Lucky for us breakfast on the weekends was served until 10:30! A late breakfast, packing the bags, settle the bill (unlike America, bills are paid after you stay, not before), leave the bags in storage and arrange for a cab to the train station at 5:30. Out into the city one last time!
Originally, we had planned to stay until rather late in the day, but after indecision about what events to attend and discussions about the content of those events, coupled with my concerns about taking the late train (if you can't see the countryside, why take the train?), we had decided to end the day after the 3 PM session at The Ark, which is the children's venue. Bea wanted to attend that event because Rowan had seen the cover of the author's book and displayed some mild interest in it. Again, we decided to divide and conquer – Brian and I went to Starbuck's to post on the blog and Bea and Kim went back to Trinity to again try to view the Book of Kells. Brian and I were joined shortly by the girls because the line for the Book was even longer than it had been on previous days. We then spent the rest of the early afternoon wandering from shop to shop in Temple Bar, looking for our final souvenirs, and had lunch at The Quays, the same place we had been for the sing-along the night before. At 3, Kim and Bea went to The Ark to hear Derek Landry speak on his book, Skullduggery Pleasant, and Brian and I went wandering again.
We got to spend a little bit of time in ChristChurch Cathedral, looking through the various chapels and at the various tombs and memorials posted around the church. After we were run out of there for a service of some sort, I decided I needed to go back to a place of devotion I was more familiar with and drug Brian back to The PorterHouse. I felt the need to try the Oyster Stout, which is brewed with exactly what the name suggests. At the time, it didn't seem like anything more than a very pleasant, drinkable brew – the type that you can drink all day without the mouth getting tired of all the heavy malt. Upon reflection, I long for the flavor of that drink perhaps even more than the Wrasslers XXXX, which is saying a lot. The barkeep gave Brian quite a bit of friendly flak for his obvious fatigue while I got to sit back and do something I almost never do – sit in a bar on a Sunday afternoon and watch sport on TV. On this day I was introduced, finally, to the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) of which I had heard much. Immediately I understood the attraction – the purity of the game, the sheer athleticism of the participants, the brutality of the organized combat. That is a sport, as I sat there enjoying my beer, that I could really see myself enjoying, back in the days when I was as fit as my memory says I was. Oh well, back to American football.
Brian and I wandered back to find the girls after a bit. Once we found them, we had a pleasant interlude speaking with a great man who had been to almost every event that we had, who we finally learned goes by the name Ian Steppe. He was a delightful gentleman full of the wit and wisdom that years can give you, if you are open to learning from the years. His love of literature and writing put all of us to shame. He had attended this particular event because the writer had actually been a student of his some years back and, well, it's always good to see those you've had influence on succeed in their endeavors. After speaking with him for some time (and probably making him late for his next event), we parted ways and headed back to O'Neill's to pick up our luggage and catch our cab. After much confusion and games of musical cabs, we were on our way to the train station. We had a great cab driver who spent the short ride to the station telling us stories of his own upbringing in the Ireland before the Celtic Tiger and the modern world intruded on the idyllic landscape of his childhood. It was enlightening to hear stories of a man his age, the Irish Everyman, who had benefited from but still felt unfulfilled by the economic and cultural boom that has swept the island.
The train station was a train station – loud, chaotic, and apparently completely unencumbered by any of the timetables I had so carefully researched from the safety of this very couch I am sitting on now. Experience is always the better teacher. We found the ticket booth, bought tickets for a train that seemed to be going where we wanted, and found a queue that looked promising. The original intent had been to purchase Premier class upgrades, but once we saw the regular seats on the train, we decided (maybe not uniformly) that there wasn't any real reason. The countryside was much of what I expected, but I would honestly say Oklahoma is just as green, at least on our side of the state. Now, we don't have castles, rock walls, hedgerows, sheep, or pleasantly cool weather, but we are green. After what seemed to be a very short time, we arrived in Limerick, where we once again experienced what we have come to expect as normal from the Irish – they wait until absolutely the last moment to offer a bit of helpful advice. For example, the piece of advice that the last two cars of the train don't actually reach the platform, so if you have lots of luggage, perhaps you'd want to be closer to the front of the train.
