Homeland Adventures Part 3

I will now conclude my Irish adventures! If you are wondering what took so long, it mainly has to do with me wanting to keep you in suspense and also I had a labour law assignment to work on which, as a side note, it is proving problematic...

This post will mainly cover the weird little side trips and one off adventures I had. It shouldn't be too long...

River Liffey at night

Public Transport consisted of really cool yellow and green double-decker busses that looked as if they would topple over quite easily on a windy day. They also had a train system called the DART that ran mostly from North to South and along the coast a wee way in both directions. The third part of the system was a tram line that ran from the central city out to the South and West. The tram line was the LUAS which is supposedly Gaelic for speed. All I can say is I think the speed was all in their heads. The tram was at the whim of traffic lights and so forth which meant it took a while to travel a short distance but then it seemed faster than driving when I travelled on it at rush hour.

My hotel was quite a way out of town, about 45 minutes on the LUAS, and was nothing fancy. Perhaps as a sign of its three stars one of the halogen bulbs in the bathroom blew, took out the fuse, and started smoking. I was promptly relocated from the third to the sixth floor where I had a fantastic view out to a range of hills that were covered in lush green grass. Despite constantly thinking that I should take a photo, especially in the pale light of dawn, I never did. Curses!

On my first night traveling into town for dinner, I encountered a woman who was clearly wasted on drugs. She asked me for something but spoke so quietly that I never heard her. Realising she wasn't getting anything out of me she tried to steal the smoothie of someone nearby and another person's purse. Turns out drugs are a big problem, if the signs at all the tram stations telling people to report drug dealers in their neighbourhoods were anything to go by. Also, another night while I was there I saw an argument on a street corner involving several teenagers erupt into a big brawl. I think they were all either high or drunk.

Famous Bar in Nightclub District

The central city is really quite small. There were only two main shopping districts, and one nightclub district. One shopping street was Henry Street which had a couple of big department stores and a shopping mall along it. There was also TopShop and TopMan which I found rather underwhelming. H&M in Copenhagen is way better.

Grafton Street

The other shopping street was Grafton Street which had some really cool shops and department stores and quite an interesting restaurant district down the side streets that came off it. One awesome restaurant I found was called Cornucopia and you couldn't get a seat from about 5-6pm. It was vegetarian only and the menu changed daily. Their food was just amazing!

The best department store I found was called Brown Thomas. This store had nearly every high end fashion label you could imagine: Manolo Blahnik (over-rated I must say), Christian Louboutin, Gucci, Chanel, John Galliano, Michael Kors etc. I saw a lady try some Louboutins on and she nearly fell flat on her face because the heels were so high. Also, no prices on the Louboutins. No doubt it is because if you need to know the price, you can't afford them.  Also, the day I went there, they were giving out glasses of champagne. Yet, while it sounds seriously fancy, according to a guide book I had there are actually several other cheaper brands of clothes on the upper floors. I am guessing they must have all been in womenswear as the menswear was all high end.

My new shoes

I made a couple of purchases while I was in Dublin, but the one that I was truly excited about was a pair of new shoes. See the photo to see what they look like. These shoes cost me nearly half what I would have paid in NZ, even with the exchange rate factored in. When I told my roommate how much I had paid, he was like 'that's their normal price' and looked at me funny.

The last really cool little discovery was a place called St. Stephen's Green which was a really nice city park. I saw quite a few Dubliners hanging out there on the sunnier days. Spring had definitely sprung and I had lots of fun taking photos of flowers in bloom.

All in all, I rather enjoyed my trip to Dublin even if I had a couple of dodgy experiences. I can now say that I have been to the ancestral homeland! It also means that I can spend the rest of my free time over here exploring continental Europe!!!