Discovering Dublin, Part One of Four

Last weekend, the search for bloggable material--er, that is, meaningful life experiences--led me to Dublin. I'll be writing about it piecemeal, due to lack of patience and a possible word-count ceiling for the length of a blog post. And I'll be arbitrarily highlighting things in green to make the chunks of text more festive.


The plan: wake up at 6:45, catch the bus at 8, meet up with latka-buddy/fellow Muppet fan/honorary King's College-er Katherine Steir, and have fun. Some of these goals met with better success than others, but the last was definitely accomplished in full.


At 7:08, my vibrating phone brought me Claudia's text: "I'm up!" I wasn't. Nor had I finished packing, reclaimed the load of laundry I'd left in the washing machine the previous nigh,t or made myself the sandwiches I planned on taking along for the 4.5 hour bus ride. Twenty-seven minutes later I had stuffed my backpack with everything I could remember needing, thawed and cream-cheesed a bagel, chugged a glass of orange juice and abandoned my laundry to a weekend of collecting mildew. For the first time in about eight years, I wore my glasses in public, since I didn't have time to change into contacts and anticipated sleeping on the bus anyway. At 7:48 I called Claudia to tell her I was at the bus station...to which she replied "I'm on my way"...which of course meant she hadn't left her apartment yet. Fortunately both she and Emilie made it there in time. I then proceeded to stare out the window of the bus, doze fitfully, and attempt to text Katherine. This last endeavor was hindered by the fact that the phone number she'd given me had 11 digits in it and no country code. I seemed to remember that the UK's country code was 044, but various attempts still weren't getting me anywhere. Even though we'd all booked the same hostel, I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be able to contact her. Almost equally distressing was the realization that, as usual, my packing hadn't been quite as thorough as I'd hoped. I always forget to pack something whenever I go anywhere; this time it was my toothbrush and toothpaste. On the other hand, the Irish countryside is gorgeous (as viewers of Leap Year always tell me with great authority). There's so much undeveloped land (even a terrible economy has its advantages?) and most of the towns are so small that they seem to nestle naturally into the landscape without disrupting the natural beauty.


When we got to Dublin, we met up with Emilie's friend Erell, a native of Brittany like Emilie who's been working in Ireland as an au pair. Then we set off in search of our hostel, trying not to mind that the weather was, well, Irish. Along the way we passed an archway with "Dublin Castle" printed on it, so we walked through and beheld the most anticlimactic castle in this hemisphere. I kept saying, "Are we sure this is THE Dublin Castle? Maybe it's just called Dublin Castle," you know, the way there's a place called Paris in Idaho. We took a picture just in case and then moved on. (Later we established that it was indeed THE Dublin Castle. Good thing we took the token picture, because we never went back for the "fairly boring tour" mentioned in my Rick Steves guidebook.)


Eventually we found the hostel. I took the opportunity to put in my contacts, thinking this would solve the weird depth-perception issues my glasses were giving me. Instead it just gave me different depth-perception issues, since my eyes had just started to get acclimated to wearing glasses. Besides that, I happen to be just generally hopeless at life, so I got lost on the way from my room back to the main lobby. A cute guy walking past saw my confusion and pointed me in the right direction, and as I was thanking him and heading the way he pointed, I immediately tripped over another cute guy, whose leg was the victim of the aforementioned depth-perception issues. Awkwardness quota for the day = met.


After dropping off our stuff at the hostel, we went to meet Claudia's friend Vanessa at Trinity College, where she's studying for the year. Trinity is pretty, though not as pretty as UCC in my opinion. On the other hand, UCC doesn't have the Book of Kells, a famous illuminated manuscript containing Latin copies of the New Testament and illustrations that some poor 9th century Celtic monk must've spent years of his life creating. Vanessa was able to get us in for free, so we got to wander through a whole exhibit on ancient manuscripts--how they were made, their historical context, and so on. The time-consuming nature of the whole process and the level of intricacy involved confirmed my Gregor Mendel-based theory that members of religious orders who have nothing more exciting to do with their time can accomplish some very impressive feats. We also got to go upstairs and view aptly-named "Long Room" of the Old Library, where the college's oldest collections of books and marble busts are on display. (Display only, mind you. The shelves, arranged in identical alcoves with aesthetically positioned ladders, are roped off.) As I looked down the row of busts, I saw several chaps whose names I recognized. (John Locke wasn't that bad looking, actually. Nor was Isaac Newton. I found myself feeling sorry for all these reasonably attractive geniuses with no sex lives.) Ireland's oldest harp is also there, restrung (just in case the vigilant security guards get bored some night); it probably dates from the 15th century and is named after an Irish king who died long before that.


