Adventures in the Motherland(s): Dublin, Day 1

As I mentioned last week, we recently went on vacation—to our respective motherlands, Ireland and the Isle of Man, and I'd like to take you along as I recount our adventures here on the Bloggy Blog...

We took an overnight flight to Dublin from Philadelphia on Friday night. While we were waiting, our flight got delayed and then some dude near our gate lost his shit and ended up being escorted to the secret holding tank in our terminal. He was later wheeled out on a stretcher with restraints (I don't think there was anything wrong with him other than being way too drunk and belligerent in the really wrong place). So that was a nice start to our trip. When we finally got on the plane, Scott and I were about 16 rows apart, in separate sections of the plane, so we said goodbye and promised to meet up again when in Dublin!

Thankfully, the drunk guy in the airport wasn't a bad omen for the rest of the flight. I was sitting near a loud kid who yelled at his mom to shut up for most of the trip (alternating with asking if we were there yet) but it was otherwise uneventful. I tried to sleep and failed miserably. It was a little weird, because they served two meals during our flight (even though it was midnight and 3 AM, respectively). So even if I had wanted to sleep, I would have probably been awakened for my warm muffin and coffee anyway. 

We arrived in Dublin at 9 AM their time, 4 AM EDT. I was feeling pretty chipper at this point, but Scott had taken some Advil PM and was a wreck. We made it through customs somehow, and grabbed a taxi to our AirBNB apartment. We had planned to shower and freshen up a little at our rental before venturing out into the city, but the owners were still cleaning it, so—DENIED. We could at least drop our bags and our host gave us a map and some good pointers on what to check out. Despite feeling grubby and tired, we knew that we would have to stay up all day to not have the jet lag follow us around all week. 

I should also mention that at this point, the 3G on our phones wasn't working. I was starting to get really annoyed, because I had signed up for the international data plan and we only had a tourist map—and also, streets in Dublin aren't particularly well labeled, and if they are, it seemed to be with numbers and not names. Not helpful. I am dependent on GPS and the blinking blue dot—what of it? So we wandered toward the city (we were about a half an hour walk from city center) and decided to grab breakfast. And coffee to wake us up. Here's our "dead tired in Dublin" pose. Sexy, right?

Once we were full of Irish breakfast we found our way to Trinity College (spoiler alert: Ireland is not known for its food. Nothing was bad, but there were odd elements—baked beans, stewed tomatoes, bacon that is thick and not crispy). Since we were only in Dublin for two days, I kept our "must do" list very short, and a visit to see the Book of Kells and the Trinity College Library was first on our list. 

The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript that is around 1200 years old. I have hazy memories of learning about it long ago in my design history classes. It did not disappoint. It was beautifully done, and so detailed. Those monks were mighty fine with their brushes! I would definitely recommend checking it out if you ever get a chance, even if you aren't a designer or art geek. 

One of the other great things about Trinity College is their library, which looks like something out of a movie set. It's got two stories of old books and lots of marble busts of famous philosophers. I kinda wanted to pull down a book and curl up in a corner and read while we were there. Alas, I understand that is generally frowned upon. It is not part of the admission price. 

After checking out the wondrous Trinity College, we went to a coffee shop to re-up on caffeine, kill time, and use Wifi. At this point, we still had no service and I was not happy about it. Because hello, I needed to post a picture of Homer's bust on Facebook (priorities!) Then it finally dawned on me that I had never turned my phone off and on again—because of the new FAA rules about leaving it in airplane mode—and wouldn't you know, once I rebooted my phone the miracle of 3G was back. So if the same thing ever happens to you, now you know. 

We were in the Temple Bar area of Dublin, which my sister had warned me about. Her words of advice: 

We walked through Temple Bar but we didn't hang out there. It is not really your scene either. It's a bunch of younger people getting really wasted, peeing and vomiting all over the street. It's gross. But if you're in for a spectacle or you can get in and out of there by 10 pm I'd say it's safe. 

But we had a great time there. We found this awesome little art and design shop, Jam Art Factory, where I bought an art print from Yellowhammer Illustration. I think a huge part of our success in the Temple Bar area is that it was 4 PM and there was never any chance of us staying there late enough to witness the drunk shenanigans. We ended up grabbing dinner at Farringtons, which actually had really awesome traditional food, and no, I'm not being sarcastic at all. The food was really tasty. Of course, we were deliriously tired by that point, so perhaps we weren't the best judges...