Dublin: The City of Broken Dreams March 22, 2007

Ok, lets get this out there for anyone who did not know: Yes, I was in Dublin, Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day Weekend.

Yes, I have stories.

My (mis)adventure began on Thursday, which was regrettable only in that I was stuck on a bus/train/plane during THE most beautiful day of the year thus far. It was easily 60 degrees when I left London, bright  and sunny and happy. As a last minute thought I grabbed a scarf (I already had my coat), thinking that it might be just a bit colder up that much farther north (hint: I was right). The bus ride to London was long but uneventful. I caught the Gatwick Express train from central London to Gatwick airport, then sat for about an hour and half before boarding. It was night, so I couldn’t watch the English or Irish coast below me, but I knew they were there. I remembered coming to Europe for the first time, flying into Paris at night and catching a glimpse of the light of Ireland on the coast. I remember being thrilled beyond belief – and now, I was going there myself.

I landed in Dublin around 9:30. The line for passport stamps was enormous; fortunatly, there were a very Irish guy behind me having a cell phone conversation about some girl who he liked and yadda yadda yadda (yes, I got the whole story), but he spoke with the most beautiful rolling accent I have ever had the pleasure of evesdropping on. It made the 45 minute wait go much quicker (and helped me forget about the American girl in front of my wearing bug-eyed sunglasses at 10 PM in an airport, snapping her chewing gum and asking loudly, “The EU? What the hell is the EU, some kind of government thing?”)

And then the passport stamps were bright green, and I was very, very pleased.

Earlier in the day Julie had texted me explaining the bus route to take to the hostel, but sadly my plane had come in too late to take the bus she recommended. After breaking my 50 euro bill by buying coffee and McDonalds, I got on the other bus going into the city center. It was a rather long ride – 40 minutes maybe – and none too scenic. I think I drifted off. I got off in the city center and hailed a cab to take me to my hostel, since I realized I had not thought to get a map of the city yet and had no idea what busses ran where (I got a map the next morning, but I still have no idea how to decipher the Dublin bus system).

On the way to the hostel, I watched the city unfold around me. It was small compared to London with a rather dull look compared to Paris, so I admit I was a little let down, my romantic idyllic picture of Ireland slowly disintegrating into run down buildings and dirty rivers. Then, I spot a shock of familiar blonde hair.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry,” I say to me rather unfriendly cabby. “Could you just let me out here? I think I see my friends.” As if he cared why I wanted to get out. Nonetheless, I paid and tipped and followed Julie and her 3 guests into a burger place, scared them all, and was thrilled to be with people again. We went back to the hostel so I could deposit my bag, then Julie, her friend Cooper and I walked the block and half into the Temple Bar district – essentially the cultural center with ethnic restaurants and pubs and so on. The streets turned into cobblestone, and you could tell it was a much more pedestrian-focused area, which I liked. We chose a pub, got Guinesses, and met a very strange boy from Oklahoma who talked our ears off about James Joyce. Interesting.

Back at the hostel, I attempted to shower, but found that water was in short supply. Actually you could get more coming out of the sink tap than out of the shower head, so I abandoned that idea and spent a restless night on a creaky bed that seemed determined to give out on me at any second. Fun!

The next day was much cooler than I had expected. We went to the Guinness Storehouse and took the tour, which was actually really interesting. It ended in the very tall Galaxy Bar, where you could get a free pint of Guinness (being that it was only noon, I wasn’t quite up for it) and a very nice panorama of the city.

Well, as nice as it could be. Frankly, the whole thing was amazingly unimpressive. I’ll blame it somewhat on the gray weather, maybe on the haze, but it looked more like an industrial slum than a capital city. The pictures are there on my Yahoo account, so I’ll let you make your own judgments.

We went to a very crowded pub for lunch, but I found myself unable to feel full enough. We meandered around Christchuch cathedral and Dublin Castle (which, oddly enough, looks like small castle in the front and then suddenly becomes Lego-like in the back. Check out the photos….). I parted from Julie & Co. to head back to the hostel to warm up and eat the peanut butter and jelly I brought from London, then got on a very. very. very long bus ride back to the airport. After much cell phone finagling (which was a precursor of things to come, little did we know), we managed to get everyone off of their respective airplanes/trains/busses and into the hotel. It was a nice room, supposedly for 2, comfortably fitting 4, and we were using it for 6. Not bad, especially for only 10 pounds a night per person. After regrouping, we headed into the city center, failed miserably at meeting up with Julie, and would up at a pub called Brokers where were had a fantastic time. We got back to the hotel around 3, I lucked out and got a bed that night (the floor the next, but that was fine), and slept for a good 5 hours.

