Traveling in Ireland

Ireland is probably best suited for those on a well funded 1-2 week vacation. Where you can rent a car, tour the countryside or pay for the full air conditioned tour to all the sites. The Irish are a friendly folk, and if you are social with a taste for beer or even better an all-out alcoholic bent, you will fit right in. Everything is expensive, however, the rooms, the food, and even the beer runs you $6.50 a pint with few specials or deals to be had in the busy summer season.

Ireland is not exactly independent traveler friendly. A dorm bed in a hostel was quoted at 32 euro a bed on the weekends making a 35 euro (or $50) daily budget virtually impossible. There are decent city on the and intra-city buses but you won’t find visiting out-of-the-way sites cheap or easy unless you are willing to hitchhike. Another option is renting a bicycle to head out on the countryside which would have been our next activity if we stayed longer.

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Galway, Ireland

We took a bus to Galway on the west coast of Ireland. John had mentioned a boat race going on but I don’t think we knew what we were getting ourselves into. The race was the Volvo Ocean Race that was pushing off on the 7th leg that weekend so the entire city was packed. We got a late start to the day and so we arrived after 6pm and were lucky to find the last opening in any hostel at Barnacles on the main pub-lined street. But it was 70 euro a night (our entire daily budget) and then we made the unfortunate mistake to retire early for a good nights rest.

On Friday. At 10pm. Above 3 giant pubs. One with a live band. And hundreds of drunken Irishmen singing at the top of their lungs under our window until 4am. And just when you thought everyone had gone home to pass out, they start cleaning the streets! The garbage man comes at 5am. And the Guiness truck comes at 6am to pick up the millions of empty kegs that were sucked dry the night before. I had used a semi-successful but not completely muffling combination of earplugs and ipod and got a little sleep. Ron tossed and turned all night and was definitely a big grump for awhile. At least until we got our free (read crappy) Nescafe coffee and buttered white toast for breakfast.

We went out to see the race and festivities which really seemed like a lot of standing around and not being sure what we were looking at. Ron’s quote at one point was, “where are the *&#$% boats?” maybe still a little grumpy. And then it started to rain. Not a nice light sprinkle but a hard sharp cold Irish rain. It was coming eventually, all this sun was pretty atypical for these parts. It was sporadic so as soon as we would bundle in our raincoats with our pant legs soaked, a magical hand in the sky would turn off the faucet and we’d be dry again a few minutes later.

That night we decided two things: we want to be where its quiet, warm and relaxing so we are heading to the Mediterranean (hopefully) tomorrow. And two: we are going to join the party and go all out Irish, ie get stumbling drunk. First, we treated ourselves to a giant dinner at a pub: irish beef stew and chicken leek pie that came with free pints (from a coupon our hostel gave us) and watched a soccer match. Then we hit the pub directly across the street. The offending pub that had so many people pouring out the night before we didn’t get a wink. The place was huge. From the outside it looked small but it went back for miles, had two floors, 3 separate bars, and hundreds of galway guys and girls out cruising for the night. Exactly the type of place Ron and I steer clear of anymore.

We had some drinks and then headed to another pub with live music. Mostly covers but the best part was meeting up with a group of older British, Scottish, and Irish buddies out for a stag weekend. They were hilarious and fun, singing along to the songs and jumping around, I just had to join in (video below). We bounced around and drank some more, lamenting to a nice fellow named Paul that we were too broke to get drunk, he bought us a round of drinks. We must have talked to more locals then we had the entire trip. This is the secret of Ireland: drink and be merry.

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Dublin, Ireland

Our night at the Maple Hotel came with a full irish breakfast: eggs, beans, toast, assorted meats, and what we would later find out to be pudding. Pudding can be white or black and is actually some sort of pigs blood concoction I thought it tasted like a liverwurst pate. Maybe that is a good strategy to find out afterwards about what mystery meat you are enjoying. The meal was quite filling and we didn’t need to eat again until well after 2pm where we found our “euro saving” strategy: the local subway. When you are trying to travel on the cheap, a 2 euro ($3) 6” sub of the day is the only way to fly. Maybe we should take a few photo-ops of us eating at Subways all over Europe. Move over Jared, you have competition!

We did another walking tour of Dublin, heading to Trinity College, the oldest college in Ireland. We skipped the Book of Kells because the line (or queue as they call it) was really long but mainly because we were going to splurge on the Guiness tour later that day. We booked online to save 3 euro but it was still $38. The Guiness Storehouse is like the Disneyland of brewery tours with 7 winding levels of multimedia displays of beer facts, the life and times of Arthur Guiness the founder, and neat vintage footage of stuff like the arduous task of creating an oak barrel. But the real draw is the free pint you get when you reach the Gravity Bar at the top of the brewery. Here you get a 360 degree view of the city and a cold pint of Guiness to enjoy. Ron and I luckily scored two seats and rested for quite awhile soaking in the views of Dublin. At some point a fellow stumbled over to us to give us two more tickets for beer, having 4 pints himself already since he was in a non-drinking group (which makes you question how they happen to be in Ireland and on the Guiness tour no less!). We happily accepted and guzzled some more brew.

Later we met up with John and Peter, which are Joanna’s (my sister-in-laws) cousins. They treated us to some tasty asian fusion fare at a place called Mao, and when the food arrived (close to 10pm) I ate every single rice grain of my pumpkin curry and almost licked the plate. Afterwards we headed to a pub you just don’t find as a tourist, and enjoyed some beer and whiskey. We got the lowdown on local politics explaining the many plastered street signs for the upcoming election, tipping (never at a pub, 10-15% at a restaurant), and ideas for the rest of our stay. I think its fair to say that the conversation and good cheer we had with them was the highlight of Dublin.


John graciously offered us a spare room in his house for the night, but not before a nightcap, some Scottish whiskey LaPhroige he referred to as “peaty” which I refer to as just gross (but Ron seemed to enjoy the distinctive smell and aftertaste that stays with you long after you want it to), so I opted for good ole Jameson. Then Ron and I retired for the best night sleep imaginable, waking up to yet another gorgeously sunny day.

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We made it!

We flew into the Dublin airport at 7:25am this morning. Bleary eyed from another night of 4 hours of sleep, this one crammed into a coach seat. But lifting the plastic airplane window and peering out to a sunrise and jagged pieces of green land dotted with sheep stretching to the horizon, was a welcome change from the rigid and perfectly square efficient plots of land in heartland America.

First impressions: Dublin is a big city busier than we thought it would be in the middle of the day on a Wednesday. And after living in San Francisco cursing tourists the tables have turned, we are now slow, awkward, lost, and seeming to get in everyones way as they barrel down the street. Everyone in Dublin walks fast. There are places to go, and beer to drink.

Crossing the street is a disorienting and perilous experience because we keep looking left instead of right and I had to pull Ron back from getting run over by a city bus on our first walk out in the Temple Bar area.

We have mainly just wandered the city today by foot: picnicking in Parnell’s Square, lounging on the grass in St. Stephen’s Green, visiting St. Patricks Cathedral, The real Irish Bank (and not one of our favorite SF bars that got sued for using its name), and of course a pub or two.

Later that night we went out for the obligatory fish and chips (with curry sauce, yum!) and I don't know how they make it so good here and not at all greasy. Then to a pub near our hotel for some local irish music, complete with a fiddling version of pachelbel canon.

Based on the first day of our trip, Ron and I feel this is going to be one tough year ahead. Yea right. We feel so lucky!

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