Ten Things About Dublin
So, we received conflicting information about Dublin.
In the Irish countryside, we met two bikers from Dublin. They were insistent that Dublin was where it was at. Ya got to get to Dublin! Dublin’s the center of the universe!
A couple of days later, in a pub in Dublin, after the rest of us had gone home for the night, Tony and Jason were talking to two Irish lads who asked where they had visited in Ireland. When Jason told them they only had seen Dublin so far, they seemed very concerned. You gotta leave Dublin, man, they said, urgently. You’ve gotta get the f*ck out of Dublin!
(This last piece of advice made us slightly alarmed. They way they made it sound (or at least the way Jason told the story the next day), it was almost like they knew an apocalypse was about to happen and they were the only ones who knew about it).
While I can’t say I agree that Dublin is the center of the universe, here are ten things about Dublin that made me smile before we got the f*ck out of there (and none even involve alcohol!):
Murphy’s homemade Irish ice cream, made with the cream from the rare Kerry cow and natural ingredients… (this also made me smile in Dingle…and in Kilkenny…)
Queen of Tarts…
The doors of Dublin…
A “secret” garden…
This trio of young street performers, singing I wish, that, I knew what I knew now, when I was younger…
Rainboots and wool scarves at Avoca…
Bridges…
The light shining on this church…
and, last but not least, the man at the camera shop who fixed my camera for nothing more than the cost of a new filter after I dropped my camera and almost shattered the lens…(moral of the story: buy a filter for your lens!!!… and don’t let a klutz take an expensive camera around the world…)
Josh Ritter: in Ireland!
“I play rock ’n’ roll with lots of words.” – Josh Ritter.
Anyone who knows me, and anyone who pays attention to this blog (Hi, Mom!) knows that I absolutely, completely, love Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band.
I’ve seen Josh Ritter and his band play in some pretty cool places. Club Cafe in Pittsburgh, before they got “big.” (Big being relative, because they still aren’t anywhere near big). At a free concert in downtown Salt Lake City, and, later that same week, at the Mile High Music Festival in Denver. With the New York City Pops backing the band in Central Park.
But, without a doubt, my favorite show was the one we saw at the Galway Arts Festival. Maybe it was because it had been a while since we heard really, really good live music. (The guy with the green plastic kazoo later that night notwithstanding). Maybe it was because we were part of the biggest crowd in front of which Sean and I had ever seen the band play. Maybe it was because the band seemed really on that night. Maybe it was because they love Josh Ritter and the band in Ireland, and so do I.
As my cousin Karen would say, Josh Ritter makes my heart happy. I’m not the first person to say it, and I won’t be the last: Josh’s smile is downright infectious. You can’t help but smile too.
Our friend McIntyre joined us for the show. Is he on drugs, he wanted to know? No, I said. He’s always like that.
From the moment the band took the stage with bright lights bouncing to the beat of Lantern, from the new album, to the encore, which included one of my favorites, Snow is Gone, there was energy in the air. One or two songs from one of their older albums, The Golden Age of Radio, usually sneaks in, but is rare to hear Roll On and Me and Jiggs, more favorites of mine. The new album was well represented, of course, but so were the last couple of albums. I always like to hear what sort of creative spin the band puts on Harrisburg, a song born to be played live. I certainly was not expecting an insertion of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game sung by Zack Hickman, the bassist. And, I’m not sure, but I swear I heard a bit of the Talking Head’s Once in a Lifetime as well.
I had been wanting to see Josh and the band play in Ireland for a long time. The show in Galway will definitely be one of my highlights of the trip.
Brand New Day
When I look back at our photos from Ireland, I am struck by how many of the 19 days we spent there were gray. We couldn’t agree on whether it felt more like spring or fall, but it sure didn’t feel like summer. Some nights it was so cold you could see your breath. Rain, at least a misting, was an almost daily occurrence. Weather was a big topic of conversation, even though there never seemed to be anything new to say about it.
On our first day, with the rain pelting me sideways, I thought, god, why in the world do people like this country?
It didn’t take me too long to figure out.
When all the dark clouds roll away
And the sun begins to shine
I see my freedom from across the way
And it comes right in on time
Well it shines so bright and it gives so much light
And it comes from the sky above
Makes me feel so free makes me feel like me
And lights my life with love
And it seems like and it feels like
And it seems like yes it feels like
A brand new day, yeah
A brand new day oh
I was lost and double crossed
With my hands behind my back
I was longtime hurt and thrown in the dirt
Shoved out on the railroad track
I’ve been used, abused and so confused
And I had nowhere to run
But I stood and looked
And my eyes got hooked
On that beautiful morning sun
And it seems like and it feels like
And it seems like yes it feels like
A brand new day, yeah
A brand new day oh
And the sun shines down all on the ground
Yeah and the grass is oh so green
And my heart is still and I’ve got the will
And I don’t really feel so mean
Here it comes, here it comes
0 here it comes right now
And it comes right in on time
Well it eases me and it pleases me
And it satisfies my mind
Backwards Driving
Although Ireland was like coming home in many ways, driving was not one of them. Ireland is part of the third of the world that drives on the left. You always hear about Ireland and the UK driving on the left, but I never realized so many people in the rest of the world joins them. Figures the United States drives on the right as another f.u. to the British.
Supposedly, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Transport offers this advice for visitors: “Visitors are informed that in the United Kingdom traffic drives on the left-hand side of the road. In the interests of safety, you are advised to practise this in your country of origin for a week or two before driving in the UK.” Right. That makes perfect sense. We did not heed this advice, so Sean’s practice consisted of taking a spin around the rental car company’s parking lot before heading out on the road.