A struggle down the platform, through the station, out onto the walk and, glory of glories, a line of taxis, first one of which is a van large enough to take us and our stuff. A quick ride and pleasant conversation with the young cab driver, who politely informed me that “Dublin is a s**thole” and that I was a “silly, silly boy” for not having spent the entire trip on the beautiful western coast in the Shannon region. This is one of the things I truly love about the Irish – sarcasm and hyperbole are truly national past times, as much or more than excessive drinking and GAA.
Checking in at the hotel was wonderful – modern, clean, brightly lit, exuberantly friendly, just the sort of things tired, entitled Americans want to experience at the end of a long day. Large beds, bathtubs, privacy – a wonderful moment. What could top it off, you ask? That evening, in the very posh pub, watching the highlights of the day's GAA matches, I completed my silent quest – The Holy Trinity of Irish Stout. The first thing to pass my lips on Irish soul was, of course, Guinness in our own O'Neill's. The next night, in an incredibly crowded pub also called O'Neill's, during the Literary Pub Crawl, I grabbed a place at the bar and found Murphy's. This night, across the isle in Limerick, I found Beamish, completing this stage in a journey that began 20 years ago in a hostel on Isla Mujeres, just off the coast of Cancun, where I uttered those fateful words, “I've heard dark beer is pretty good – do you have anything that's dark?”
The next day would be Monday, our last full day on Irish soil, and what a full day it would be.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Day Five - Bloomsday
The decision was made to spend some time apart, pursuing our own interests and we followed through with it this time. For the morning, however, everyone was on the same page. Immediately after breakfast, we began walking to the north, heading for the Dublin Writer's Museum and the James Joyce Center. We wandered the blocks at random, found the Abbey Theater by accident and just generally enjoyed the city and our response to it. As we trekked farther along, I realized our wandering had brought us fairly close to the James Joyce Center, so I suggested we visit it first and then loop back to the Writer's Museum. On the very next street, we found the JJC, along with the actors who were portraying the different characters, some street vendors, and readings of the masterpiece of confusion known as Ulysses by various individuals. The first reading we heard was a section read by the Chinese ambassador to Ireland, which was quite interesting.
After some required gift shop time, we wandered on to the Writer's Museum and paid for the audio tour. I must confess that at this point my fascination with the literary heritage of Ireland and Dublin began to lag. I am one of the world's fastest museum visitors. I arrive, I see, I leave. I have tried to absorb myself in things, to spend that time in quiet contemplation of art or the accomplishment of man or nature, but I cannot. Sights are quickly cataloged, placards are read, and everything is filed away for future use. I do not drink deeply and absorb – I sip and taste, I get the flavor, and then, if I like it and want it, I come back for more and immerse myself in the experience.
After the museum, we each went our own way. I do not know what Kim and Brian did, but Bea and I walked together for the rest of the day and it was a pleasant time. We had discussed going to the Guinness Storehouse, but I admitted that there was little I could learn about making the beer and she doesn't like the stuff, so instead we went in search of a place known as The Porterhouse – rated by the beer god Michael Jackson as the best microbrewery in Dublin. There I tried one of their more popular brews – Wranglers XXXX. That was, without a doubt, the best beer I had in Ireland. Creamy, bitter, sweet, without the watery feel that Guinness has developed over the last several years.
After I finished my beer, we wandered towards Dublin Castle and Bea convinced me to go the Chester Beatty library. I am pleased she did this, because they let us in to see the Da Vinci exhibit right away on the ticket we'd had for the first day. Now that was a great exhibit! I was so absorbed in trying to read the drawings on the folio pages (his original backwards handwriting!) that I bumped into the glass several times. Even now, thinking about it, I am amazed that I had the opportunity to view those priceless pages. I can't believe I'm saying this, but “Thank You, Bill Gates!!!” - he now owns the Codex Leicester and has made it available for viewing by the world.
Bea and I found a nice Italian restaurant after the exhibit and had a quiet meal together and then went to hear readings from two authors that had been commissioned for the Festival called “Ocean Reveries”. Since Dublin is cut through by the River Liffey and is a coastal city, the organizers of the festival wanted to know how it affected writers, so they arranged with the Vancouver International Writer's Festival to trade authors for a week. Two authors from coastal communities in Canada came to Dublin and gave their views of the role of water and waterfront in the formation of the soul of a city. It was a very pleasant moment for me, one of the better programs of the event.
