We could hardly believe only one week remained of our year of travel. At least we were ending it with a bang. What better place to spend the last week than Ireland. Now as great as the prices are for Ryan air, you have to carefully follow every rule they have. If you don't the whole low price thing goes out the window! They had recently lowered their checked luggage weight to 15kg. Upon check in we were told one of our bags was 5kg's over and the other was 3kgs over. If we checked them in like this it would have cost us $120 Canadian extra, so much for the cheap 1 cent flight! We had to take the bags over to a seating area and try some fancy repacking. The one carry on bag you are allowed each can not be more than 10kgs. The thing that got really tricky was a lot of the weight in our check on bags was liquid, so we couldn't transfer it to the carry on. We ended up finding some stuff to transfer over to the carry ons. Thank goodness they didn't weigh them, they were surely over 10kg's. We threw a bunch of liquid stuff in the garbage. You get charged 8 euros for every kilo you are over. So keeping a heavy bottle of liquid body wash is not worth it if you have to pay $12 Canadian to get it on the plane. Chuck it and buy a new one. We also saw many others scrambling to repack their bags and throwing liquids away. We managed to get the bags down to the proper weight. The main problem was a new suitcase we had bought. It was one of those hard ones, so stuff can't break in it. The suitcase alone probably weighs near 8 -10 kgs.
We got held up at security for the first time because of our camera bag. We had traveled for 51 weeks with the same stuff and had no problems. For some reason after it went through the xray they wanted the whole bag taken apart and every lens taken out and the camera inspected. We nearly missed our flight. We did find out that if you are held up at security now a days because of all the extra precautions, the plane does not wait for you! It is not their problem.
We heard our first Irish accent on the plane from the head steward. He was making an announcement which to us sounded like he was trying to sell the stewardess and a small boy at the front of the plane. The minute we landed and got off the plane we could hear English being spoken with thick accents as well as Gaelic.
We did not book a hotel ahead of time in Dublin. It was the end of November, we really didn't think it would be that busy. What a mistake that was. Apparently Dublin is busy all year round with tourists. There was also a Bruce Springsteen concert and a rugby match causing hotels to be booked up. Who knew Bruce Springsteen was so big still. It was about 11pm when we arrived, we were tired and just wanted to get a room for the night. We got a room for 65 euros. When we went down in the morning to tell them we were going to stay for 3 more nights they told us that the rate for tonight was going to be 90 euros ($135 Canadian). Their reason being that they were showing a football match on the big screen in the bar. Rates go up for special events!? The accommodation situation got even worse. We spent 4 nights in Dublin in 4 different hotels!!!! We wanted to stay somewhere cheaper so the 2nd night we stayed in a very small room, but the guy said we could have it for 60 euros. What he didn't mention was that the rate would go up to 90 euros the next night for the weekend rate. Even though it was Thursday. When did Thursday become the weekend? We checked out the next morning, there was no sense staying in such a small dingy room for that price. It had a bunch of singing want to be karaoke stars in the next room that were going until the wee hours of the morning. We couldn't go back to the first hotel, its weekend rate was really high. We found a hostel with a room for one night at 60 euros, that was all they had, they were booked fully after that. It was awful anyways, loud drunks were coming back to the dorm rooms across the hall at all hours of the night. We needed just one more nights accommodation in Dublin, but now it was Saturday. We tried searching the central area on foot and the internet, but had no luck. We went to the tourist office in hopes they could find us something. The cheapest place they could find was 135 euros ($200 Canadian) for the night. It was just a plain hotel, nothing fancy. This would be the highest price we have had to pay for accommodation on the entire trip,even more than Venice. The lady said consider yourselves lucky, last weekend people were coming to her on Saturday and there was nothing in the city center available under 300 euros ($450 Canadian)!!!!! We were warned Dublin was expensive, I would say it could almost compare with London.
We have to give Dublin top honors for their tourist office. It is the best one we have seen on our travels. It is in a large building with people set up in teller like style, each for specific purposes. Some were for hotel bookings, they had that broken down into hostels and regular hotels,one for in town and one for out of town.. There was a bus specialist, someone for the train and others for tours and general information.
Well believe it or not besides searching and having to change hotel rooms, we did manage to see and do somethings while in Dublin. Our first outing was to Parnell Square to go see the statue of Charles Stewart Parnell. He was actually English, not Irish. He had something to do with liberating Ireland from England. We have to do some family history research, but we think that Jack's family descends from this person. Jack's great grandfather was named Charles Stuart Parnell, he came from England. The Charles Parnell commemorated in Ireland could be a great great great Grandfather. There is also a Parnell street nearby the square.
We also saw Trinity College and went inside the library. It was very impressive. Old wooden shelves from floor to ceiling housed 200,000 books. Some of the books are 1200 years old! The library attracts scholars from all over the world. The beginnings of the College were started in the late 1500's. It has had an interesting history every since. We paid admission to see another permanent exhibit in the college. Among many other literary treasures it contained the Book of Kells. This is the centerpiece of an exhibit that attracts over half a million visitors to Trinity College Dublin each year. It was written around 800 AD. It's a richly decorated copy four gospels in a Latin text. It was amazing to stand and look at a book so old, and in amazing condition.
Many times we would just go out and wander around the town. Some of the main streets are cobbled and pedestrian only. We had to keep bundled up, it was freezing here. The wind felt like it was cutting right through us. Toques, scarfs and mitts were necessary all the time. The streets are lined on both sides with shops. This area had lots of lights and decorations for Christmas. The city is always on the move, we could hardly keep up with the pace on the sidewalks. If you don't you will be bulldozed over by the people behind you. O'Connell street is one of the famous ones in this area. It is the widest street in Europe. There are bars on almost every corner and lots of fights must go on. We lost count of the number of guys we saw with cut lips and eyebrows as well as black eyes.
We walked through St. Stephens Green. It was a lovely park with lots of trees and manicured lawns. We passed by St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Christchurch Cathedral. Both of them were very large and ornate.
Dublin has lots of great restaurants, with lots of cuisine variety. We even found a vegetarian place. While in restaurants and shopping it was like we were in a completely foreign country. Even though English was being spoken we could hardly understand a word of it. Many times we would have to ask people to repeat what they had said or guess at what it meant. It was like listening to someone with a mouth full of marbles. We loved hearing people talk though, it was fascinating. Especially listening to Gaelic, what a neat language.
One thing Jack was looking forward to seeing here was the Guinness Brewery. It was quite interesting. We learned about the history of Guinness and how it is made. We toured the original factory the beer was made in. It had many levels. At the top was what they call the Gravity Bar. It has clear glass floor to ceiling and gives you a 360. degree view of Dublin. We learned a lot of information and history about Guinness. It is still prescribed to patients in the hospital for its healthful benefits. The beer plays a great part in the history of Ireland. It was first brewed 250 years ago. Huge ships used to export barrels of it all over the world. Today there are breweries scattered in many places around the world. The largest producing one next to Dublin is the one in Nigeria, Africa. The building was full of many old artifacts used in the early brewing practices. Some quirky facts we learned at the brewery... on average one Irish Pub is opened somewhere in the world everyday! The largest record of Guinness sold to date is 6000 pints in 3 days, this was during an Italian Army conference held at an Irish pub in Italy. There are currently 60 Irish pubs around the world that are made to be exact duplicates of ones in Ireland. There are approximately. 10,500 pubs in Ireland for a population of 3.6 million, that works out to one pub for about every 340 people! 10 million pints of Guinness are consumed everyday in the world. Last, but not least, on St. Patrick's Day, everyone becomes Irish. People even start to develop Irish accents that never existed before.
Next stop the city of Cork.
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