Stop #2, Part 2

Dublin is a lot of fun. Seriously. We haven't had time to go outside the city since we've been here, and we haven't wanted to. There's just so much to do and see in the city itself, and we haven't even finished it all. Unfortunately, we leave here soon... but the adventure continues, and that's the fun part!

We've determined by now that we've walked at least four miles a day since we've been here. Probably much more than that, but in being conservative I'll say about four miles. (I'd really like to say it's between six and seven...). That said, if you're planning on coming here and you're not much of a walker, you should look into the hop on hop off bus tours. They look really nice, though we haven't needed them thus far.

The morning of day three in Dublin (day five overall), we'd already mapped out what we wanted to do for the day. Sort of. We knew approximately what we wanted to do, and we'd looked at the approximate locations of everything to make sure that it could all be done in one day. We thought it was a bit much, but doable. Our plan was to go back to Dublin Castle for some more pictures, go to Christchurch Cathedral, and to the Guinness Storehouse (if you've been watching my Facebook and Instagram, you'll already know we went there). Of course, things don't always go to plan.

We left that morning feeling pleased with ourselves that for once we knew what we wanted to do that day and had somewhat learned how to use an umbrella (as it was still raining from the night before), and headed off in the general direction of Christchurch. Actually, we looked up over the buildings and saw a spire, which we assumed was Christchurch. And headed off in its direction, hoping we were right. We weren't. I'm not actually sure where we ended up, but we took pictures of it!

As a sidebar, I hadn't realized just how difficult it is to take pictures while you're holding an umbrella. It's like a juggling act, and you're always struggling not to get the umbrella in any of the shots. I hope I got a few good pictures to share with all of you, but I also hope you'll excuse the edge of an umbrella in some pictures. Maybe I'll edit that out. We'll see how long it takes me to get the pictures up.

Eventually, we found ourselves at Christchurch, neither of us really knowing anything about the cathedral, but both of us wanting to see it for ourselves. And I'll tell you, it really is a sight to see. From what I understand, it's the oldest cathedral in Ireland. Don't quote me on that: I haven't had the energy to look it up and find out for sure, but I'm pretty sure I heard that while we were there. We took a mass of pictures, including selfies, and were generally just a smidge louder than I felt we were supposed to be, but I got the giggles! It happens. I flung my umbrella in the crypt. What else was I supposed to do?

From there, we walked. And walked. Do you sense a recurring theme here? I think we've walked more than we've done anything else in Dublin, and honestly, we've had a very good time of it. Our feet might not agree with that statement, but for the past few months we've been working on walking more, being more active, and making sure we'd be ready for this to happen -- because we knew from the start that Dublin would be all about walking. As will one of our later cities, more than likely, which you'll find out when we get there. ;-)

When we'd finished at Christchurch, we made our way back to Dublin Castle. We'd talked about going inside, about doing a tour of the grounds and the gardens, but we ended up deciding against it. See, castles are one of Mum's things. She just really likes them. But our family tends to lean more toward extravagence than age, and Dublin Castle looks more old and historical than it does lush and lavish. So we took a few more pictures and moved on.

Trouble was, it was still early in the day, and we didn't want to go to the Guinness Storehouse (the last thing on our list) so early in the day. We knew the tour came with a pint of beer, and we really didn't want it until later in the day, closer to evening. You know how it is. It may be five-o-clock somewhere, but our tummies just weren't having it at that moment. Instead, we walked alllllllllll the way down to Trinity College.

Another sidenote, of something I'd like to set straight here and now. Mum and I looked at a map on the side of the road all of one time before we made our way to the college. That's right. One look, no more than a minute and a half. We figured out what street we needed to get to, a landmark that might be useful, and we did it. We made it to Trinity College off only one look at a map. I think I may need to give myself another high five for that one.

Trinity College is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. It'd be a great place to go to school, I'll tell you. The grounds are lovely, the students seemed like a lot of fun, and you can even get them to be your tour guides. A lot of fun. We didn't do any of that.

Now, let me explain something. Me being a writer and all, you might assume that I'd want to go inside the library and spend hours staring at the books, that I'd just want to be in the presence of them and see them with my own eyes. I didn't. I really just, didn't. All I wanted was to see the grounds, to look at the gardens and take some pictures of the buildings. Being on a school campus just makes me want to get off the school campus, library or not. It's a biproduct of spending so much time in school. I'm trying to get over it, don't worry.