Next, we went to see Saint Patrick's Cathedral, getting a good glimpse of Christ Church (Dublin's other medieval church) on the way. Built in 1192 on the sight of a holy well where Saint Patrick allegedly did some cool stuff, Saint Patrick's is the largest Church in Ireland. These days (aka post-1530s) it's Church of Ireland, not Catholic, which none of us realized until later when I checked my guidebook. Remember that for later. Anyway, we paid a slightly exorbitant fee to look around the church and take pictures of the lovely stained-glass windows, the patterned floors, the rehearsing choir, and the Reconciliation Door. This was the door of the cathedral's chapter house where Black James Butler (member of a powerful Irish noble family) took refuge while fleeing from his enemies, the Fitzgeralds (the Butler family's main rivals). The leader of the Fitzgeralds, the Earl of Kildare, had the place surrounded but told Black James he wanted to make peace. Black James was like, "Yeah, right," and refused to come out, until Fitz cut a hole in the door and thrust his hand through to shake hands with James--a risky move, since James and his men inside were armed and could've chosen to cut off Fitz's arm. Instead, James shook the hand and agreed to a truce. Hence the phrase "chancing one's arm" which I hadn't heard before but for which I am happy to take credit on behalf of my forebears.


Once we'd walked around to our hearts' content, we sat down to absorb the ambiance and were soon beckoned to come forward into the front pews, which were semi-enclosed and had their own doors. Evensong was starting. We weren't quite sure what evensong was (it still hadn't hit us that this was an Anglican church) but we figured we might as well stick around and find out. It turned out to be a 45-minute combo of scripture readings and very pretty but very monotonous hymns. One of the readings lasted literally 15 minutes and taught me all about how to properly sacrifice a cow to cleanse my soul of sin, including what kind of clothes I should wear on the occasion. The choir director (who had earlier greeted his colleagues with a bright "Hi, guys") wore a bright purple robe that reminded me of Snape's outfit in the Harry Potter movies (and his hairstyle was reminiscent of Snape's as well, though less greasy). And people kept standing up at random times (which I suppose weren't actually random). All this, combined with the slightly different wording of the prayers, should've clued us in, but we were all too tired to put the pieces together at the time. As I said when we left, "Just like old times--falling asleep in church." Erell dozed off completely, though she tried to position herself in a prayer-like pose to cover it up. The rest of us just nodded in and out. We'd had a long day, after all, and we didn't really need to be taking notes on animal sacrifice.


With the church out of the way, we reunited with Vanessa for dinner at a historic bar/restaurant called O'Neills. It's been around since at least 1755 and is still serving great food (and strawberry beer, a rare and tasty delicacy, found in only one other Dublin location). This is starting to sound like a brochure, so I'll move on to what I know everyone's wondering: Did I ever find Katherine?


Wellll, after dinner and a quick stop at another pub, we were "wrecked," as the Irish would say. So we returned to the hostel and I asked at the reception desk if Katherine Steir had checked in. Now I encountered an unexpected problem: a language barrier. All the staff on duty that night (and indeed all weekend) were non-native English speakers. (We couldn't decide if they were Italian or Portuguese.) So whether it was through a communication problem or some other source of confusion, I was told that there was no Katherine staying there. The next morning I checked again and after about 15 minutes came away with much the same result. I was starting to think I'd get through the whole weekend without finding her, but just as we were about to leave the hostel, who should come down the stairs into the lobby but Katherine and her two roommates! Hugs and squeals ensued, and we figured out that each of us needed to remove a zero from the front of each other's numbers in order to call each other. 


With this issue resolved, all I needed now was a toothbrush and toothpaste. (Which I picked up shortly afterward; don't worry.) Katherine and her crew had gotten tickets for a bus tour, so they split off from us to do that while we embarked on foot for our own adventures. 


To be continued...