Long delayed post…end of Day 2

The flight on Aer Lingus – whose fine reputation I would not wish to blemish – was far from ideal. Our in-flight television had no sound, so no music or movies. The food was fine, but the space was remarkably uncomfortable. I didn’t sleep a wink and Cindy managed a few minutes at best.

So, we disembarked at 5 a.m. Dublin time – 1 a.m. Michigan time – and made our way to the luggage carousel and then to the car rental, Europcar. The airport at Dublin was decked out in festive green for the weekend, and not surprisingly there were many Americans and others from various countries arriving. It already felt different from home. It took us a minute to realize the green signs depicting a figure running for a door was simply their exit signs, and nothing more alarming.

The rental went fine enough, after we realized the car was not exactly what we had expected, that being due to the statement “or similar”, when we picked out the car. So, luggage stowed, we used our GPS Garmin to find Baldoyle. It gave us directions, and our drive of terror began.

I didn’t mind driving on the left side, and turning to the left aginst the curb and all. The challenge was in dealing with the roundabouts, other drivers and trying to follow the Garmin’s directions. Lacking a compass, we had no idea what direction we were moving. After 45 minutes of driving, we realized we were nowhere near our destination, and in fact were moving north rather than east.

Once we managed to turn around, we stopped at a gas station, where a very obliging and kind older man named Philip helped us on our way. We had a few more diversions on our driving adventure before finally reaching the town of Baldoyle. It took a phone call to Leslie to finally reach our B&B – which, as it turned out, we had passed three times already.

It was 9:15 when we finally laid down in the amazingly comfortable bed. We slept for 3 hours, and it felt like 8. Our hosts proved to be a charming couple, very kind and obliging. After showering, we gathered our packs and boarded the city bus per Leslie and Brenden’s directions. It cost 6.60 euros for the both us, and we found they would not take bills, only coins. Fortunately a fellow bus rider was kind enough to change our fiver for coins.

 

The bus took us the city center, and we managed to locate the Hop-on Hop-off bus just down the way from the old General Post Office. It took us on a guided tour of Dublin, pointing out interesting historical sights, including Trinity College, St. Stephen’s Green, the National Gallery, and some literary sites. Among them was the fantastic statuary of O’Connell, which included some metal ladies who had suffered some unfortunate wounds.

We disembarked the bus near the tattoo shop Reinkarnated, just to drop in to check the place out, as we had an appointment the following day. The artists  were very nice and very professional and we left feeling very confident about our getting tattooed there.

Boarding the bus again, we completed a full circuit of the city tour. It dropped us off in the Grafton area, where we checked out a book store and some other sights, before settling down for dinner at the Duke pub. It was here that we enjoyed our evening’s entertainment of a literary pub crawl – compliments of Beth. It consisted of a pair of very enjoyable, very knowledgable and fairly funny actors. They guided us to four different pubs which had a connection to the history of Dublin or famed Irish literary figures.

 

We left the pub crawl fairly late, but did manage to see a couple notable buildings that were part of the “Greening of Dublin”.

By some grand luck, we somehow managed to navigate our way through the night streets of the city to our bus station, where we just managed to catch 29A back to Baldoyle. We got back to Leslie and Brenden’s and slept a long night of well-earned sleep in the extremely comfortable bed.

The following morning, on Day Two, Leslie served a full Irish breakfast, the first I’ve ever had. I’m proud to say I enjoyed both the black and white pudding. The breakfast was hearty enough to keep us through the entire day to dinner. The day began with a bus ride into the city, where Cindy wanted to cross the Ha’ Penny Bridge.

Not long after, our tattoo appointment began. We uploaded some pics through Facebook and you can see them there. I found it to be only mildly irritating, and not that painful at all – something like a paperclip being drawn over my skin. Cindy’s tattoo was beautifully enhanced.

After the tattoos, we visited Trinity College, viewed something of the Book of Kells, and managed to get over to the National Museum of Ireland to view the Brooch of Tara and other antiquities. Also, some pretty grim remains of people buried in bogs thousands of years ago.

Finally, we got back to the house and caught a cab to Howth, where we learned it is best to call ahead for late dining. After finding no room at three pier-side seafood restaurants, we lucked out after twenty minutes with a small but most excellent place called The Deep.

A delicious shared seafood platter later, we caught a taxi home and here we are.