Categories
Travel

Dublin, Wednesday

The traffic lights in Dublin is absolutely horrible. It’s easier to just cross and hope for the best than to wait. Otherwise, you can wait for a couple of minutes easily.
We went on a Historical Walking Tour, with a real history professor.

Learned that Temple Bar is not a temple, nor a bar. It’s named after Temple’s barrier, Temples being a wealthy trading family, and a barrier is the one used to dry parts of a river.

Also learned that there was an actual war between England and Ireland between 1919-1921.
The tragedy of Irish language is that it’s a spokenanguage that has remained only a written language.
I didn’t like Dublin streets that much. No trees, just rows of those four-story buildings:

Had a fantastic coffee:

Then we went on a tour of the Irish Whiskey Museum. It was packed, some 20 people, most of them from the States. It was so full, in fact, that during tastings they had to move us around just for everyone to fit in, as there was not enough place at the bar.


Tasted The Irishman, Powers and some Castle (Knappogue Castle), which turns out to be Bushmills in disguise. Nothing particularly blew me away as Aberfeldy did a couple of years back, though.

The stories they tell on the tour are completely false, though. “Dead ringer” has nothing to do with drunk people being buried alive, nor “saved by the bell”.

After that we went back to the apartment to rest. There is GBK in Dublin as well, so we ordered some burgers for dinner.

Categories
Travel

Dublin, Tuesday

I love midday flights. They allow me to sleep well.
On the way to Gatwick seen two foxes. One was simply walking along the railway, and another peacefully sleeping despite the trains passing by.
Arrived at 11:10. Despite warnings to come early, we got past the security by 11:45, and that’s with just a single attendant handling the baggage. No self dropoff on Ryanair. Departure got delayed some 30 minutes at first, then 30 more.
Rynair seats are weird. The look like some garden chair, made of cheap blue plastic. There isn’t event a holder. So even if you take the magazine, you have nowhere to put it. Luckily, the flight is just an hour.
The Dublin apartment has the tiniest bathroom I can remember. I can hardly turn in it.
Dublin is full of gypsies. Not sure if those relocated here after UK made it less monetary attractive, or they were always living there and only going to the UK for “work”.

Everything feels a bit like the UK. Same language, same time zone, same type G sockets, same double decker busses.
Most of the restaurants in Dublin are closed Monday and Tuesday. Found a nice French restaurant that is open, though, called Pichet.