have such resilient personalities.

Anyway, the Gaol was not the first goal.  I trudged my way back past Christ Church and behind St. Patrick’s to go to Marsh’s Library.  Narcissus March was the Archbishop of Dublin at the end of the 1600s.  Apparently, he had a massive collection of books.  Anyway, this is the oldest public library in the country.  Most of the volumes I saw were older than our country (the United States).  There were a few of Jonathan Swift’s personal items here on display (it appears that he did not hold Archbishop Marsh in high regard).  I was interested to see the History of France, as of 1578, but nobody was allowed to touch the books.  Between this and the Long Room at Trinity, Dublin has two pretty cool libraries.

When you look at the map of Dublin, Kilmainham Gaol looks like it is about the same distance from St. Patrick’s as St. Patrick’s is from the GPO.  My legs told me otherwise.

Kilmainham is tied to every recent Irish uprising.  It was opened in 1796 and proceeded to house every major recent figure in Ireland’s history.  Or so it seems.  After watching the French Revolution, the United Irishmen decided to stage their own rebellion.  And lost.  Between 1798 and 1922, the Irish were either fighting the British or themselves.  There were twelve major uprisings, by my account.  And the reason we stop at 1922 for this discussion is because the Gaol was finally decommissioned in 1924.

The walking tour has given the best overview of recent Irish history I have had so far and was well worth the time.  We were led around by a little Irish girl in a black beret.  It kind of made you feel like you were part of the movement.  There are also a few floors of displays worth checking out, after you get the jail house tour.

From Kilmainham Gaol, I started working my way back to the heart of the city.  The next stop was the Royal Hospital Kilmainham and Irish Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  Yep, it’s all one and the same.

The Royal Hospital Kilmainham was set up as a retirement home for veterans.  I guess the architecture is Georgian and the building of the hospital began a Georgian architecture boom in Dublin.  It reminded me a little of colonial Williamsburg but on a much larger scale.

Like most of Ireland’s buildings, this fell into compete disarray in the 1920s.  It was restored in the 1980s.  The Irish MoMA is in part of the main building but most of it is housed in one of the side buildings.  There is a heritage tour of the main building and, since I was the only one there, I got a personal tour and overview.  I saw the chapel and the main rooms.  The chapel ceiling is entirely made of papier mache.  Who knew that the skills I learned in second grade could be used to make exotic ceiling covers.

Alas, the MoMA had no egg carton fish (another item we made in second grade art class).  But, it was worth seeing.  Many of the exhibits were interactive.  In one room, there was invisible glue on the floor that captured the footprints of people who walked through.  In another room, there was just white noise and foam.

One exhibit of particular interest involved a police sketch artist and describing your first love.  This had to be done by appointment but the gist of it all was that you would sit down with the sketch artist, describe your first love, they would draw him or her, and they would become part of the permanent exhibit.  Cool, creepy, and a way to make that person who jilted you in grade school last forever.  In a sketch, everyone looks guilty.

Another exhibit that caught my eye was a roomful of ribbons in wooden peg boards.  Each ribbon had a wish on it.  All of the wishes came from people who had seen the exhibit.  The idea was that you could take a wish ribbon but you had to write a wish of your own on paper and refill the empty hole with that.  The artist would then make a ribbon of your wish and put it in the art.

You were to wear your ribbon until it fell off.  At that point, your wish would come true.  The wish I took was “I want a turtle and no more war.”  The wish I wrote was “I wish everyone could see the world the way I do.”  My ribbon fell off in the Porter House somewhere between the third and forth pint (more on that later).  So far, I don’t think people are seeing what I see…

The day was not over, yet.  From the MoMA, I walked over to the Guinness Storehouse.  This is one of the tours I felt that I had to do.  I think I have been on about fifteen brewery tours in the last three years.  All sponsored by the good folks at Wells Fargo.

