still enamoured by london, edinburgh and dublin (the part on dublin)
i might as well finish this once and for all.
after edinburgh, i think i got very hyped up for dublin. and then murphy striked. dublin was kinda disappointing because firstly we managed to find ourselves in a not very nice hostel, where rosh's blanket got stolen, my towel got thrown away, my things were strewn over the floor from my bed because someone else went to claim my bed, things were stolen from a bunkmate (it even became a police case), they booked the wrong tour for me and rosh... the list goes on. but at the end of the day, some issues got resolved and we did get the hostel for half the price we were originally supposed to pay. but it was really pain and suffering for the 3 nights that we spent there. hiaz.
dublin itself reminded me somewhat of budapest. maybe because of the river liffey flowing through it and all those bridges. we walked around pretty much, but took the luas (celtic for speed) which is a tram when we were too shacked to walk back to town from the guinness storehouse (which is amazing). the sad thing was that it rained the day we were supposed to take a city tour to the irish rebellion sites, so we had to give that up because neither of us were interested in being soaked to the bone. so we just did trinity college and guinness storehouse that day. the latter was quite a highlight. it does glorify arthur guinness (the founder) very blatantly, but he did contribute quite a bit to the irish economy anyway. and singapore's one of guinness' foreign breweries too! by f&n. it was cool to see a f&n manufactured guinness stout can inside one of the exhibitions.
the other highlight of the dublin leg was going to the wicklow mountains. even though it was the wrong tour group (thanks to the lousy receptionist at the hostel), the tour guide that we got was so nice! and he kept on giving us random bits of interesting information onboard. plus acidic humour. it also rained while we were at the mountains, so it was cold. duh. but the best thing was besides seeing the glacier lake were oscar wilde grew up (he lived beside the lake, not in it), the guinness lake (so named because it looks black. not kidding), the glendalough ruins (very interesting to learn about the ireland's celtic past), we also got to see the bayside of dublin because our guide, ed, felt that it wasnt safe to drive through the mountains again. so he went back down to dublin via the bay. which meant we got to pass through kilenny, home to the rich and famous, like van morrison, enya, bono, chris de burgh, mia farrow's mother's house (we actually saw their houses!), dun leogharie and dalkey. plus i learnt that the guinness family is related to the marconi family! see, i told you i learnt random bits of info.
anyhow, that was dublin. not too interesting, but it wasnt all that bad. and right now, im currently in love with celtic names. like did you know sinead (as in sinead o'connor) is actually the celtic variant of jennifer? and its pronounced 'sheen-head'. i so want to name my kid (if ever i decide to have one) sinead, or aidan, or ronan. mind you every radio was playing either westlife or boyzone lah or corrs.
and in the spirit of all irish things, happy st patrick's day! its this weekend! (or the next.)
YAY! im done with my blogging on uk and the ireland!
after edinburgh, i think i got very hyped up for dublin. and then murphy striked. dublin was kinda disappointing because firstly we managed to find ourselves in a not very nice hostel, where rosh's blanket got stolen, my towel got thrown away, my things were strewn over the floor from my bed because someone else went to claim my bed, things were stolen from a bunkmate (it even became a police case), they booked the wrong tour for me and rosh... the list goes on. but at the end of the day, some issues got resolved and we did get the hostel for half the price we were originally supposed to pay. but it was really pain and suffering for the 3 nights that we spent there. hiaz.
dublin itself reminded me somewhat of budapest. maybe because of the river liffey flowing through it and all those bridges. we walked around pretty much, but took the luas (celtic for speed) which is a tram when we were too shacked to walk back to town from the guinness storehouse (which is amazing). the sad thing was that it rained the day we were supposed to take a city tour to the irish rebellion sites, so we had to give that up because neither of us were interested in being soaked to the bone. so we just did trinity college and guinness storehouse that day. the latter was quite a highlight. it does glorify arthur guinness (the founder) very blatantly, but he did contribute quite a bit to the irish economy anyway. and singapore's one of guinness' foreign breweries too! by f&n. it was cool to see a f&n manufactured guinness stout can inside one of the exhibitions.
the other highlight of the dublin leg was going to the wicklow mountains. even though it was the wrong tour group (thanks to the lousy receptionist at the hostel), the tour guide that we got was so nice! and he kept on giving us random bits of interesting information onboard. plus acidic humour. it also rained while we were at the mountains, so it was cold. duh. but the best thing was besides seeing the glacier lake were oscar wilde grew up (he lived beside the lake, not in it), the guinness lake (so named because it looks black. not kidding), the glendalough ruins (very interesting to learn about the ireland's celtic past), we also got to see the bayside of dublin because our guide, ed, felt that it wasnt safe to drive through the mountains again. so he went back down to dublin via the bay. which meant we got to pass through kilenny, home to the rich and famous, like van morrison, enya, bono, chris de burgh, mia farrow's mother's house (we actually saw their houses!), dun leogharie and dalkey. plus i learnt that the guinness family is related to the marconi family! see, i told you i learnt random bits of info.
anyhow, that was dublin. not too interesting, but it wasnt all that bad. and right now, im currently in love with celtic names. like did you know sinead (as in sinead o'connor) is actually the celtic variant of jennifer? and its pronounced 'sheen-head'. i so want to name my kid (if ever i decide to have one) sinead, or aidan, or ronan. mind you every radio was playing either westlife or boyzone lah or corrs.
and in the spirit of all irish things, happy st patrick's day! its this weekend! (or the next.)
YAY! im done with my blogging on uk and the ireland!
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home