Needless to say at this point, we didn't stay long at Trinity, either.

As any good traveler should, Mum and I researched the locations we were going to, before we left the States. In doing so, we found a few places in each of those locations, where we might want to do for lunch, dinner, or pastries of some sort. One of those places was Queen of Tarts, which we'd just so happend to stumble upon in our hunt for Christchurch, earlier in the day. So at this point, we went back the way we'd came, up the windy cobblestone streets (ladies, do not, I repeat, DO NOT wear heels in Dublin), until we reached the quaint little restaurant.

I know I keep talking about the food. I know it. But I don't care. The food is so flinging flanging delicious that you really should go to Dublin and try all of it. Some of the restaurants have Irish feasts on their menus -- you could even try something like that. We haven't been hungry enough for them, but we've eaten as much as we can stomach.

Queen of Tarts had some of the best food we ate in Dublin. No lie. It's amazing. We ordered potato cakes with leeks and bacon, topped with a poached egg and served with roasted cherry tomatoes, and a savory scone filled with sundried tomatoes, poppyseeds, feta cheese, and chives. It. Was. Delicious. All of it. We snarfed it. We considered ordering seconds, but ended up with a macaron instead, which was just as delicious and the perfect little bite of sweet to end the luncheon.

Seriously, and I do mean seriously, you have to go to Queen of Tarts if you're ever in Dublin.

After a quick stop at the apartment to freshen up and prepare ourselves for what was about to come, we left for the Guinness Storehouse.

That's right folks. The Guinness Storehouse.

By the time we got there, a line had already amassed and we found ourselves wondering if this was a good idea at all. We could've gotten tickets online ahead of time, but we weren't sure that was something we'd wanted to do either, and so here we were. Fortunately, they have a pretty smoothly operating system, and we were in pretty quickly. Unfortunately, with that many people inside, it was a little difficult to enjoy.

I'm going to be honest with you now. Completely frank, completely honest. The main bulk of the tour isn't very fun. There's loads of information written on the walls and playing in videos next to replicas of machines, but it's hard to read or watch any of it with so many people around, and it's hard to know where you're supposed to be at any given time. In all honesty, the thing that makes it is that after the main tour itself, you get to pour your own perfect pint. They teach you how to properly pour it, in all 199.5 seconds of its glory, and at the end you get to drink the pint that you poured. So really, you're paying twenty euros to tramp around in confusion, and then have a pint of beer (which you can take up to the gravity bar, where you can see all around Dublin). On the even brighter side, Guinness tastes VERY good in Dublin. I mean, VERY good. I don't like Guinness in the States. I do in Dublin. It tastes different, and different is delicious.

After the Storehouse, we figured we should probably eat something. And (honesty again) we were tired of crowds. But this was Saturday night, and there would be no avoiding a crowd. Much wandering and meandering later, we put our names in at a place called Elephant & Castle, and waited. We walked around the Temple Bar area for about half an hour in the chilly evening air, glad that for once it wasn't raining, and determined that we now know this area extremely well. Temple Bar area is very easy to navigate.

Another sidenote: if you're ever in Europe and you see street performers, stop and listen/watch them. While we were waiting for our table, we came across a group that played some of the coolest Irish music I've heard while I've been out here, and it was honestly difficult to tear myself away. A lot of them have been that way. Lots of talents on these streets!

In getting back to the food, Elephant & Castle is great, even if you have to wait.

In a later Googling, we found out that they're not Irish... But we really didn't care at that point. It just looked cute, and we were hungry, so we ate there. We ordered a charcuterie plate (which we devoured shortly after its arrival) and a plate of lamb with horseradish potatoes and asparagus spears (which was the best lamb I've had in my life and cooked to utter perfection). Follow that up with a bowl of chocolate ice cream doused in chocolate liquor and covered in toasted hazelnuts, and you get a very happy Rani and Mum.

The walk home was cold and a little brisker than usual, if only to avoid the drinking crowds.

The next day, we didn't have much on our list... because we'd done it all the day before. Which was nice, because our feet REALLY wanted a break by now. Did they get one? ...no. But they wanted one.

Our hosts in Dublin were kind enough to give us breakfast every morning, but that day was the best of them all. Apparently, the bakery where our host had been picking up pastries for our breakfasts didn't bake as early on Sundays, so instead he picked up a delicious carrot cake, set out meats, cheeses, and bread, and made us tea and coffee. If I could choose my ideal breakfast, that would be it. It hit the spot in every possible way, and totally prepared us for a very nice and relaxing day.