The Guinness complex in Dublin is massive.  The Storehouse tour is only on a small part of it but the tour facility itself is HUGE.  It’s either five or seven stories, depending on how you count it and how much you’ve had to taste.  The brew tour is pretty standard stuff.  If you have done a few tours, you already know how beer is made, etc, etc.  I did the obligatory views here but quickly headed up to the Gravity Bar.

Sitting on top of the entire complex, Gravity Bar gives you a 360 degree view of Dublin as well as one free pint.  As you can imagine, the place is crammed with tourists.  It is like a tower of Babel, with dozens of different languages being bantered about.  I was up there to watch the sun set, which was worth the rush.

A nasty fact about Guinness I learned on the tour is that the yeast used to make the beer is the same one that has been alive since 1770.  That’s a hell of a yeast infection.

I dropped down to Arthur’s Pub, named after the founder, to grab a small bite and ended up watching the end of the ManU game on the telly.  At that point, it was time to work my way back to Temple Bar.

Temple Bar is a section of Dublin that runs along the River Liffey.  It is basically the party district (think Georgetown, Bourbon Street, etc).  My target stop was the Porter House.  One of my friends who had lived in Dublin had told me that this was a place where I could get some Irish stew.  Like almost all of the bars, live music comes on at some point.

I was fortunate enough to find an open barstool (tougher than you think, in Dublin).  This version of Irish stew was made with chicken broth.  Or so it seemed.  Never the less, it was good as I was hungry.  Of course, as with any meal in Dublin, you have to take a pint.  I stuck with the Guinness.  Dance with the ones that brung ya.

Soon the bar started to fill up for the evening and I got to talking with an old Dubliner named James.  The conversation started when the world’s second worse tranny sat down at the bar above us.  Anyway, James told me his sob story and I told him mine and we traded pints back and forth until he finally surrendered.  Score one for America.

James was quickly backfilled by a bunch of students from Wabash, an all dudes college outside of Chicago.  More drinking, more tales.  At some point in the evening I checked my e-mail.  One particular e-mail was from a program called Last Call and offered to help me “Stop Binge Drinking TODAY.”  Too late.  It had an 84% success rate but at this point in the night I am sure I was in the 16%.

Eventually, I drank the college kids away, too.  As they were carrying each other out, they told me to come on by the fraternity house if I was ever in town.

At this point in the evening it was just me, another pint, and more Irish kids.  It’s great to be the All-American pie face outside of America.  And, once again, I represented the country well.

Somewhere long after midnight and not much before closing, I bounced out of the Porter House, zagged my way across one of those bridges on the Liffey, and found myself at a McDonald’s.  The two cheeseburger meal was the last layer on top of an already too long day.  I crawled into bed around 3AM.

I’ve only got two days left and there is still a lot to see.

Friday, November 25th – A Day of Churches and Castles

Argh.  A slow day.  Pints and pens do not mix well.  I am working more and more from notes and a fading memory than pouring my thoughts down at the end of the day.  And reading the notes I took last night is not pretty.

I finally found the National Leprechaun Museum.  At first I thought it did not exist; that it was just a prank on the tourist.  But here it was.  Right were they said it would be.  It is a complete cheese fest and totally geared towards children.  It was so goofily happy that I felt like Will Ferrell in Elf.  You go through a maze, sit in a big chair, and use crayons to document your experience.

In between all of this, you get a pretty good and basic overview of Irish folklore.  The tour guide was like an Irish Danny Kaye on acid.  We learned that you don’t mess with fairies, you don’t tease the leprechauns, and you don’t leave your kids with the stepmom.  The most important thing I learned is that Lucky Charms are not sold in Ireland.  The Irish are not a big fan of pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers.  They actually think the whole thing is kind of racist.

So, I crossed the Liffey and went over to the Dublin Castle.  It’s not really much of a castle and is more like a colonial government building with a few rock gates.  Much of Irish history seems to be begrudgingly attached to English history.  The highlights of the Castle tour include pictures on the ceiling of King George III’s coronation, the throne where Queen Victoria sat during her visit, and various bits of English furniture strung about.  At the end of Ireland’s battle for independence in 1921, the keys to the castle were handed over to Michael Collins.  To the irritation of the British viceroy, Collins was late to the ceremony.  He is reported to have replied to the viceroy’s annoyance, “We have waited 700 years.  You can wait seven minutes.”