We met Brian and Kim afterwards and went out on the town – this time successfully finding a pub with a band and getting a good rousing sing on. It might not have been the traditional, spontaneous singing of the old songs of rebellion and longing that I was searching for, but perhaps the tourist-filled quarters of Dublin are not the best place to find that. I enjoyed myself, I drank many pints, and I spoke in friendly tones about friendly things to a great many people. A moment of good cheer and good relations – we need more of this in everyday life.
After some required gift shop time, we wandered on to the Writer's Museum and paid for the audio tour. I must confess that at this point my fascination with the literary heritage of Ireland and Dublin began to lag. I am one of the world's fastest museum visitors. I arrive, I see, I leave. I have tried to absorb myself in things, to spend that time in quiet contemplation of art or the accomplishment of man or nature, but I cannot. Sights are quickly cataloged, placards are read, and everything is filed away for future use. I do not drink deeply and absorb – I sip and taste, I get the flavor, and then, if I like it and want it, I come back for more and immerse myself in the experience.
After the museum, we each went our own way. I do not know what Kim and Brian did, but Bea and I walked together for the rest of the day and it was a pleasant time. We had discussed going to the Guinness Storehouse, but I admitted that there was little I could learn about making the beer and she doesn't like the stuff, so instead we went in search of a place known as The Porterhouse – rated by the beer god Michael Jackson as the best microbrewery in Dublin. There I tried one of their more popular brews – Wranglers XXXX. That was, without a doubt, the best beer I had in Ireland. Creamy, bitter, sweet, without the watery feel that Guinness has developed over the last several years.
After I finished my beer, we wandered towards Dublin Castle and Bea convinced me to go the Chester Beatty library. I am pleased she did this, because they let us in to see the Da Vinci exhibit right away on the ticket we'd had for the first day. Now that was a great exhibit! I was so absorbed in trying to read the drawings on the folio pages (his original backwards handwriting!) that I bumped into the glass several times. Even now, thinking about it, I am amazed that I had the opportunity to view those priceless pages. I can't believe I'm saying this, but “Thank You, Bill Gates!!!” - he now owns the Codex Leicester and has made it available for viewing by the world.
Bea and I found a nice Italian restaurant after the exhibit and had a quiet meal together and then went to hear readings from two authors that had been commissioned for the Festival called “Ocean Reveries”. Since Dublin is cut through by the River Liffey and is a coastal city, the organizers of the festival wanted to know how it affected writers, so they arranged with the Vancouver International Writer's Festival to trade authors for a week. Two authors from coastal communities in Canada came to Dublin and gave their views of the role of water and waterfront in the formation of the soul of a city. It was a very pleasant moment for me, one of the better programs of the event.
We met Brian and Kim afterwards and went out on the town – this time successfully finding a pub with a band and getting a good rousing sing on. It might not have been the traditional, spontaneous singing of the old songs of rebellion and longing that I was searching for, but perhaps the tourist-filled quarters of Dublin are not the best place to find that. I enjoyed myself, I drank many pints, and I spoke in friendly tones about friendly things to a great many people. A moment of good cheer and good relations – we need more of this in everyday life.
Day Four
Things have started to blur a bit by this point. I'm pretty sure this is the day I posted the accounts of Days Two and Three, so that means we were in the Starbucks down on College Green, next to the Bank of Ireland and across the corner from the main entrance to Trinity University. I think we tried to spend some time apart that morning, exploring our own separate interests, but Bea, Kim and I all ended up at Trinity to look at the Book of Kells. Actually, they wanted to see the Book of Kells and I couldn't figure out what else to do, so I went with them. What was neat is it turned out to be graduation day! We got a bit of video of students in their robes and regalia out on the grounds after their graduation ceremonies. We then went to the area where you can see the Book and found out the line was incredibly long, so we did the university gift shop and then wandered back to the hotel to drop off our purchases.
