Dublin!

Oh hello there! Well I gt back from Dublin the other day and I have been lazying around enjoying the lovely weather that London is turning on for me at the moment. It's been 24 degrees now for several days and almost too damn hot!

Anyhow I must relate my story to you (and to me - for when my memory starts to fail me, these stories will be great reference!) Now lets see. Dublin... well basically I had a bit of a rush to get to Dublin, we had to return the rental car and then leg-it to Croydon train station, and then catch the next train and only just make it in time to get to the airport... Well luckily I did make it with about 10 minutes to spare before the check-in closed, so that was lucky. I've been flying the budget airline "RyanAir" and it cost about 20 pounds to get a return ticket to Dublin - it's almost unimaginable for kiwis to think of such cheap plane traveling like that! They are quite good if you can deal with a lack of luxuries. No free meals, no tv or entertainment and there are no allocated seats so you just pick whichever one you get to first. You can buy food on the plane, but obviously it costs a bit and so does everything else extra. But no biggie, the flight was only 1 hour and 20 minutes so a quick bit of a read of the local paper and we were there before I knew it.

Upon disembarking the plane I found the bus the I paid 6 Euros to get into Dublin City centre. It was very easy to find as the signage in the airport was awesome and easy to read. So I got into the city centre very easy and it was extremely packed... wow so many people! The weather was awesome and the streets were very wide. The bus actually dropped me off right at the Information centre in town so I shot in and bought a little $2 map of Dublin which helped. I normally find my lodgings first, drop off my bags and then go sightseeing, but I though that I would do it the other way around this time. I had a wander around for about 1 hour just wandering in the general direction of my first real port of call... The Guinness Storehouse! Ofcourse, it had to be done - go to Dublin and not try Guinness??? haha. I found the Guinness store after a while of walking it was actually right down the corner end of Dublin CBD - I had actually walke da few kilometres to get to it so felt like I needed a bit of a rest by the time I got to it. It was actually pretty neat. Having had mates and family members brew homebrew beers and stuff I sort of knew about most of the brewing process. It was still very interesting though, they had a 7 storey building that they had converted into a bit of a museum with a tasting centre and a pub on the floors throughout the building. You could even 'pull a pint' of you own and get some bartending practice. I declined the friendly offer, thinking that my mates would just make me work behind the bar if they found out that I knew how to pull pints haha.

I spent a few good hours in that place and it was really good to have been there and seen it once and for all. I got a few little souvenirs for people and will send them off in due time. My next stop was supposed to be Kilmainham Jail but the day was drawing to a close and so I decided it was time to try and find my hotel. Unfortunately for me it was miles away (like BLOODY MILES!) from the Guinness factory where I was standing. Luckily, besides being amazingly good looking I am also pretty damn smart! haha. A tour bus went past me and stopped a few metres up the road. I just on and bought a ticket for the tour. The tickets (I had read) lasted for 24 hours and the bus actually went just up the road from my hotel so that was good - I got a guided tour of about half of Dublin and dropped off just down the road by my hotel hehe. After checking in I decided it was time for some dinner and I found a local pub just down the road... I mean in England and Ireland (and Wales it seems as well) there are pub within about every 30 metres haha crazy! So I got into the pub and had a nice meal of lasagna while watching the local old buggers fight it out about some argument they were having. I couldn't tell what they were arguing about because of the super thick accents , and especially after 3 more glasses of Guinness it was a right riot :-)

The Skylon Hotel were I stayed was very nice and I was up again around 9am catching the bus back down into the City Centre. I wandered around the Malls (Malls are virtually non existant in England) but at least they have some in Ireland - they're great for Air Conditioning and escaping the heat of the day. I bought a few dvd movies and also a PSP and some games - - yah me - this will be really good for a couple of upcoming long flights that I have soon!

I also went and visited Kilmainhim Jail which was also very good. I got a bit of a tour around the cells and the main area - really good - I got to see the yard and the place were they did quite a few executions - the place is mainly remebered though for the several attempts that the Irish people did for when they tried to gain their independence from England. The most famous was the 1916 attempt and there is a lot of information in the museum about that - a whole floor devoted to the attempt with loads of original letters and evidence. It was very good for just a few Euros.

Ireland or Dublin really was very nice and I really would like to go back one day. It's good a lot of buildings that are like England but that is about where it ends. They have wide roads and footpaths, rubbish bins (don't laugh - London sucks because of no rubbish bins anywhere) and they seem to have be all rather in a good mood and a lot of people are very cheerful and happy to say hello and send you a smile - London seems to be a bit lacking that those departments.

Anyhow - I'll have to do another post tomorrow about some of the naughty things I've been getting up to over the last few days back here in England :-)

Cheers
Matt