The Castle sits on top of the ruins of the original Viking fort that stood here when Dublin was established.  It is still an active government building and just nine days ago the new Irish president was sworn in at the Castle.  Around the corner from that hall is the room where James Connelly, one of the leaders of the Easter Uprising, was brought to convalesce so he could ultimately be tied to a chair and shot.  Across the courtyard next to the Bedford Tower is the Figure of Justice.  Her back turned towards the city, this is just one more snub for Dubliners.  The trays in her scale of justice have holes drilled in them.  This is because when it rained the trays used to fill and end up unbalanced.

Behind the Castle is the Chester Beatty Library.  Chester Beatty was a New York mining mogul who collected old books.  He also loved Dublin.  In turn, they gave him their first honorary citizenship in 1957.  Hence, why his library is here.  Ireland has a lot of old books.

Down the road from the Library and next to the Castle is where Jonathan Swift was born.  Dublin knows him as the Dean of St. Patrick’s Church.  We know him as the author of Gulliver’s Travels.  The house and Jonathan are long gone.  The story has been reproduced many times including as a cartoon in part of the Banana Split’s Show and, more recently, in a Jack Black movie.

As I continued through the top of the Grafton Street area and the bottom the Temple Bar area, the next stop was Christ Church.  Christ Church sits inside the old city boundaries (whereas St. Patrick’s is outside the walls) and has been an active church area since 1030.  The area was first cultivated by the Vikings and then managed by Augustine monks.  The walls of the old monk house still stand just outside the church.

When Henry VIII split with Rome, most of Ireland’s churches were thrown into disarray.  Lands were seized by the state and others were shut down.  Christ Church survived but the original Augustine monks were kicked out and replaced with an Anglican clergy.  Most of Ireland’s churches fell in disrepair in the 1700 and 1800s.  With a pinch of irony, it took distiller Henry Roe to rebuild this church and try to restore it to glory.

I really went to this Church to see a dead mouse and a dead cat.  When the organ was being cleaned in the late 1800’s, these mummified remains were discovered and now they are on display for all to enjoy.  Right next to the Foxy Friar’s cafeteria.

The outside of Christ Church is what I expected St. Patrick’s to look like.  Alas, St. Patrick’s is an ordinary looking stone church.  St. Patrick’s in New York City has much more presence.  That said this church does sit on the spot where St. Patrick began conversions in the 5^th century.

As mentioned earlier, this is where Jonathan Swift was dean.  He and his wife are also buried here.  While Christ Church was the spot where senior representatives of the Crown were sworn in until 1869, St. Patrick’s was treated a little rougher when Henry VIII took over.  At one point, Cromwell used the nave as a stable for his horses.  Like Christ Church, it took alcohol to help save St. Patrick’s in the 1800s – the Guinness family bellied up.

I was planning to check out the Marsh Library, which is next door, but I ran out of steam (and maybe I saw enough old books for the day).  I headed back to the Temple Bar area and grabbed a very late lunch at the Queen of Tarts.  I went here off of a recommendation.  It was more like a tea room/pastry shop for mom and the bridge club but the food was good and the waitress had a funny little Irish laugh.

On the way back to the hotel, I cut through the shopping area on Henry Street.  This is basically a huge outdoor mall.  Between yesterday and today, the Christmas lights are up!  I know people in the States are complaining that it is early but I kind of liked it.

Alas, the day closed early for me as my Irish friends kept me out late the night before.  On a side note, it seems that whenever you book the “internet special” for a hotel it means that they put you in the handicapped/old people’s room.  The furniture is lower, the bathroom has a million hand rails, and the shower has a folding seat.  It is really kind of annoying as you are constantly banging your shins and ducking your head.  However, as tired as I was today, it seemed to be easier to slip into the shower and climb into the bed.