We had arranged to meet Brian at Connolly Station around three that afternoon so we could all go up to Clontarf to see Bram Stoker Experience – some sort of combination museum/fright ride about Bram Stoker, Dublin's best selling author of all time, and his creation Dracula. We got there a little late and caught the train easily, hopping off one stop later in Clontarf on Clontarf road. All we knew about the location of the attraction was that it was on that road and in some sort of recreation club. We walked towards what looked like civilization – the other direction did not seem to hold any promise. After about 15 minutes, Kim wisely went into a shop and asked for directions and we ended up turning around and heading back the way we came. There are a couple of funny things about this – the reason the other direction had not looked promising is the railway bridge blocked any view of that direction. Had we crossed the road, we would have seen much more of the town that what we saw the other way! The other funny thing is we had noted from the train the day before an advertisement for “Ireland's First 50-meter Pool!” at this gym/swimming facility. Imagine our surprise to discover that this is the recreation club containing the Bram Stoker Experience! This huge facility had an exercise gym, the afore-mentioned pool, areas for little kids to play and swim, a huge bar and dance floor, a billiards room, an arcade, climbing walls, and I don't remember what else. On the top floor at the very end of the hall was the Bram Stoker Experience – and it was actually worth the price of admission. We all learned quite a bit about the man behind the book – he was in many respects a Renaissance man, driven to seek perfection and success in all aspects of his life because of a debilitating illness that kept him bed-ridden during the first several years of his life.
We returned to the city center to attend a session of the Writer's Festival called “Ireland of the Welcomes” - dealing with the immigration issues in Ireland. Ireland, for the first time in its history, is experiencing a wave of immigration of people who are not arriving as conquerors, but as a labor class and it is dramatically changing the dynamic of the city. I know that the majority of the people who served us in pubs, restaurants, and shoppes were not native born Irish, but were instead Polish, Asian, Czechoslovakian, and Russian. Brian had a wonderful comment at the end of the discussion, but I can't remember the majority of it.
After the event, the team as a whole went looking for some traditional Irish music but, through a tragicomedy of Abbott and Costello communication and misunderstandings, ended up heading in different directions in quite a funk. Reconciliation was achieved in the early morning hours, but strong personalities will and do clash.
We had arranged to meet Brian at Connolly Station around three that afternoon so we could all go up to Clontarf to see Bram Stoker Experience – some sort of combination museum/fright ride about Bram Stoker, Dublin's best selling author of all time, and his creation Dracula. We got there a little late and caught the train easily, hopping off one stop later in Clontarf on Clontarf road. All we knew about the location of the attraction was that it was on that road and in some sort of recreation club. We walked towards what looked like civilization – the other direction did not seem to hold any promise. After about 15 minutes, Kim wisely went into a shop and asked for directions and we ended up turning around and heading back the way we came. There are a couple of funny things about this – the reason the other direction had not looked promising is the railway bridge blocked any view of that direction. Had we crossed the road, we would have seen much more of the town that what we saw the other way! The other funny thing is we had noted from the train the day before an advertisement for “Ireland's First 50-meter Pool!” at this gym/swimming facility. Imagine our surprise to discover that this is the recreation club containing the Bram Stoker Experience! This huge facility had an exercise gym, the afore-mentioned pool, areas for little kids to play and swim, a huge bar and dance floor, a billiards room, an arcade, climbing walls, and I don't remember what else. On the top floor at the very end of the hall was the Bram Stoker Experience – and it was actually worth the price of admission. We all learned quite a bit about the man behind the book – he was in many respects a Renaissance man, driven to seek perfection and success in all aspects of his life because of a debilitating illness that kept him bed-ridden during the first several years of his life.
We returned to the city center to attend a session of the Writer's Festival called “Ireland of the Welcomes” - dealing with the immigration issues in Ireland. Ireland, for the first time in its history, is experiencing a wave of immigration of people who are not arriving as conquerors, but as a labor class and it is dramatically changing the dynamic of the city. I know that the majority of the people who served us in pubs, restaurants, and shoppes were not native born Irish, but were instead Polish, Asian, Czechoslovakian, and Russian. Brian had a wonderful comment at the end of the discussion, but I can't remember the majority of it.
After the event, the team as a whole went looking for some traditional Irish music but, through a tragicomedy of Abbott and Costello communication and misunderstandings, ended up heading in different directions in quite a funk. Reconciliation was achieved in the early morning hours, but strong personalities will and do clash.
