Bla Bla Bla

The last full day in Dublin went by in a mixture of museum visits, visit to Jameson destillery (minus actual 14 EUR tour of the same, hey, I’m cheap) and some gifts shopping.

So, the day of return came and long story short, it took us total of 17 hours to get home! It was riddled with bad luck, our own and bureaucratic stupidity. First, at the airport it took us an hour to check in even though there were not that many people in que. So, once it was finally our turn, we managed not to check in any luggage since again, having just 45 minutes in Paris, we didn’t want to risk not having our bags arrive to Budapest with us since that would mean waiting there for the next flight for hours. Next, the security control. That was a massacre. They allowed us to take 3 of those tiniy 50 ml bottles of Jameson on board provided we put them in a transparent bag (purpose of which I’ll never quite understand), but they confiscated scrissors and pocket knife I had in the bag completelly forgetting about since I always check it in (my stupidity). Then they confiscated half a kilo jar of Marmite which my brother ordered from Ireland and which we had quite hard time finding in Dublin (Their stupidity-it’s a Marmite for C. sake! What will I do with it? Make people womit to detah? Plus my own stupidity thinking I can get away with it). Then they confiscated 2 small jars of whiskey marmelade (don’t ask :-)). Again, combination of idiotic rules and my idiotic assumption we can get away with it. So, thanks to all those delays we had no time for last-minute souvenir shopping but instead went straight to the gate, being at least happy since the flight was on time, meaning less chance to miss connecting flight in Paris. Continue reading →

Well, we sure got burned yesterday with our trip out of town, but we concluded it was a strategic mistake and decided to make another trip, but this time doing it our way. Browsing through number of leaflets we picked up on the Dublin bus station, we saw that there is a frequent bus line to Belfast and that we could visit it for measly 20 EUR.

First, acknowledgement of ignorance: when someone mentions Belfast, I think IRA, conflict, bombs etc. I believe that’s a typical attitude of someone browsing through newspapers but not really paying much attention and is very lazy and in the end of the day, stupid point of view. The reason I can easily recognize it and admit it, is because even today, some 15-ish years after the end of conflict in Croatia, I have some smart and educated people from Europe asking me compasionately “How are things in Croatia nowadays?”, meaning of course, “Are you still shooting at each other? Do you dare to get out of your house?” etc. So yes, even though I did know that the conflict (or “Troubles” as it is referred to in Ireland) has ended years ago, I wasn’t really sure what to expect of Belfast. I definitely didn’t expect anything dangerous, but didn’t really expect what we found there either.

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Today we’ve decided to give a try to an “organized” tourist activities. Personally, I was always against those things but considering that organizing something like that on my own would take considerable time and effort, I decided to do it lazy way.

So, after morning coffee and a walk around the city, we sat on the bus and started so called “Castle and Coast” tour. That thing cost us way too much (25 EUR) but that was a price to pay for lazyness.

The driver also acted as a tour guide so along the way he gave us some interesting information but most of the time he was telling bunch of jokes which were OK, but I’m sure poor guy can recite them in his sleep. Actualy, as it turns out, he was a high point of the whole tour.

After some 45-minute drive we reached Malahide castle (an estate really) which was built over several centuries into what it is today. It’s interesting that up until 1975 someone actually lived there, when the estate has been sold to the state. That very person which also happened to be last member of the family died in February this year which basicaly ended the family line. A depressing thought.
We got few minutes introduction by some lady after which we were left to listen to narration from the speakers (which also served to move us between 4-5 rooms in the castle). Once that was done we got few minutes to snap photos of the castle from outside (photographing inside was strictly prohibited) and that was it as far as “castle” part was concerned.

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We woke up relatively late on the second day (“it’s Sunday”) and went out in search for the morning coffee. It was raining a bit, so sitting somewhere outside was not an option. Since we thought (wrongly as it turned out later) that there’s no Starbucks in Dublin, we got coffee from the local version of Starbucks (ambitiously named “Insomnia”) and went for a walk (in the end Insomnia makes much better coffee than Starbucks).
First we walked aimlessly just to get oriented a bit. Along the way we run into street circus festival with some interesting folks doing their stuff. Also found a great photo gallery and a bookshop with bunch of photo-related books but unfortunately those were a bit too pricy.

After visiting few shops (yes, they do work on Sunday) we went for a “poor man’s walking tour”. Specific walking routes can be found in any tourist office so we decided to use it for a self-guided tour. It’s convenient, it’s free so if you don’t mind missing some information you’d normally get from a guide, it’s a perfect way to see the city. You should however, resign to the fact that your feet will be swollen after few hours, and soles of your shoes will be somewhat closer to expiration date once you’re done.
Few hours later we had enough and got seriously hungry so to defy tradition of living on snacks and fast food on such trips, we decided to have a real meal in a real restaurant.

Although I’m not much of a “foodie” the food was a bit dissapointing. Mine was relatively OK, but Branka’s sheperd’s pie was a disaster, esecially compared to the one we had in London few months back.

It was still an early evening so even though we were dead tired already, it seemed weird to go back to the room so early, especially since daylight lasts quite long these days. So, to be proper tourists we went to a touristy pub on Temple Bar, the major tourist trap in Dublin and had beers (and when I say “beer” I mean “Guiness” of course). Sure, Guiness is good, but the pub was crowded and waaay too hot for me so we didn’t stick around for too long.

After a bit more wandering around we went back to a hotel where Branka performed her passing out routine, while I spent few more hours backing up photos and surfing the internet in the hotel lobby

As in the previous post, above is randomly chosen photo taken during the day