We arrived on Monday to gray skies but no rain. It is uncharacteristically humid here… warm and sticky and then giving away occasionally to fat raindrops even though the clouds seem high and thin.
We are staying at the Smithfield Comfort Inn. Located in a former slum area, this hotel is adequate if not a bit bare bones in the finishing touches department. The area was cleared into a large open square and the surrounding buildings given a facelift. The area has a vibe of waiting… not quite sure what to do with itself yet now that it’s been given a fancy new mantle to wear. Slightly outside the city center, it is well connected by the new LUAS light rail line that runs from the west city outskirts all the way to the edge of the city center at O’Connell. Right now the line stops at Abbey (O’Connell Street) because the last two stops are under construction, but we never needed to go beyond Abbey, and for 1.80 per ride, it served us swimmingly!
We arrived at about noon, and seeing as our rooms weren’t ready, we dropped our 12 pieces of luggage in the hotel hold and headed into town. The Jervis stop on the LUAS dropped us across the river from Temple Bar and we crossed the Ha’Penny bridge into the district. Tom spotted Gallagher’s Boxty House, one of our favorite places to eat in Dublin, and we plunked our seven selves down at a long table and made quick work of 5 half pints of Murphy’s Red and two pints of Guinness. A boxty is a sort of Irish potato pancake that is filled with chicken, beef, lamb, or vegetables.
Bill is determined to drink his meals, and is content to share with Cindy the edges of her plates. Laura and Eric have devised a splitting system to their meals that seems to suit them just fine because they can order more courses and eat handsomely. Tom and Lisa are both getting small plates and then splitting each with Clare, who is eating Beef and Guinness Stew, Atlantic Fish Chowder, Fish and Chips, Stone Scones (Dry raisin biscuits), Mushy Peas, and Irish Brown Bread as though it was as normal as milk.
After Gallagher’s we wandered Temple Bar, got Tom and Clare a scoop or two from Haggen Daaz, which Clare calls “Hotten Dogs” and then headed back to our hotel for much needed showers and naps.
We regrouped at about 6pm, left Tom and Clare to their own devices (Tom & Clare took a leisurely walk around Smithfield. Next to our hotel is a market, FRESH, a great selection of food and drink and a great deli. They had a light dinner from the deli and went back to the hotel room for some movies. Clare chose “Milo & Otis” from our collection. Mom was home before we were asleep and quite upset that Tom and Clare were up so late! Hey, what could we do ? We had to watch a movie.)
The larger group took the LUAS back into Temple Bar to secure tickets to the Musical Pub Crawl that begins at Oliver St. John Gogherty’s. Figuring we should put something in our stomachs before we began to sip the brews, we stopped at what is their equivalent of fast food: Abrakadabra. It was situated in a perfect spot across the street from Gogherty’s so Lisa could watch the door to make sure there wasn’t a mad rush for tickets at seven p.m.
But it wasn’t crowded it all. In fact this seems to be a trend. The streets aren’t thronged with people all the time, the lines are short or filled with Germans and Italians, and we’re hard pressed to be annoyed with waiting anywhere, even at usually very popular venues, because there are MUCH less tourists. It seems that the economic downturn in Ireland is parallel with ours in the States and they really feel it when we suffer financially. The musical pub crawl was only 30 people full, about 2/3 of normal. We followed Des and Fiona from Gogherty’s (where they gave us an introduction to jigs and reels and a capella singing, to the Ha’Penny Inn, where the top floor was rocking with the fiddle and the guitar and the bodhran. The fiddler was the hands-down favorite. Her feet stamped out a beat that was varied and intense. Her legs almost looked like marionette’s, detached and wiggling wildly along with the rhythm. After an hour and a half we decided to follow them to the next pub across the river because we were seriously jetlagged and had heard enough.
After a LUAS line ride back to our hotel, it was the land of nod for all. (Well, jetlag kept most of us awake for some time, but it was the ATTMEPT at sleep that mattered.) It rained off an on all night in buckets.
téigh in éag (means: to end!)