Do not travel through airports with the middle initial F
JFK - insanity when we departed from there. The trip almost unraveled before it started. Much calmer and collected on the return, except for the 3 or 4 hours we spent on the tarmac waiting to take off, thus missing our connecting flight at:
DFW - where they really didn't seem to care that we were stuck, that the hotels were inaccessible except by the well-moneyed, and that several pieces of conflicting information were being sent to us at once. The only blessing of that time was Kim Piper having the presence to call American Airlines while we were sitting on the tarmac at JFK to get us reservations on the first flight out of DFW in the morning. We had reserved seats on an American Eagle puddle jumper - another dozen people were on standby and I don't know if they've gotten out yet. There are certainly more pleasant ways to spend a night than sleeping on a camping cot in the middle of a terminal at DFW next to a security checkpoint. There are also more pleasant ways to fly into Tulsa than on a 35-seater getting turned sideways by the wind shear while attempting to make a landing. Not a good experience for us, certainly not a good experience for several business people entering Tulsa for the first time.
DFW - where they really didn't seem to care that we were stuck, that the hotels were inaccessible except by the well-moneyed, and that several pieces of conflicting information were being sent to us at once. The only blessing of that time was Kim Piper having the presence to call American Airlines while we were sitting on the tarmac at JFK to get us reservations on the first flight out of DFW in the morning. We had reserved seats on an American Eagle puddle jumper - another dozen people were on standby and I don't know if they've gotten out yet. There are certainly more pleasant ways to spend a night than sleeping on a camping cot in the middle of a terminal at DFW next to a security checkpoint. There are also more pleasant ways to fly into Tulsa than on a 35-seater getting turned sideways by the wind shear while attempting to make a landing. Not a good experience for us, certainly not a good experience for several business people entering Tulsa for the first time.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Tired
I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say - "It's time to go home." We're tired, we're grumpy, and we need a break!
Friday, June 15, 2007
Wow!
OK, after review, very little of the "Girls of Ireland" video needs to be edited - really none IMHO, but I'm not the only person on the team ;). However, the video is freakin' huge! I'm either going to have to cut it into pieces (and I don't have editing software right now - oversight on my part) or I'm going to need a HIGH speed connection to upload the nearly 600 MB of excellent video. Ladies, you were wonderful and we thank each and every one of you! Absolutely brilliant!
Day Three?
A long day, but good.
Dublin Passes – hard to get your moneys worth unless you’re a driven tourist with an incredible constitution. Cost of passes: 41 Euro. Cost of attractions/service used without Dublin Pass: less than 30 Euro. I guess if we hadn’t gotten the late start on the first day, it would’ve come out OK.
Yesterday, after a wonderful Full Irish breakfast (egg, 3 links of sausage, white pudding, bacon, hash browns, tomato, cereal, toast, & coffee), we walked over the River Liffey to one of the major train stations on the DART system and bought short hop passes for the day’s travels. We took the first northbound train heading to Howth, a seaside village, intending to get off a couple of stops earlier and catch another train to Malahide village. Instead, we elected to continue to Howth to see the ocean. We got there and realized it was cold and unpleasant and we didn’t want to spend an hour there, so we asked the station manager about the route to Malahide. He said “Oh, you don’t want the train – you want the bus! It’s faster and takes a pretty drive right up the coast line.” So, we got on the train, headed back one stop and caught the bus, which is where we met up with the young ladies mentioned in posts on the main blog. I will include a link to the full video soon (after some slight editing.)
Eventually, with the help of Megan (sorry the video we shot with her didn’t come through – I don’t know what happened!), we found our way to the entrance of the Malahide Castle grounds, ancestral home of the Talbot clan for almost 800 years. After a brief, but interesting, tour we found our way into the village proper and headed back south for warmer clothing. On the way, I demonstrated the wonders of technology and downloaded the 30 minutes of video on the camera to the laptop, freeing up memory space for later shooting. We also discovered at that point that the video camera will not charge itself from the laptop battery, so the video camera stayed in the hotel on the charger for the rest of the evening.
Despite concerns about my navigation choices (industrial areas have their own beauty), we found our way after changing clothes to the Old Jameson Distillery on the north side of the Liffey. Again, an interesting tour, finishing with Kim as one of the tasters comparing different styles of whiskeys and some wonderful gift shop time. We then wandered back to the south side (pronounced “sout” – all h’s are optional here) and finally found Leo Burdock’s – very high on the traditional fish ‘n chips regime. Unfortunately it was raining and it’s take out only, so we decided to wait for another day. We finally found a restaurant with Wi-Fi and posted a couple of quick blogs while eating and then trekked over to The Duke pub, where the Literary Pub Crawl was starting. It was a very good time, except for the fact that it was pouring rain! The majority of our group were recent graduates from a high school in La Jolla, California – it’s a little frustrating to get beat out of a prize of a bottle of Jameson’s “after shave” in a literary quiz by a high school drama kid.
