Ireland, part 5

Monday, Sept. 29th. Before getting to Dublin, we stopped at Powerscourt, which is a huge estate with a mansion and lots and lots of gardens. It was very pretty, but the day will always be tainted because that’s where we lost our camera. We went into a shop, and my mom thinks she laid it down while she was looking at scarves, and left it there. We didn’t realize it until much later, after we’d returned the rental car and were checked into our hotel in Dublin. We tried calling Powerscourt the next day, but they hadn’t seen it, so we figure some jerk saw it lying there and took it rather than turning it in like a decent person. I still can’t believe anyone would be so mean – it wasn’t even a good camera! They probably just threw it away once they realized it was 6 years old and useless without the charger, which makes me really sad, because we didn’t care about the camera, but we lost all our pictures (which is why all the pictures came from Meghan - except the Dublin ones, which are from my first trip).

After being depressed in our room for a while, we met up with Aunt Lynne and Meghan and went to dinner and more pubs. We went to a place called Oliver St. John Gogarty’s in Temple Bar (the trendy, but also touristy, part of Dublin), which is supposed to be really well-known. I took a picture of it the last time I was in Dublin, so maybe I knew that? Or I just thought it was cute. Anyway, we heard some pretty good traditional music there, but the place was FULL of tourists. How are we supposed to make Irish friends when there aren’t any locals? It made me miss the Marine Bar…

When the music took a break, we skipped out and my mom and Aunt Lynne went home while Meg and I went across the street to the Auld Dubliner. They also had live music, which was mostly not Irish, but a much younger, more Irish crowd. Meghan made a friend – this kinda weird guy “liked her teeth” and bought us two rounds of drinks and would not leave us alone, no matter how hard we tried. We also met two guys from Belfast, but once they left, the weird guy came back. Finally, I said we had to go and, relieved, Meghan abandoned her new buddy.

Tuesday, Sept. 30th. Our last real day of vacation. It was raining in the morning, but it cleared up by the afternoon. I haven’t talked much about the weather because it’s boring, but we really lucked out for most of the trip. Everywhere we went, people were telling us about the six weeks of rain they’d had before we got there – the rainiest summer ever, apparently – but we had gorgeous sunny days every day until we got to Dublin. Anyway, despite the weather, we started out with sight-seeing, went to Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, and Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. They happened to be having some kind of student fair out in the quad, and Meghan and I got mistaken for students and were asked to join clubs. There always seems to be something going on there – the last time I was in Dublin, we walked right into Trinity’s graduation.

After the sight-seeing, we split up to do some shopping, and my mom and I walked all over, down Grafton Street, through St. Stephen’s Green, and only really found one good store for souvenirs. Finally, when we were so tired we could barely walk, we stopped at the Irish Celtic Craft Shop right by our hotel, which is where we bought most of our souvenirs. We had dinner at another Italian restaurant, and then went to a pub called the Brazen Head for music. That was well off the beaten path, and while there were some tourists there (when asked, a group from Massachusetts identified themselves, and a pack of Asians swooped in like a film crew with these humungous cameras), there were also plenty of locals, and a real community feel to the place. The band was quite good (one of the best around, as the groupie who befriended us claimed), and it was all traditional stuff.

Again, after the music, my mom and Aunt Lynne pooped out, so Meg and I were on our own. We didn’t want to go back to Temple Bar, because it’s too touristy, so we wandered until we found a place called Hogan’s. It was dark and not crowded, but there were mostly guys, so I thought our chances were good. Unfortunately, the place closed at 11:30 (as most pubs are supposed to on weeknights, but we didn’t realize some are stricter than others, and the other places we’d been in stayed open later), leaving us with no place to go. We wandered some more and found The Globe, which was very clubby with the loud music, but no one was dancing, so we sat at a table with our drinks. It was impossible to talk over the music, so no making friends, and we gave up after a little while to go home ad get some sleep.

Wednesday, Oct. 1st. We had a pretty early flight, so we took a cab to the airport right after breakfast. The flight home was longer – 7 hours – but Dad came to pick us up at JFK, which was terribly sweet of him. No one lost any luggage, all our hotels were nice, we didn’t wreck the rental car or burn down Mary’s house, and all of us came home alive, so all in all, I’d say it was a fairly successful trip, though probably not our best. My mom and I said if we were doing it again, we’d probably skip Dingle to spend more time at Mary’s house, and we’d have gone to the pubs in that area more. That was really where we felt like locals – where we were experiencing the real Ireland, not the touristy stuff.

So, that’s the trip! Tomorrow I'll talk about all the TV I've missed. :)