Dublin
I've just come back from a weekend in Oireland, my first foreign trip since the big tour of the world. You wouldn't have known it from leaving the airport though - I didn't have to show my passport at any stage at Heathrow.
All the flights to Ireland on Friday night were delayed, but fortunately the one we were on was less delayed than the rest. It was still delayed enough for me to complete a long anf tedious survey on the marketing of Ireland by the Irish Tourist Board. I managed to talk my way into filling out this questionnaire as i had somehow forgotten that I'd been to the country before. How could I forget that 3 hour drive around County Donegal in the pouring rain looking for Celtic crosses in the middle of fields?!
So we arrived quite late on Friday night, but still early enough to pop to Temple Bar to drink a pint of Guinness and see a man dressed in a suit and a cow's head sitting on a toilet while reading a paper.
On the Saturday, we got up bright and early to see all the sights of the city - the Guinness brewery, the Book of Kells, and err, umm, you know, well, the inside of some pubs. I'm being a bit harsh, Christchurch cathedral and Trinity College are impressive buildings, and the new spike of Dublin is hugely tall, but nobody goes to Dublin for the sights do they? As we spotted another hen party walking past, we remembered why people go to Dublin - for the atmosphere.
We spent a very pleasant evening in a pub, eating traditional Irish food, drinking traditional Irish beer (guess what that could be?!), and singing along to traditional Irish music - Irish Rover, Dirty Old Town and the rest. When we'd had enough of the that, we went back to the hotel to be kept awake most of the night by drunken hen parties.
Sunday was our day for seeing whatever sights we hadn't already seen. Our chosen mode of transport was, of course, a World War II amphibious vehicle painted to look like a Viking Longboat. Viking helmets were provided to complete the look. We were driven around the city and around the canal and given information about all the things to see. More importantly though we got to 'give Viking roars' to unsuspecting pedestrians at regular intervals, got to hear our guide shouting abuse at various people around the city, and got to look extremely fashionable in a plastic Viking helmet and bright orange lifejacket combination.
Little did we know when we chose which weekend we would go to the city that it was the World Championship of Street Performers, but that turned out to be something entertaining to do in the afternoon. We saw strange Japanese men with mohicans, a husband and wife acrobat team dressed in chicken costumes and a strange American female juggler. At the time of going to press I am unaware of who was crowned this year's World Champion Street Performer.
There was just time to squeeze in one final pint or two of the Black Stuff. All in all, it was a fun and entertaining weekend! The one disappointing aspect was that nobody during the weekend said 'To be sure, to be sure' or 'begorrah'. Apart from me, which doesn't really count.
All the flights to Ireland on Friday night were delayed, but fortunately the one we were on was less delayed than the rest. It was still delayed enough for me to complete a long anf tedious survey on the marketing of Ireland by the Irish Tourist Board. I managed to talk my way into filling out this questionnaire as i had somehow forgotten that I'd been to the country before. How could I forget that 3 hour drive around County Donegal in the pouring rain looking for Celtic crosses in the middle of fields?!
So we arrived quite late on Friday night, but still early enough to pop to Temple Bar to drink a pint of Guinness and see a man dressed in a suit and a cow's head sitting on a toilet while reading a paper.
On the Saturday, we got up bright and early to see all the sights of the city - the Guinness brewery, the Book of Kells, and err, umm, you know, well, the inside of some pubs. I'm being a bit harsh, Christchurch cathedral and Trinity College are impressive buildings, and the new spike of Dublin is hugely tall, but nobody goes to Dublin for the sights do they? As we spotted another hen party walking past, we remembered why people go to Dublin - for the atmosphere.
We spent a very pleasant evening in a pub, eating traditional Irish food, drinking traditional Irish beer (guess what that could be?!), and singing along to traditional Irish music - Irish Rover, Dirty Old Town and the rest. When we'd had enough of the that, we went back to the hotel to be kept awake most of the night by drunken hen parties.
Sunday was our day for seeing whatever sights we hadn't already seen. Our chosen mode of transport was, of course, a World War II amphibious vehicle painted to look like a Viking Longboat. Viking helmets were provided to complete the look. We were driven around the city and around the canal and given information about all the things to see. More importantly though we got to 'give Viking roars' to unsuspecting pedestrians at regular intervals, got to hear our guide shouting abuse at various people around the city, and got to look extremely fashionable in a plastic Viking helmet and bright orange lifejacket combination.
Little did we know when we chose which weekend we would go to the city that it was the World Championship of Street Performers, but that turned out to be something entertaining to do in the afternoon. We saw strange Japanese men with mohicans, a husband and wife acrobat team dressed in chicken costumes and a strange American female juggler. At the time of going to press I am unaware of who was crowned this year's World Champion Street Performer.
There was just time to squeeze in one final pint or two of the Black Stuff. All in all, it was a fun and entertaining weekend! The one disappointing aspect was that nobody during the weekend said 'To be sure, to be sure' or 'begorrah'. Apart from me, which doesn't really count.
posted by Gaz man at 11:07 pm
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