Now, if we had followed the highway like we were supposed to, Sean’s introduction to driving on the left would have been relatively painless. Instead, we criss-crossed over the highway we were supposed to be on for an hour, before we realized that the map was incorrect. Hmm…there’s that M6 again. But where in the hell is the N6?
Because the lanes on the highway are separated, you don’t really realize you are driving on the left. Not so on the smaller roads. Most roads are almost exactly the width of two cars without any shoulder whatsoever, meaning that every time a car passed, brush on the side of the road actually poked through the windows on the left side of the car. Adding in the fact that it was periodically pouring, it was a fun introduction to driving on the left.
All of the drivers (Sean, Danielle and Tony) agreed that once you got used to driving on the left, it wasn’t such a big deal. But still, every once in a while, especially when making turns, someone would want to drive on the wrong side, leaving the rest of us urgently shouting, wrong way, wrong way!
No one ever fully figured out the insane amount of traffic circles. Like much of the rest of Europe, the Irish like to substitute these for traffic lights. Best I could tell, the driver just turns into the circle blindly and hopes for the best. More than once we made several rounds of the circle, trying to figure out which way to go, which inevitably lead to one of us saying, Look kids! Big Ben! Parliament!
Every once in a while, someone would have a revelation. Oh, I bet the passing lane is on the right! Or, Oh yeah! You can probably make a left on red! We never did figure out some of life’s mysteries, such as whether the Irish default to walking on the left on crowded sidewalks or grocery store aisles. There does not seem to be a national consensus on that one.
It is a lovely day for a…Budweiser?
One does tire a bit of Guinness if you drink it almost every day for three weeks in a row, so I was excited to try an Irish microbrew at a gastropub we visited in Dublin. There is where I had my first Hooker. Galway Hooker is a pale ale that is in serious contention to be one of my favorite beers of all time. Unfortunately for me, it is only brewed in small quantities and served on draft in a couple of pubs in Ireland only.
While I didn’t think that the Irish drank Guinness ALL of the time, it never occurred to me that it wouldn’t be what the Irish drank MOST of the time. It didn’t take us too long to notice that Guinness was not the only drink that people were drinking. With due apologies to the Coors-loving Texan we met in Gort, Ireland, we were horrified that American beer-flavored water was often featured on tap. With some many delicious Irish beers, we weren’t sure why the Irish felt the need to stray. Everywhere you went, Budweiser had big ads about its ice cold beer chilled below zero. If the best thing you can say about your beer is that it needs to be below freezing to make it taste okay, pardon me if I don’t rush to the bar to try some. Strangely, we noticed the ads for Harp featuring the ice chilled temperature as its selling point. I tried a Harp and was disappointed. I’m not sure if it tastes better at home in relation to other options, or if the beer is formulated differently, or if it has been a long time since I had a Harp, but it was not great. Besides Guinness, Smithwick’s is featured on almost every tap. Our friend Matt is fond of Kilkenny, and we saw that from time to time. But what people were drinking most frequently was Carlsburg, a mild Danish lager, or, gasp, Budweiser.
We decided to get to the bottom of the Irish beer drinking habits by quizzing the bartender at the gastropub in Dublin. Dave, the bartender, told us that Guinness is no longer the most popular beer in Ireland, and that young people don’t drink Guinness. He said that the only people who drink Guinness in Ireland are the older people and the tourists. He said no one drinks Harp or Kilkenny, and that most people drink Carlsburg or some other lager. According to Dave, Guinness is developing a lighter lager to try to recapture some of the market. He said that Ireland used to have lots of microbrews, but the Queen got rid of most of them. Now, the microbrews are trying to make a comeback.
I know. It was a shock to me, too. I mean, we are talking about a country where every – and I mean EVERY – pub has a Guinness sign out front. A city that has a bridge devoted to Guinness. Now, we decided to take Dave’s insight as a grain of salt. This is coming from one person, who happens to be a bartender in a bar featuring microbrews. On top of that, we weren’t sure whether to trust Dave or not.
We were staying in the rowdy Temple Bar section. While it was filled with pubs, most of the people frequenting them were either tourists or college students. So we asked for recommendations for a place where he and other locals would go out. Dave directed us to several bars on a street far away from the touristy center. The first bar was packed to the gills with very, very drunk college students. It was loud and obnoxious and reminiscent of the bars in the Temple Bar, except substitute annoying American music like Kid Rock for traditional Irish bands catering to tourists. We stayed for one beer, but left after a guy started throwing up at the table beside us.
Thus began a debate amongst us: was Dave messing with us by sending us to that bar? You see, he had told us that when English tourists inquired where to go out for good night life, they always sent them to the gay bars as a joke. The bar seemed at odds with his laid-back nature and his Ipod-playlist playing over the loudspeakers at the gastropub. Was this a joke on us? Is this where he sends Americans for a laugh?
We’ll never know, but the countervailing argument was that the single members of our group had inquired about the best place to meet Irish ladies and one could have their pick of drunken women at that bar. And the second bar he recommended was much more a speed: laid-back, good tunes, and not crowded. The two bars did have something in common though: practically the only ones drinking Guinness in either one was us.
After leaving Dublin, I kept my eye out. And I’d have to say Dave knew what he was talking about. While the old-timers still savored a pint of the black stuff, most people, particularly younger people, seemed to drink lagers and ciders. When quizzed about Irish drinking habits, other people concurred that Guinness is not as popular anymore and not the “cool” thing to drink. Some said it is too heavy; some said they only drink it in winter (as if there is a difference between the summer weather we experienced). According to The Internet, Guinness still is the number one selling beer in Ireland, but its market share has been decreasing over the years.
Even if everyone in Ireland does not love Guinness, I still do.
Everything you wanted to know about Irish beer, and then some:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/irlbrew.htm
http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/08-08/best-selling-beers-around-the-world.html