I am thinking that this will become even more “handi” with the Guinness and Jameson tours still on the agenda…

Thursday, November 24th – No Turkey for You!

A couple of things I will miss while I am Dublin – Thanksgiving and bar soap.  I knew I was going to miss Thanksgiving so I had no expectations for turkey.  However, I had forgotten about Europe’s fascination with “body wash”.  Essentially, squirt soap.  I guess this is ok when you are washing your hands in the public restroom but when I am taking a shower I want a bar of soap.  Maybe it’s just me…

After hitting the ATM to refresh my stack of Euros, I headed south to cross the Liffey.  Wow, what a different vibe on the other side in the Trinity College and Merrion Square area.  The streets are tighter; the people are bouncing around a little faster; it generally looks like business is happening.  Which it probably is.  Since it is a Thursday.

I passed by the Bank of Ireland which did not look so much like a bank but rather a temple with the money changers set up out front.  There were all sorts of weird stands propped up hawking indulgences and treats.  The Bank used to house Ireland’s Parliament but in an act of self-immolation (more specifically, the 1801 Act of Union) they voted themselves out of existence.  The building was sold and was to never be used again to house an Irish government.  I did not actually go inside, but supposedly the smaller House of Lords chamber survived renovations.

From browsing the Bank and peeking into Trinity College campus, I went down to the National Museum of Ireland – Archeology.  The National Museum of Ireland – Archeology traces Irish history from the dawn of man up through medieval times.  Apparently, all Irish history stops here as I cannot find any museum devoted to anything between medieval times and the age of Irish writing.  Also, apparently, I picked the day to hit the museum when every primary and middle school was here.  Ah the days of screaming school trips…

Leinster House IS where the Irish parliament meets.  Like visiting the US Congress, you can get a free, advanced ticket to sit in one of the galleries and watch one of the houses while they are in session.  Instead, I choose to watch the stream of protest processions gather outside the gates.  Much like the Occupy movements in the states, I couldn’t quite figure out what they were for or against.  But, to their credit, no hacky sack was happening.

I wanted to do the walking tour of Trinity College.  The Lonely Planet guide recommended it as good way to see the place.  However, as we are in winter season, walking tours are only available on weekends.  But I was here now.

Trinity College in Dublin was established in 1592 by Elizabeth I to stem “popery”.  I could not understand what she had against those floral-smelling wood chips but Trinity went on to produce Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, and Samuel Beckett, among others.  Besides a fine education, the big attraction there is the Book of Kells.

The Book of Kells is one of the oldest books in the world.  Produced around 800 AD by monks on the remote island of Iona, it survived looting Vikings and the ravages of history.  The Book consists of the four main gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Gabe).  However, you only see two pages.  Bummer.  The viewing set up is like the crown jewels in London but without the people mover.  Since I did not have a wait to see it, I was not disappointed.

The Book of Kells “tour” dumps you upstairs into the Long Room.  This is what a Library should look like – two floors of books shelved to the ceiling.  You should recognize the Long Room from Star Wars Episode II:  Attack of the Clones.  Yeah, I don’t remember it either.  I think it’s the one with Jar Jar Binks.  Anyway, the Long Room is the background for the Jedi Archive.  Alas, there are no Jedis here.  Just a copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which was read out loud by Padraig Pearse to kick off the 1916 Easter Rising, along with two hundred thousand books all probably older than the United States.

Since I did not do the walking tour, I missed a lot of the items inside the campus buildings.  However, I could not miss the Campanile – the campus bell tower.  Unlike Texas, no one has scaled this tower to pick off fellow students.   But, superstition holds that if you walk under the tower while the bell tolls you will fail your exams.  Who needs a bell tower for that?

