Dear readers:
On a ferry from Dublin, Ireland to Holyhead, Wales, where I will take a train to London. The ride is excellent -- incredibly comfortable and full of little tiny restaurants(!) -- so it is not the titular Failboat. The Failboat is what I boarded when
1) I accidentally deleted over half the photos I took during my day in Dublin; and
2) I discovered that I forgot to bring the cord that would plug my camera into my computer, allowing me to upload photos.
So, needless to say, there will be no photos in this post! Hopefully I can buy a replacement cord while I'm in London -- and if not, I'll take as many photos as I'm comfortable taking on my cell phone. (I am highly protective of my dear Mr. Carson and don't want him to be stolen by European pickpockets, so I'm avoiding that photo backup option for now.)
On the bright side... Dublin was wonderful. Friendly people, gorgeous architecture. As sweet and lovely as the media would have you believe! Unlike in London -- the only other city in Europe that I've visited til now -- people were very friendly towards tourists and seemed genuinely happy to see them there. The man Kallista and I stayed with (through airbnb) was no exception; he had breakfast set up for us when we arrived, as well as when we left. Talking with him was great, too. Very nice man, who apparently works at a theatre in the area. He was shocked when Kallista and I told him we're from a state the size of Germany with only a million residents!
After chatting with him, we decided that the two places we most wanted to visit in Dublin were Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced "Kil-MAIN-um Jail"), and the Trinity College Library, where the Book of Kells is located. Kilmainham Gaol was absolutely worth the money... but seeing the Book of Kells was not. It was overcrowded, underwhelming, you had to enter AND exit through the (tacky) gift shop, and there were signs everywhere warning visitors against pickpockets. I took no photos in the Library because I was so concerned about keeping track of my things, and I accidentally deleted all my photos of Kilmainham Gaol. (But that's okay, because apparently if you watch the movie "In The Name Of The Father" with Daniel Day-Lewis, or if you watch any of the execution scenes from "The Tudors", you will see the Gaol!)
All in all I very much enjoyed Dublin. Not sure if there's much else in the city that I'm dying to see, but my stay did make me love Ireland, and I would love to return there to vacation, someday.
That's all for now! More on my trip to London -- along with photos, hopefully -- will come later.
- Beth
p.s. Random fact about Ireland: they have a chain of stores called "Spar", roughly equivalent to CVS in the US. But even though the store is ubiquitous there, if you ask a Dubliner why Spar shares a name with something you do in a dojo, they will have absolutely no idea!
p.s.s. Note: This post was published long after it was written; I had to leave the ferry shortly after writing it and had no access to wifi until that night.
On a ferry from Dublin, Ireland to Holyhead, Wales, where I will take a train to London. The ride is excellent -- incredibly comfortable and full of little tiny restaurants(!) -- so it is not the titular Failboat. The Failboat is what I boarded when
1) I accidentally deleted over half the photos I took during my day in Dublin; and
2) I discovered that I forgot to bring the cord that would plug my camera into my computer, allowing me to upload photos.
So, needless to say, there will be no photos in this post! Hopefully I can buy a replacement cord while I'm in London -- and if not, I'll take as many photos as I'm comfortable taking on my cell phone. (I am highly protective of my dear Mr. Carson and don't want him to be stolen by European pickpockets, so I'm avoiding that photo backup option for now.)
On the bright side... Dublin was wonderful. Friendly people, gorgeous architecture. As sweet and lovely as the media would have you believe! Unlike in London -- the only other city in Europe that I've visited til now -- people were very friendly towards tourists and seemed genuinely happy to see them there. The man Kallista and I stayed with (through airbnb) was no exception; he had breakfast set up for us when we arrived, as well as when we left. Talking with him was great, too. Very nice man, who apparently works at a theatre in the area. He was shocked when Kallista and I told him we're from a state the size of Germany with only a million residents!
After chatting with him, we decided that the two places we most wanted to visit in Dublin were Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced "Kil-MAIN-um Jail"), and the Trinity College Library, where the Book of Kells is located. Kilmainham Gaol was absolutely worth the money... but seeing the Book of Kells was not. It was overcrowded, underwhelming, you had to enter AND exit through the (tacky) gift shop, and there were signs everywhere warning visitors against pickpockets. I took no photos in the Library because I was so concerned about keeping track of my things, and I accidentally deleted all my photos of Kilmainham Gaol. (But that's okay, because apparently if you watch the movie "In The Name Of The Father" with Daniel Day-Lewis, or if you watch any of the execution scenes from "The Tudors", you will see the Gaol!)
All in all I very much enjoyed Dublin. Not sure if there's much else in the city that I'm dying to see, but my stay did make me love Ireland, and I would love to return there to vacation, someday.
That's all for now! More on my trip to London -- along with photos, hopefully -- will come later.
- Beth
p.s. Random fact about Ireland: they have a chain of stores called "Spar", roughly equivalent to CVS in the US. But even though the store is ubiquitous there, if you ask a Dubliner why Spar shares a name with something you do in a dojo, they will have absolutely no idea!
p.s.s. Note: This post was published long after it was written; I had to leave the ferry shortly after writing it and had no access to wifi until that night.
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