We brought the girls back to the hotel and Brian went out to some places he was interested in and I went downstairs to the pub. They closed pretty early, though, so I went wandering back down to the main pub drag to look things over. Like all big cities, the seamy side comes out after midnight. Tourists and locals alike lying in the middle of the sidewalk, too drunk to move or care, and desperate teenagers, dragging frantically on their cigarettes, trying to look cool, be seen, and get lucky. Finally, fatigue set in and I got my first solid sleep since this adventure began.
What’s in the bag for day four? More writer’s festival events, art exhibits, the Bram Stoker Dracula experience, Trinity University and The Book of Kells, and maybe a good night of trad (traditional Irish music and singing.) Oh, and finding a post office and reliable Internet (I knew this was going to be a problem!)
Dublin Passes – hard to get your moneys worth unless you’re a driven tourist with an incredible constitution. Cost of passes: 41 Euro. Cost of attractions/service used without Dublin Pass: less than 30 Euro. I guess if we hadn’t gotten the late start on the first day, it would’ve come out OK.
Yesterday, after a wonderful Full Irish breakfast (egg, 3 links of sausage, white pudding, bacon, hash browns, tomato, cereal, toast, & coffee), we walked over the River Liffey to one of the major train stations on the DART system and bought short hop passes for the day’s travels. We took the first northbound train heading to Howth, a seaside village, intending to get off a couple of stops earlier and catch another train to Malahide village. Instead, we elected to continue to Howth to see the ocean. We got there and realized it was cold and unpleasant and we didn’t want to spend an hour there, so we asked the station manager about the route to Malahide. He said “Oh, you don’t want the train – you want the bus! It’s faster and takes a pretty drive right up the coast line.” So, we got on the train, headed back one stop and caught the bus, which is where we met up with the young ladies mentioned in posts on the main blog. I will include a link to the full video soon (after some slight editing.)
Eventually, with the help of Megan (sorry the video we shot with her didn’t come through – I don’t know what happened!), we found our way to the entrance of the Malahide Castle grounds, ancestral home of the Talbot clan for almost 800 years. After a brief, but interesting, tour we found our way into the village proper and headed back south for warmer clothing. On the way, I demonstrated the wonders of technology and downloaded the 30 minutes of video on the camera to the laptop, freeing up memory space for later shooting. We also discovered at that point that the video camera will not charge itself from the laptop battery, so the video camera stayed in the hotel on the charger for the rest of the evening.
Despite concerns about my navigation choices (industrial areas have their own beauty), we found our way after changing clothes to the Old Jameson Distillery on the north side of the Liffey. Again, an interesting tour, finishing with Kim as one of the tasters comparing different styles of whiskeys and some wonderful gift shop time. We then wandered back to the south side (pronounced “sout” – all h’s are optional here) and finally found Leo Burdock’s – very high on the traditional fish ‘n chips regime. Unfortunately it was raining and it’s take out only, so we decided to wait for another day. We finally found a restaurant with Wi-Fi and posted a couple of quick blogs while eating and then trekked over to The Duke pub, where the Literary Pub Crawl was starting. It was a very good time, except for the fact that it was pouring rain! The majority of our group were recent graduates from a high school in La Jolla, California – it’s a little frustrating to get beat out of a prize of a bottle of Jameson’s “after shave” in a literary quiz by a high school drama kid.
We brought the girls back to the hotel and Brian went out to some places he was interested in and I went downstairs to the pub. They closed pretty early, though, so I went wandering back down to the main pub drag to look things over. Like all big cities, the seamy side comes out after midnight. Tourists and locals alike lying in the middle of the sidewalk, too drunk to move or care, and desperate teenagers, dragging frantically on their cigarettes, trying to look cool, be seen, and get lucky. Finally, fatigue set in and I got my first solid sleep since this adventure began.
What’s in the bag for day four? More writer’s festival events, art exhibits, the Bram Stoker Dracula experience, Trinity University and The Book of Kells, and maybe a good night of trad (traditional Irish music and singing.) Oh, and finding a post office and reliable Internet (I knew this was going to be a problem!)
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