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Ireland, Day 1
Nov. 12th, 2004 03:43 pmDay 1: Friday 5 November 2004
Arrived 25 minutes early, at 7am Dublin time, which was 2am Eastern time. Just like Paris, customs was non-existent - just walked out of the airport after a passport check. Our first hotel, the Albany House, was just off of St. Stephen’s Green, about 3 blocks from Lower Grafton Street, which is one of the main drags that all of the tourist books talk about. We dropped off the bags, and headed back out. First stop: find a mocha, as caffeine was essential at that hour.
After said (sadly uninspiring) beverage, we walked to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells exhibit and the Long Room. Pretty amazing to see such an important book (an illustrated manuscript of the four gospels written on vellum in Latin with incredible illustrations) that was in such good condition for its age (it was written around 800 AD). The Long Room is also breathtaking - 200,000 of the oldest books in the library's collections are held in oak bookcases and shelving, and the smell of the paper made me want to stay in there and breathe in all of the history.
From there, we went to Butler’s Chocolate Café, where I had a very tasty hot cocoa that more than made up for the earlier mocha. We could feel the jetlag creeping in – by that time it had made it up to my knees, and was fuzzy in my brain. Our goal was to stay awake until 2pm, and then take a nap, to at least start to get our bodies adjusted. We stopped into the tourism bureau and purchased tickets for a bus tour to Wicklow, stopped into the National Museum to check out the random artifacts, and then shuffled back to the hotel.
Our room was ready, so we hauled our bags down a flight of stairs and settled in a bit. The room was nice -- big bathroom, plenty of space, a little coffee/tea set where they left us biscuits, and a television. Apparently you have to slide a card into a slot to turn on the electricity. We didn’t figure that out. Had to ask the desk people. Silly tourists. It wasn’t quite 2pm yet, so we headed out to lunch. An Indian place across the street smelled too good to ignore, and the walk was short, so we headed there for some decent Indian food. There was more cinnamon in the chicken tikka masala than I’m used to, but otherwise it was pretty comparable to what I eat in the States.
We finally allowed ourselves to nap, and passed out for three hours to regain energy for pub hopping. The Guinness, according to Tim’s refined palate, tastes smoother and just fresher than it does elsewhere. It is also poured correctly more of the time, and comes in the right sized glasses. The cider is less sweet than at home, although I didn’t like it so well that I felt compelled to drink it all the time. We had our first beverages at O’Donoghue’s pub, and then went to El Bahia, a Moroccan restaurant, where we had tagines, mint tea, and a floor show of belly dancing.
We had bought a bunch of postcards earlier, one of which featured Dublin pubs. We decided that any pub we saw while wandering about that was featured on the postcard would merit a visit for a pint. So, the second pub of the night was The Duke’s, where Tim had a Guinness and I a Bailey’s with coffee. Oh, the joys of Bailey’s with coffee, always served with whipped cream, as there is no Atkins or Low-Carb ridiculousness in the land of Eire.
Arrived 25 minutes early, at 7am Dublin time, which was 2am Eastern time. Just like Paris, customs was non-existent - just walked out of the airport after a passport check. Our first hotel, the Albany House, was just off of St. Stephen’s Green, about 3 blocks from Lower Grafton Street, which is one of the main drags that all of the tourist books talk about. We dropped off the bags, and headed back out. First stop: find a mocha, as caffeine was essential at that hour.
After said (sadly uninspiring) beverage, we walked to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells exhibit and the Long Room. Pretty amazing to see such an important book (an illustrated manuscript of the four gospels written on vellum in Latin with incredible illustrations) that was in such good condition for its age (it was written around 800 AD). The Long Room is also breathtaking - 200,000 of the oldest books in the library's collections are held in oak bookcases and shelving, and the smell of the paper made me want to stay in there and breathe in all of the history.
From there, we went to Butler’s Chocolate Café, where I had a very tasty hot cocoa that more than made up for the earlier mocha. We could feel the jetlag creeping in – by that time it had made it up to my knees, and was fuzzy in my brain. Our goal was to stay awake until 2pm, and then take a nap, to at least start to get our bodies adjusted. We stopped into the tourism bureau and purchased tickets for a bus tour to Wicklow, stopped into the National Museum to check out the random artifacts, and then shuffled back to the hotel.
Our room was ready, so we hauled our bags down a flight of stairs and settled in a bit. The room was nice -- big bathroom, plenty of space, a little coffee/tea set where they left us biscuits, and a television. Apparently you have to slide a card into a slot to turn on the electricity. We didn’t figure that out. Had to ask the desk people. Silly tourists. It wasn’t quite 2pm yet, so we headed out to lunch. An Indian place across the street smelled too good to ignore, and the walk was short, so we headed there for some decent Indian food. There was more cinnamon in the chicken tikka masala than I’m used to, but otherwise it was pretty comparable to what I eat in the States.
We finally allowed ourselves to nap, and passed out for three hours to regain energy for pub hopping. The Guinness, according to Tim’s refined palate, tastes smoother and just fresher than it does elsewhere. It is also poured correctly more of the time, and comes in the right sized glasses. The cider is less sweet than at home, although I didn’t like it so well that I felt compelled to drink it all the time. We had our first beverages at O’Donoghue’s pub, and then went to El Bahia, a Moroccan restaurant, where we had tagines, mint tea, and a floor show of belly dancing.
We had bought a bunch of postcards earlier, one of which featured Dublin pubs. We decided that any pub we saw while wandering about that was featured on the postcard would merit a visit for a pint. So, the second pub of the night was The Duke’s, where Tim had a Guinness and I a Bailey’s with coffee. Oh, the joys of Bailey’s with coffee, always served with whipped cream, as there is no Atkins or Low-Carb ridiculousness in the land of Eire.