After reaching a higher education, I swung back to the National Gallery.  The building itself is supposed to be a work of art.  Except that it is missing its roof.  That was the bad news.  The good news is that they crammed three floors and multiple rooms of art onto one floor and a few rooms cutting out all that filler art.  The gallery has a whole boat load of W.B. Yeats and other Irish artists.  It also has Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ.  While it is an interesting piece using various shadings of light, the only thing I noticed is that the Roman centurions were wearing medieval armor.  I guess this is called artistic license.

In my continuing effort to knock off every museum in one day, I walked around the corner to the National Museum of Ireland – Natural History.  But first, I ducked into Merrion Square.  It’s a nice little park.  Dublin has a number of green spaces including this, St. Stephen’s Green, and Phoenix Park.  I plan to visit Phoenix Park another day.

The National Museum of Ireland – Natural History smells like my grandmother’s attic did.  Everything that can be killed, stuffed, and mounted has been killed, stuffed, and mounted in here.  The only thing scarier than the rotting Basking Shark hanging from the ceiling is the excited German tourists bouncing enthusiastically from one display to the next saying, “Ya! Ya!”  Paging Dr. Mengele, anyone?

So, before anyone gets their undies in a bundle over this lovely hall of death, it really is interesting to have so many animals side-by-side.  despite the whole dead thing.  Birds, fish, lizards, lions, elephants, oh my.  The building includes two floors of taxidermy and bones including a human skeleton or two.  On my way coming back downstairs I passed an old codger going upstairs who could have easily been part of the exhibit.

I had forgotten about the travel drag you can get when you spend an entire day traveling.  I hit so many museums and sites in the first thirty six hours that my head hurt and my eyes were crossed.  The only cure for that would be a pint of Guinness.

I wanted to go to one of the traditional Irish pubs and I found O’Donoghue’s.  This pub is known for its traditional live Irish music.  The Dubliners started here.  Thin Lizzy played here.  Alas, there was not live music tonight.  Instead, we got Rihanna and her road crew.

On a rookie mistake note, I followed tradition and bought the guy next to me a pint.  He returned the favor.  His name was Ken.  We met Shelia who was with the Irish Times (this is how we found out Rihanna was there).  A few more friends showed up.  The rounds increased.  The stories got louder.  The rounds got faster.  The hours started to slip away like minutes.  We bounced out into the street and three pubs later we all collapsed into the Ha’Penny just before closing time.  Somehow, it only cost me 50 euro.  And rather than creating the international incident that I threatened to, all I appear to have done is spread more American good will.  The State Department should hire me.

I closed the night out at Subway.

Wednesday, November 23rd - North Of The Liffey

I checked into my hotel room at 8:30AM or so. I was waiting for a hearty Irish brogue but was greeted by a weak English accent at the desk. Never the less, I was in my room, showered, and out by 10AM.

I spent most of my first day North of the Liffey, since that is where my hotel is located. The River Liffey cuts the city in half. North of the Liffey covers the northside of the city and is considered more gritty compared to things south of the Liffey which are considered more posh. I guess I’m just slumming it with the working class heroes.

The City consist of nine general neighborhoods – North of the Liffey, Grafton Street, Merrion Square, Temple Bar, Kilmainham and the Liberties, the Docklands, Phoenix Park, beyond the Grand Canal, and Beyond the Royal Canal. My first day I stuck close to my new ‘hood.

My first stop was the Hugh Lane which is the Dublin City Gallery. Hugh Lane was a rich Irish man who spent many years trying to convince his nation to fund his art gallery. Annoyed, he re-wrote his will to donate his art to the National Gallery of London. He then proceeded to go down on the Lusitania. Although he had submitted an amended will to return his art to Ireland, that will was never witnessed. After a long, drawn out debate, the two galleries agreed to share his bequest.

Ultimately, this is a small collection in an old house. The big draw is the Francis Bacon Studio which was torn apart in London and rebuilt exactly as the dump it was in the gallery (Bacon was a bit of a slob). Why was Irishman Francis Bacon working in London?  It seems that Ireland has a bit of a history of chasing its tortured artist overseas. Anyway, the two galleries are still haggling over who should have what when. Currently, in addition to all the Francis Bacon stuff, the Hugh Lane has a nice Manet and a nice Pissarro.