For our final full day in Dublin, we wanted to take it easy more than we'd done the prior days. No point in going full speed the whole time and burning out early, eh?

The first order of business was to figure out how we were going to get back to the Dublin airport for our way out of town the next day. We knew what bus we had to get on, but we weren't sure where we needed to catch it from or what we needed to do. Our host seemed to think there was a bus stop about five minutes away, but we wanted to be sure, so we checked. We're glad we did -- it was about twenty-five minutes from the apartment. That would be fun, first thing in the morning, while lugging fifty pounds of luggage... Sarcasm.

From there, we decided to make our way to St. Stephen's Green, and the best and easiest method seemed to be Grafton Street, once again. We picked up some chocolates on our way, because, you know, chocolate. I'm not positive what the place was called, but they had these super yummy dark chocolate mango truffles... We could've eaten a whole pack of those, and nothing but those.

Grafton is a walking street, where no cars encroach upon the people who pack the street and duck in and out of shops, interspersed with various street musicians playing all sorts of lovely music. It was great fun, and the street just so happend to end right at the corner of the Green.

St. Stephen's Green is by far the prettiest place we went to in Dublin. I swear, we had our cameras out the entire time and did not stop taking pictures. Also, having chocolates to pass the time was a very blissful and relaxing experience.

Our intention was to sit in the park and hang out, watch the ducks and the "funny-looking ducks" (otherwise known as "seagulls"), and not move. But the park was just too pretty, and there were too many things to see! We walked through most of it, taking pictures the whole way, and hardly stopping to give our tired feet a break. The next day we were leaving -- we had to see it all while we could! To stretch out the time some more, we eventually went to a coffee shop just across the street and picked up a sandwich and some chips to eat in the park, which was also a lot of fun. Our first park picnic outside the States!

A few days before, we'd been to a souvenir shop. I think I mentioned that. If I didn't, then you're finding out now! Anyway, while we were there, Mum had looked at a ring and a pretty plate that she was thinking about getting, and we decided at this point that we should go back and look for them again. Only we tried at several different locations of the same store. Several, several locations. Oy, so many of them. I bought a couple things for myself, and eventually we found what she was looking for. The ring really is lovely, and the plate is cute. And along the way, me being me, I bought a pair of shoes. If you know anything about me at all, then you know how much I like my shoes. I was fully prepared to come home from this trip with at least one new pair of shoes. Because of that, we had to stop by the apartment before we could go anywhere else. Who wants to walk around carrying a bunch of shopping bags? Not me.

The next stop was St. Patrick's Cathedral. I'd never been to any Catholic services before, but I'd heard that the Evensong services are the prettiest, and that they're a good way to get to see cathedrals without having to pay. So we went.

The trouble with Catholic services, when you have tired feet, is that there's a lot of sit-stand-sit-stand, which makes your feet go ahh-grr-ahh-grr, and confuses the rest of your body. But the choir really was lovely, as was the organ, and although the message wasn't really a message at all and didn't really make any sense, we generally enjoyed ourselves. We also took some pictures outside, since you can't photograph inside during services.

By the time the service ended, it was nearing half-past four. Not exactly dinner time, but when you have an early morning coming up, you do what you have to do. We ate dinner at Quay's, which we'd been walking past off and on for days at this point.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: you have to eat everything while you're in Ireland. Just do it. I don't care if you're hungry. Eat it and walk it off.
We ordered crispy toasted garlic bread and cheese with rocket and garlic dip (yum!) to split, and Dublin coddle for dinner. I know, I just said to eat everything, but you can split things. That's allowed. As long as you eat it. Both were absolutely delicious and you should go to Dublin and order them immediately. Dublin coddle is basically bangers and mash over stew, and it's just as good as it sounds. Also, people are really nice if you want to split a dish. They'll even bring you extra plates, automatically! It's great!

Now. I got this beer. Hop House 13, from the Guinness family. It's a slightly lighter ale. And it's amazing. I couldn't quite place what it reminded me of, what flavors I was picking up, but it went marvelously with dinner and I'll be looking for a six pack of it once we get back to the States. If you can find it, buy it. You won't regret it.

Essentially, Dublin was all about eating and walking. And learning to use an umbrella. The next stop is all about learning an entirely different sort of skill.

I bet you already know where it is.

[love]

{Rani Divine}