Dublin: Rugby fun, lame tours, and history!

First of all, imagine a tiny tiny bus. Now shrink it a bit more, give it some ugly upholstery and a tobacco smell paired with windows that drip, and you have some idea of what our API bus is like. I wish now that I had taken a picture of it. The seats are actually too narrow for a real person, so Jess and I had to sort of arm-cuddle so we could stay somewhat in place. The backs of the seats are curved oddly and pitched slightly forward, and you really need to detach your legs and put them away, because there is no leg room. You can stick them into the aisle, but that's where everyone else's legs and bags are. Anyway, we all piled in at 6:30 on Saturday morning for our API Dublin trip. It takes a little over three hours to get there (shorter than the time it takes to cross Pennsylvania!), and we were all in something of a stupor induced by the early hour, lack of food, and the mist which was all we could see out of the windows.

We got to Jury's Inn along the Liffey, which was very nice, but they didn't have our rooms ready yet, so we stowed our bags in a small room and trekked down to O'Connell Street for some quick food (Supermacs and Burger King) before heading back to Jury's to meet up with the Limerick and Cork groups (still without personalities) and go on a boat tour of Dublin. Now, we were all excited for this: boating up and down the Liffey, seeing all the sights, learning some history. LAMEST TOUR EVER. The best part of it was when we had to back up for a bit before we could turn around and the driver and another guy had to sit on the roof, and all we could see were their legs. The reason it was lame is that we got about to O'Connell Street (a few blocks away), hearing some fun facts, and then turned around! We wanted to see more! So we backed up for a bit (with many mysterious loud scraping noises coming from below our feet) before turning around (hearing many of the same facts again) and heading toward the docks. We saw a reconstruction of the only Famine passenger ship that never had any fatalities, which was cool, but then got down to the ugly area, where we turned around before getting to the other interesting bit (which included Bono's house!). So really, a waste of time.

Next we walked to Trinity College, which is very pretty, to see the Book of Kells. Sadly, no photography allowed, but it was really cool to see anyway, and from there you can go into the Long Room of the library, which reminded us all of the Beauty and the Beast library ("I'd marry the Beast for this..." --Jess). Then, lunch time. API gave us vouchers for a really nice restaurant in Temple Bar, and afterwards we stood outside to hear a very funny street comedian, who told us that we all had lovely straight white teeth. The groups split off from there, and Jess, Jaye, and I went over through the shopping district, where we all bought rugby shirts for the big match that night. There's a big tournament called the Six Nations (Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, France, and Italy), and this was the last game: Ireland vs. Wales. If Ireland won they would be undefeated and so win not only 6 Nations but also the Grand Slam. More on that later. We went into the famous St. Stephen's Green, which was very lovely, and took some pictures of the memorials for the Countess Markievicz and Wolfe Tone, two famous Irish patriots, before basking on the grass in the sunlight. We headed back toward the Liffey to try and meet up with people for the match and ended up at Messrs. Maguire's, a pub right across the bridge from O'Connell Street. We found Kevin (Finn's husband and our other API director who was leading this trip), who felt that the pub with all its staircases and hidden passageways was "like Narnia!" We love Kevin. We finally found a place to stand with our pints where we had an excellent view of the tv and an enthusiastic group around us. The game was so good!! Really intense, and the win came down to a last second kick (which Wales missed!!!), but Ireland won!!! Now, I know I've never been interested in rugby before, but it's actually pretty easy to pick up, and it was just cool to be around such excited sports fans! It's been awhile, but I always like an exciting game.

We bought some celebratory baguettes and cheese for dinner before heading back to the hotel to get our rooms. Mine was huge!! It had a nook! With a couch! Jess and Jaye came in to eat, and then Julie joined us and stole my blanket because the room was cold (it had crazy windows), and we just hung out for awhile. Later we split up (Julie had a little trouble putting the blanket back on the bed) to settle in for an early night, and I think most of us ended up just sitting in bed watching Notting Hill, which was an excellent way to end the night, I felt. The next morning we ate the delicious continental breakfast before heading out for a 9am bus tour of Dublin. Now, I like to take pictures, as you know, so this tour was a bit frustrating for me. He SPED through Dublin, casually saying things like, "Oh, and that building we just passed on the left are the Prime Minister's apartments" and such. He stopped for very odd things, like to see if we wanted to take pictures of one of the famous "Doors of Dublin" that Queen Victoria might possibly have used one time back in the day. We didn't.

Next we went for a tour of Kilmainham (spell check suggests "Kilimanjaro" as well as "kilogram," "mainsail," and "chamberlain." Wharves.) Gaol, which was really great. It's the prison that held the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rebellion and where they were executed. Our tour guide here was really good, and we watched a short video on the Gaol inside the chapel where Joseph and Grace Plunkett were married. We saw all the famous cells where the leaders were held and where other people, like Eamonn DeValera and Grace Plunkett, were held during the Irish Civil War. We went out to the yard where the 1916 leaders were executed, and it was so unbelievable to imagine that all of this terrible history happened RIGHT HERE under 100 years ago! The Gaol was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. We got back to our bus to go to Dvblinia, which is all about Viking Dublin, and it was super lame. The whole thing is really more appropriate for grade-school audiences, but parts of it were fun... like laughing at how lame it was... and playing dramatic drum music while Julie and Jaye had a medieval ring toss game showdown. We didn't get to go into the attached Christchurch Cathedral because there was a service going on, and a testy Vicar in a cape pretty much chased us away.

The bus tour continued through Phoenix Park, where the President lives at Aras an Uachtarain, and where the American Ambassador has a house. It's a pretty park, and it was cool to see the "mini White House" (the same architect designed the two buildings). We drove slowly through a parking lot in the Park to see a large memorial cross from when Pope JPII was there in the 70s, I think, giving us ample time to photograph it, but he wanted to stop there too for a photo op. We declined. We saw lots of other famous Dublin things at a breakneck pace, and then we had a couple hours of free time before heading back to Galway. A bunch of us got some Subway and ate at the base of the O'Connell monument. Jaye, Sarah, and I went to see the GPO, another cool historical moment for me, and saw the memorial statue of Cu Chulainn and the bullet holes from the Easter Rising. Next we went to the Old Jameson Distillery, where we had a lovely tour (given by, disappointingly, an American) and learned all about whiskey making. Jaye and Sarah volunteered for a whiskey tasting, where they compared Jameson, Scotch, and Jim Daniels. They all chose Jameson as the best... influenced by their locale, mayhaps? We all got a "free" whiskey, and then a quick run to the gift shop before hailing a taxi (knocking aside an old lady in the process... hey, he stopped for us, not her, ok?), who obligingly sped us back to the hotel in time to get the (small, cramped, smelly) bus home. I enjoyed my weekend, even though I had many lame tours, but the great parts: the rugby match and Kilmainham especially, made it sooooo worth it.