The Leprechauns Made Me Do It

(Days 13-15)
OK, so, I've sort of told you about Boston. I came, I saw, I partied too hard with the guys and girls of the Jersey Coast Guard and left with a rotten hangover. A hangover that did very little to dampen my enjoyment of the JFK museum which I swung by on my last afternoon in town. There was a special exhibit about JFK's visit to Ireland, which is a total coincidence, because that was exactly where I headed next! (Most. Awkward. Segue. Ever.)

There comes a point in every trip where you finally hit your stride and settle into the rhythm of travel. For me, that moment was waiting to cross the road on a freezing Dublin morning with the sun breaking through the clouds when a car drove up playing U2's, "One" at full volume and I thought to myself, "Yeah, I'm in the right place." It was pretty awesome.

But that wasn't the first thing I noticed in Dublin. No, it was the electoral posters - corflute after corflute on every telegraph pole and lamp post - that caught my eye. There was no escape. The slogans were disturbingly familiar too: "More Gardai (Police) on the streets," "Tough on Crime" and "It's Time!" but I lost track of the parties. The only face I recognised was Bertie Ahern. As I write, the "Teflon Taoiseach" has just been re-elected to a third term, but if his posters are anything to go by, "Teddy Bear Taoiseach" is probably more on the mark. My favourite poster though was this one here. Tell me there's not something vaguely creepy going on here- like she lives in a gingerbread house or something.



Political posters aside, Dublin is just as adorable and charming as you'd expect, full of adorable, charming locals who say things like "Oh, that's grand!" First stop was the Guinnes Storehouse, because apart from chruch, it's pretty much the only thing in town open at 10am on a Sunday. The view from the bar is fantastic and the (locally brewed) Guinness actually does taste better in Ireland. As a corporate affairs hack, I especially enjoyed the special section to encourage "responsible drinking" right next to an interactive postcard wall where 9 year old Thomas left the message, "It's great, it's cool, it's GUINNESS!" Guess it beats leaving the kids in the car while you go on a brewery tour.

Fortified by the pint, I tried to keep doing touristy things (Christ Church, Dublin Catsle) but by mid-afternoon I was cold and fractious and I cracked. In a scene straight out of my mother's "I told you so files" I went and bought a spencer. That's right - I gave up sightseeing to buy daggy underwear. And then promptly went back to the hostel and crashed at 6pm. It's a world tour baby, and this is my rock and roll lifestyle.

Woke up the next day feeling about a million times better and went to check out the Book of Kells (kind of overrated), Molly Malone (kind of over endowed/exposed) and the National Gallery (surprisingly excellent) and then jumped on a bus to Belfast. I think I managed to count at least thirty-seven of Ireland's forty shades of green (in a row, naturally) as I headed North, but my idyllic afternoon came to a swift end as I discovered my hostel for the night was not only fresh out of adorable and charming, but also lacking in clean, warm, welcoming and water pressure. And let's not even start on the kitchen. A miserable excuse for a shower and a dinner of Pringles and Guinness later and I was staring to see why all these Northen types were so cranky. The next day I was to find out more.