A day or two in and around Dublin

Dublin has proved to be a city with a little bit of everything and a lot of pubs, that's for sure. I spent about 5 hours walking around Sunday afternoon, trying to get to some of the big sights. O'Connell Street, Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Stephen's Green, and the Temple Bar Area. I made sure to walk by the home of Oscar Wilde, which is now a part of Irish American University. St. Patrick's Cathedral is quite a sight, too. There was a weekend festival being held in Merrion Square called the Street Performers World Championship, where performers from all over the world ( I saw some from Canada and California) strutted their stuff in hopes of winning. I think St. Stephen's Green is a peaceful walk in the middle of a bustling city. I did get to the Temple Bar area, which was rocking Sunday night because a futbol or rugby game had been played earlier in the stadium that holds 83,000 (my cabbie said). Like any city, there are lots of performers on the streets and two that caught my eye are a silver painted pirate and a band. The pirate stood dead still on a box with a sword until a person walked by and then he would suddenly lunge forward and scare the living daylights out of the passerby.
Mutfish is the name of the 5-man band and they are talented. I bought one of their cds for 10 Euro, and I hope they are successful. I guess U2 started playing these pubs and streets back in the day.

Before I left for my trip, I booked a day-long bus tour of Wicklow County and a traditional music pub crawl, so yesterday was a longgggg day for me. The bus picked us up at 9:30 and we were up in the mountains of Wicklow for much of the day. I never thought that I would end up in one of those huge busses on the tiny Irish roads, and of course I had the front seat behind the driver! We stopped by the ocean at Dun Laoghaire first and then headed to the hills to Sally Gap, which is the highest spot of the day. Wicklow is known as the Garden of Ireland, and I can see why. The most beautiful part of the trip was Lough Tay. We got out of the bus and peered over the side of a mountain to a tranquil lake nestled in the middle of the mountains. The Guinness family owned it or owns it and the driver said they brought in sand from Florida to make the shore look like the foam at the top of a pint of Guinness, and it did. The house and the grounds below us and at the above the sand looks so inviting and private. The weather was spectacular yesterday, and we even got sunburns (well, I did have sunscreen to put on, believe it or not).

The second sight that grabbed my attention was a 6th century monastic settlement in Glendalough, where we spent about 2 hours walking around the ruins and the two lakes. There is a tower that still stands in an ancient cemetery (that also has more modern gravestones). There is a smaller church and more ruins as well. I met some women from New York who went to college together at Cornell and we talked about that for a bit as we walked around the lakes, seeing as they graduated the year before Mike (who attended Ithaca College, which is in the same town). Before we boarded the bus to get back to Dublin, the driver offered everyone a wee shot of Jameson to cap off the journey.

Although I was very tired when we returned at 5:30, I did hustle to the hotel to get washed up and headed out for the trad. music pub crawl. Despite being alone, I chatted up a nice family from Virginia and a family from Massachusetts who were along for the same crawl. The musicians, a female fiddler and a male guitarist, were great--they told us about the structure and history of the music and warned us they would not be playing Danny Boy or the mainstream pieces. They did play Dirty Old Town, which reminded me of the trip Mike and I took to Western Ireland two years ago. We moved from pub to pub to go upstairs to certain rooms, but after awhile I slid out to grab dinner before I couldn't get any. It was fun, yet I think it would be better if we could just stay in one place. The moving around and getting settled in each pub made for not so much music being played. I will post some pictures soon and I have some final thoughts to share, which I will get down to writing on my flight back to Massachusetts. Today is June 22nd, and it is our 8th wedding anniversary, so I can't wait to give Mike a big hug and kiss when I see him and the kids later this afternoon.