Dublin Day Three
Saturday. Our agenda for the day was to take in a day tour of the nearby countryside, the Wild Wicklow tour. So, after breakfast nearby, we arrived at our O'Connell Street pickup at 9.15. We had only called for a reservation the day before, so we didn't get seats on the first bus, but were destined for the second bus, driven by Michael, our tour guide for the next seven hours.
Michael. He said he was a school teacher, married with a newborn child. He chatted to us the whole ride. Michael had lots of jokes to share. And he took the piss out of everyone. He started with a group of Germans. Then some Dutch. On the way out of Dublin he had us singing the song about Molly Malone. We followed the coast to the South. We stopped to pick up some final tourists, gentlemen of Arabic descent, and there were gasps and nervous laughter as he took the Mickey out of them. Now at no point did I doubt that our Michael had only the best intentions, that he was genuinely being friendly, but I could only cringe as he asked them if they had a harem, and why they didn't like to drink. As I heard often that weekend, I'd be thinking, Swayt Jaysus! I once took a class in comedy improvisation from the ComedySportz group in Portland, and they had a rule: you can pick on ethnicities, as long as they were first world. So the Germans, Belgians, Italians, and Scots were all fair game for accents and mannerisms, but lay off the Indians, Africans, Muslims, etc.
We stopped in Dalkey first, taking in the seaside a bit, and looking at the tower that is the first setting in Joyce's Ulysses, and is now the James Joyce Museum. I got this picture of the village.
Next Michael took us into the hills of the Killiney neighbourhood, winding our newish Mercedes bus through narrow streets of hairpin turns, gabbing away all the while and making me wonder if the open bottle of Jameson's I spied by his doorside was partially inside his bloodstream. (It probably wasn't, though I'll get to that later.)
Unless Michael was full of blarney, then he truly did show us Enya's castle, and the gate to Bono's house, and perhaps just a door downhill, Van Morrison's house, and then Bob Geldof's.
Next we passed a forest that was part of the Guinness estate, and on to the Avoca coffee shop and tourist emporiumm at the Mount Usher Gardens.
We went through Roundwood, and past the home of Daniel Day Lewis. We stopped for a pub lunch at the Laragh Inn. Sarah had a tomato soup, and Margo and I shared a Guinness stew. I started with a Beamish stout (my fourth stout varietal so far) but afterward switched to North Star.
Then we wound our way over heathlands to Sally's Gap, a resort (with sand imported from the coast) built by one of the Guinness clan, and again, unless Michael was spouting blarney, was hideaway to Michael Jackson for a few recent months. This is also where Michael's Jamesons's was passed around with little plastic cups, a fitting accompaniment to the view.
The landscape was similar to the Scottish Highlands; it's quite similar geographically.
Our last stop was Glendalough (two lakes). We were dropped off at the site of an ancient monastery. The missile-like tower was used as sort of a medieval bank, a storehouse of artifacts and valuables during attacks.
We then needed to hike along a path to the upper lake to rejoin our bus.
And that was the end of our day trip. On the way back to Dublin, Michael sang another song or two, revisited some of Ireland's literary greats (Joyce, and William Butler Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde), and then we listened to radio for the rest of the way back, mostly via highway.
We made our farewells back in Dublin, and we returned to our room. Tired, we settled on pints and pub foods at the bar down the hall. (I was tempted to not put shoes on, but was uncertain about the floor cleanliness.) Sarah and I led the advance, getting drinks whilst playing Crazy Eights and watching Kimi Raikonnen battle Lewis Hamilton in the Grand Prix finals. Margo joined us and we got pub food while the bar began filling for the England v. South Africa Rugby game in Paris. It got much noisier after we left; later that night there was shouting in the streets, even though South Africa won the match.
Later that evening, I went out for a stroll down the riverfront. I saw that the Dublin Spire had lights at its top at night, visible for miles. I admired the three street lamps over the Ha'Penny Bridge, one of several pedestrian bridges over the Liffey (three of at least twelve). Most of the other bridges were lit underneath in green. A guy on the riverside tried to flog a hard disk drive. I remembered to note that the bins have holes in the tops for fag ends - there are lots of smokers in Dublin. (There are few public bins left the UK, ironically because of IRA bombs.) I recognised the electronic chimes of the street trolley as the repeating chimes at the end of U2's Zooropa album.
