Dublin Wrapup

Continuing my theme of posting irregularly, I'll try to finish up my Dublin stories. The Dublin Castle, something I had high hopes for, was vastly disappointing. In fact, it was so disappointing that I found myself saying foul things about the Irish in general. Seriously, how could they have thought this was a good idea.



Christ Church, however, was a different story. It's pretty damn awesome inside and you get to go in the catacombs below, which are pristine, but still cool to look at.



Anyway, it's story time. On Thursday, we went on a pub crawl, as I mentioned previously. We started out at the smallest pub in Dublin.



Yes, it's about that wide inside. And yes, I failed to take a picture of the inside.

After one pint, the nine of us departed for Temple Bar. It's the prime district in Dublin and also where I stayed. We ended up at the pub that was connected to my hostel - Gogarty's. They didn't know any better. While there, we met this crazed French guy. He was 40ish, balding, drunk, smelly, and obnoxious. At one point, when he found out where I came from, he said something like, "I don't like Americans, but I met one that was ok once." Which of course caused me to quip, "Yeah, well I generally despise the French, but I know one that isn't too bad, I suppose." I was not in the mood to banter with a jackass of his nature.

Anyway, he immediately started hitting on this German girl we were with. She was not interested at all, but that didn't stop him. She was actively seeking to get out of there, so we started downing our pints quickly so we could move on. Nobilarity ensued.



Yes, that is that bloke's leg, but no, it's not a real leg. Apparently, he felt that it was the proper time to swivel his leg and drink off his foot. Sadly, I was too slow with the camera to actually get him with his drink on his shoe, but this wasn't too bad of a snapshot either. A hasty exit followed.

When we got outside, we realized we were down three people. Two American girls and one of the Germans. So the Aussie rolls back inside to find out what's up. We wait at least five minutes before they come out at which point the Americans start berating the rest of us for ditching the guy. "He wanted to buy us all drinks," one of them crooned shrilly. "I can't believe you are so rude like that," another squeaked pitifully. Still not in a mood to banter with bullsh*t, I hastily made our case: He was a weirdo who wanted to get in your pants and used the "I'll buy the table a round of drinks" as his wedge to make sure that we stayed and to impress you. We cancelled the drink order, we said goodbye, and we moved on as we had planned. There's nothing rude about it. At this point, I was accused of being "cold", which, wisely swallowing my tongue, I thought, "Well, at least I'm not an immature bitch (ass ho)." Of course, the German girl had the cincer: "What's the problem. He was drinking off his shoe. Next pub please."

Needless to say, the night fell apart from there. I was already annoyed at both of the Americans (who I think were Top Tossers), one for being a Fran Drescher (the annoying Nanny) type that would laugh, stop, say, "That's funny right?" and then continue laughing. The other one was mostly quiet, but she was the one that said we were rude and cold. We broke up the pub crawl after one more pint.

On Friday, I went to Trinity College, a history museum, St. Stephen's Green, and the piece de resistance - Malahide. See, all those sights in Dublin were interesting, but I was tiring of the town. There just isn't that much to see or do and it's not that nice of a town. One area is extremely expensive; the rest is dodgy shite. I'd read about Malahide (about 20 minutes north on the train) and this castle there. I really wanted to see a proper castle where they did some medievall stuff, not some fluffy castle that's painted in pastel colors. So I hopped the train around 2 pm and found my way in a very small country town on the coast.

The walk from the train station to the Castle is quite lengthy, but was entirely enjoyable. You start out in a field and then walk through a forest.



When you finally get out, you come to the back side of the Castle where they have this Nintendo Style graveyard.



After checking that out, I walked around the castle and found myself taking it in from the front side.



I did the tour (not medievall enough for me) and walked around and just enjoyed the incredible weather and beautiful environment. Finally, I walked back to town and saw the "coast" if you could call it that (it's on a bay, not the Sea). Feeling a bit parched and wanting to take in some of the local flavor, I found one of the two pubs in the town and sat down for a Guinness.



It was an old style pub with a fireplace going and tons of locals. This is what they do apparently because everyone knew each other. They had their kids in tow as well. In fact, there was a sign on the front door that asked patrons to only stay for an hour if they had kids with them because it was "unkind" to make kids stay for longer. Bizarre idea bringing 10 year olds to the pub.

When I returned to Dublin, I desperately searched for Fado's. It had a similar logo as the one in the States, so I was curious. After an hour and a half of looking (and walking around it at least 5 times), I finally found it.



Sadly, all I had found was a crappy little hotel bar with little more than a few tourists, no food or Irish music, and no flavor at all. Stubbornly, I sat for a pint before heading back to the hostel. When I got there, the Italian guy who was sharing my room asked if I wanted to get a beer. Even though I was exhausted, I immediately said yes. Part of traveling alone is meeting people and I was so soured on that after Thursday night's ridiculous episode that I was interested to see if people from Europe would be less the jackass then a couple of Americans. Turned out to be a good decision. We met up some other Italians and listened to live music and had a great time. Even though there was a language barrier, it never was much of a problem.

All in all, I had a nice time in Ireland. But I have to confess to being disappointed with Dublin. It's a city undergoing massive development and change; at one point I counted 45 different cranes around the city all in use building stuff. But it's also a city with little character. To me, it had the feel of a tourist trap - excessively priced everything and crappy "Irish" souvenirs. Going to Malahide was the best decision I made because it gave me some real flavor, it was beautiful, and I now want to sample more of the Irish countryside. Maybe I shall.