In the morning, Lauren and her boyfriend stayed at the hotel while Molly, Rachel, Andrew and I went into the city around 9, grabbed baguettes and coffee for breakfast on the way. It was much colder today, and still gray with the threat of drizzling. We watched the parade from O’Connel Bridge – it wasn’t as big as anything in NYC, but the quality was astounding. People wore things you would expect to see on the stage, not on the streets.

The crowd watching was almost the most impressive part. The streets were closed to cars and jammed pack with people wearing green shirts, Irish flag boas, green head bobbles, and the like. We bit into the tourist schlock, but only a little bit….

After the parade, we again failed at meeting Julie, succeeded after a long round of the Waiting Game to find Lauren and her boyfriend, and then headed (on the instructions of a drunk Irishman we met at the parade (I know…)) to St. Steven’s Green, a gorgeous park in the south end of the city, where we were promised traditional dancing and music. It took a long while to get through the crowds and also not lose Lauren, who liked to wander away into shops without saying anything (‘Ooh, lookit the kitty!’ That kind of thing…). We got to the park – the flowers were just stunning. A very enjoyable stroll.

We hear music just after Lauren and Mike break off for the bathroom. Andrew, Rachel and I take off for it, leaving the rest of the group to wait for Lauren and then to ‘meet at the music.’ Easy enough, right?

Wrong.

The music stops, so we wander aimlessly for a while, come out the back gate and see nothing going on (remember this for later). Literally nothing – no crowds, no music, definitely no dancing. So we head back to the main gate, and wait. And wait. it’s starting to rain, and its very, very cold. We have no way to get a hold of the others, and we realize, torturously, that they have both hotel keys.

Awesome.

We kill a few hours in a coffee shop and surrounding area, and finally, out of desperation, decide to get on the bus back to the hotel and hope they decided to do the same. Long wait for the bus, we cannot feel any of our limbs, and two stops after we get on a text message from Molly arrives, sent two hours earlier, saying they were at a pub in town and would wait there for us.

Soooo we get back off the bus, back into the cold, and after almost another hour of getting conflicting directions from various policemen and pedestrians find them. Joyously, I might add, and in a place that was directly outside the back gate of St Stevens.

“Why weren’t you at the dancing?” Molly asks. Laughing sadly, we explain we couldn’t find it. They all look at us oddly.

“It was right here,” Molly says slowly. “Right outside the gate. Didn’t you see it? There were like 5,000 people there.”

None of us really knew what to say. We had stood right there, right by this pub, probably 10 minute before they did. No crowds. No music. Nothing. Certainly not 5,000 people.

“Right….” we sigh. of course. Thanks, Dublin – very funny.

We get the keys and head back, arriving just in time to catch the last free shuttle between the airport and the hotel. All the while we’re thinking we’ll just go in, eat some dinner, shower, and head back out — but as my head hits the very soft, very warm pillow, I realize there is nothing short of the Grim Reaper that could make me get back up. And even he would have a time of it. And so, we spent St. Patrick’s Day evening in the hotel room with microwavable dinners and tiny bottles of wine watching cricket. And, might I say, it was the best St. Patrick’s Day of my life.

The next morning, Lauren and crew leave on an early flight back to London. Andrew, Rachel and I have a great day planned out: we get on Bus 33 to a park on the coast, eat lunch there, come back to town and visit the old jail, watch the amazing fireworks display (second best in the world by reputation!) and then hit the two pubs in Rachel’s Lonely Planet guidebook.

Right. Bus 33 never showed up; we would up at a strange park on the west side of the city instead, and ate lunch in the train station plastered against the heater. The wheater was dismal beyond belief – raining one second, sunny but with tornado winds the next, snowing, sleeting, even hail at one point. We missed the bus to the jail, and since we didn’t want to miss the fireworks, we wandered around the outside of the Guinness factory, find one of the pubs in Rachel’s guidebook, and I warm up with Bailey’s and coffee (my new favorite thing ever, by the way). On the walk there, we decide that Dublin is in fact trying to kill us, and the map from the hostel that I had was drawn by 8-year-old Bobby O’Tool.

In the pub, we discover the fireworks are – of course – cancelled. In quite resignation that none of our plans were supposed to work out, we get a very long and very filling Italian dinner, find the second pub, and stay there by the fireplace for hours. At 10, we give up and head to the airport, where we find Julie & Co. (finally!) and discover they, too, had a weekend filled with broken dreams.

Slept under a table at McDonalds, just to top things off. I don’t know that I ever was so happy to get back to Canterbury.

Thank you Dublin, for teaching me many lessons. However, to be utterly frank, I don’t think I would regret never seeing you again.