Michael. He said he was a school teacher, married with a newborn child. He chatted to us the whole ride. Michael had lots of jokes to share. And he took the piss out of everyone. He started with a group of Germans. Then some Dutch. On the way out of Dublin he had us singing the song about Molly Malone. We followed the coast to the South. We stopped to pick up some final tourists, gentlemen of Arabic descent, and there were gasps and nervous laughter as he took the Mickey out of them. Now at no point did I doubt that our Michael had only the best intentions, that he was genuinely being friendly, but I could only cringe as he asked them if they had a harem, and why they didn't like to drink. As I heard often that weekend, I'd be thinking, Swayt Jaysus! I once took a class in comedy improvisation from the ComedySportz group in Portland, and they had a rule: you can pick on ethnicities, as long as they were first world. So the Germans, Belgians, Italians, and Scots were all fair game for accents and mannerisms, but lay off the Indians, Africans, Muslims, etc.
We stopped in Dalkey first, taking in the seaside a bit, and looking at the tower that is the first setting in Joyce's Ulysses, and is now the James Joyce Museum. I got this picture of the village.
Next Michael took us into the hills of the Killiney neighbourhood, winding our newish Mercedes bus through narrow streets of hairpin turns, gabbing away all the while and making me wonder if the open bottle of Jameson's I spied by his doorside was partially inside his bloodstream. (It probably wasn't, though I'll get to that later.)
Unless Michael was full of blarney, then he truly did show us Enya's castle, and the gate to Bono's house, and perhaps just a door downhill, Van Morrison's house, and then Bob Geldof's.
Next we passed a forest that was part of the Guinness estate, and on to the Avoca coffee shop and tourist emporiumm at the Mount Usher Gardens.
We went through Roundwood, and past the home of Daniel Day Lewis. We stopped for a pub lunch at the Laragh Inn. Sarah had a tomato soup, and Margo and I shared a Guinness stew. I started with a Beamish stout (my fourth stout varietal so far) but afterward switched to North Star.
Then we wound our way over heathlands to Sally's Gap, a resort (with sand imported from the coast) built by one of the Guinness clan, and again, unless Michael was spouting blarney, was hideaway to Michael Jackson for a few recent months. This is also where Michael's Jamesons's was passed around with little plastic cups, a fitting accompaniment to the view.
The landscape was similar to the Scottish Highlands; it's quite similar geographically.
Our last stop was Glendalough (two lakes). We were dropped off at the site of an ancient monastery. The missile-like tower was used as sort of a medieval bank, a storehouse of artifacts and valuables during attacks.
We then needed to hike along a path to the upper lake to rejoin our bus.
And that was the end of our day trip. On the way back to Dublin, Michael sang another song or two, revisited some of Ireland's literary greats (Joyce, and William Butler Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde), and then we listened to radio for the rest of the way back, mostly via highway.
We made our farewells back in Dublin, and we returned to our room. Tired, we settled on pints and pub foods at the bar down the hall. (I was tempted to not put shoes on, but was uncertain about the floor cleanliness.) Sarah and I led the advance, getting drinks whilst playing Crazy Eights and watching Kimi Raikonnen battle Lewis Hamilton in the Grand Prix finals. Margo joined us and we got pub food while the bar began filling for the England v. South Africa Rugby game in Paris. It got much noisier after we left; later that night there was shouting in the streets, even though South Africa won the match.
Later that evening, I went out for a stroll down the riverfront. I saw that the Dublin Spire had lights at its top at night, visible for miles. I admired the three street lamps over the Ha'Penny Bridge, one of several pedestrian bridges over the Liffey (three of at least twelve). Most of the other bridges were lit underneath in green. A guy on the riverside tried to flog a hard disk drive. I remembered to note that the bins have holes in the tops for fag ends - there are lots of smokers in Dublin. (There are few public bins left the UK, ironically because of IRA bombs.) I recognised the electronic chimes of the street trolley as the repeating chimes at the end of U2's Zooropa album.
posted by Michael Nelson at 12:27 pm
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