As the weather was mercurial, I took a chance between the clouds to walk across the street to the Garden of Remembrance which was empty (maybe people forgot). There is a large bronze statue by Olsin Kelly entitled Children of Lir. It depicts an old Irish legend where the wicked stepmother turned her step-children into swans. They were cursed to travel to three islands for three hundred years each. Upon their return home, nine hundred years later, they returned to human form and immediate to dust (since they were nine hundred years old). Much of Irish folklore and legends are peppered with unhappy endings. Hence, probably, the association of this story to the Easter uprising of 1916 (which is what the garden is trying to remember).

I bounced right back across the street to the Dublin Writer’s Museum. This museum attempted to cover every Irish writer of note. The most interesting thing to me was a first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It appears that Mr. Stoker worked in the tax office.  Many people believe that he drew the spirit of his story from that job function. Other famous Irish writers include W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Samuel Becket, and George Bernard Shaw.

Staying in North of Liffey, I moved over to the James Joyce Cultural Museum. The museum, while nice, was every bit as obscure as Ulysses.  James Joyce's lasting legacy is that he is the greatest writer never read, according to most of the scholars quoted there.

After clearing my head, I ventured over to O’Connell Street, which is the city’s main drag. It is a wide boulevard with a generous median strip used to house taxi stands and various statues and monuments including the Spire which is also affectionately known as the stiletto in the ghetto or the erection at the intersection. Apparently, the city has mixed feelings about this relative recent addition. The London artist who inflicted the highest sculpture in the world upon this city is Ian Ritchie and, I hope, no relation.

Right by the Spire is the General Post Office (GPO). This would be an ordinary government building if not for the fact that the leaders of the 1916 Easter uprising made this their headquarters on those days in April. You can still see the bullet holes in the large columns out front. The uprising lasted about six days in which the English shelled much of the area. The Irish lost, the rebels were executed, and another chance for independence slipped away.

I wandered down along the Liffey to the Four Courts. This is Dublin’s massive legal building. Everyone was running around looking very officious. You would think those powdered wigs and robes would like archaically silly (I always envision John Cleese) but they had a few rather attractive women running around in them.

As the day started to escape, I visited St. Michan’s Church. Supposedly, the organ in the church was the first place Handel played the Messiah.  Hallelujah. The real draw is the mummified remains in the vaults below. Apparently, the combination of limestone, which draws away moisture, and methane, which comes from cows, makes a perfect preserver. Open caskets included remains of a nun and a knight. Before anyone gets all horrified, the church did not open the caskets. In the vaults, families stacked caskets up like books on shelves.  Over time, the weight of the caskets above crushed open the caskets below and the bodies fell out. This is how they discovered their preservative situation.

On my way back to the hotel, I tried to find the National Leprechaun Museum but I think, like the elusive pot of gold, it does not exists. I will try and find that tomorrow.

I am holding off on the Old Jamison Distillery, which is at the west end of the neighborhood. I intend to lump that together with the Guinness Storehouse tour for a lovely but blurry day.

I heard the Whispering Stairs was one of the places to eat so I ducked into there for dinner. My only meal of the day had been some sort of savory treat at the Hugh Lane served by some guy who was like Serge from 48 Hours. The fish I had was excellent. The beans and sausage was very European.

My lack of sleep caught up with me and I crashed around 7PM. Even though I flew under the United banner, I was on a Continental plane. Now I remember why I never flew Continental; they must have the smallest seats in the air. It is hard to catch some sleep while sitting on a postage stamp. So, all this waking and traveling made for an interesting night’s sleep - up at midnight; up at 3AM, when I received a page from someone in San Francisco asking if I was “here”; woke up at 8:30 to the knock of the maid because I forgot to put my door hanger up.

I covered a lot of ground today. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.