Winter Voyage: Part 5 of 8: Ireland

Upon going to Dublin we parted ways from Emily and met up with Caitlin. This was also where we were dropping Jon off for him to begin his semester studying abroad in Ireland. At this point our style of touring changed significantly. From this point on there was much less sight-seeing and museum-visiting and much more getting in contact with locals and local scenes. This change was partially due to the fact that Jon, the driving force of traditional tourism, was distracted and getting ready to live in Dublin. It was also due to the fact that Caitlin knows people EVERYWHERE. She was president of the exchange club at her high school and is generally a beast at networking so we hung out with a lot of locals from this point on. Of course, on the one hand it would have been nice to have had something of a balance between touring and local experiences for all the countries. But this was a really great time at any rate.

So we spent a lot of time there with a group of Irishmen who were friends of Caitlin's friend. They all went by there last names or some nickname of their last name or a totally random nickname. Caitlin's friend was "Mulls" and his gang included Freely, Foley, and "Snacks" (who happened to be snack-sized). There were others as well but I don't remember their names. Our first night there we hung out with about twice these many people at Snack's house and then went out to a club that played dangerously loud rock. It was a fun scene and Mull's friends were fantastic. The second night we wanted to go out again but our group was drastically reduced due to interfering schedules and people not feeling up for it. So it was me, Caitlin, Freely, and Foley. And another guy who we lost track of for most of the time. It was so much fun. Freely is one of the most charismatic people I've ever met, and seems to embody Irishness in every word and gesture. He even danced jigs at the club we went to. Foley was super sweet and interesting. We started off at a bar called Flannery's (of course). Even though there wasn't a dance floor there was music and Caitlin and I danced the whole time. We couldn't really talk anyway cause it was so loud. Then we went to a club called Coppers. It was crazy inside. I've been in places that were equally crowded (I was consistently in contact with someone or other on all sides :P), but this was different. I've heard tales of Irish drinking habits, but the experience went beyond my expectations. The entire crowd in which I was inextricably enmeshed was swaying the whole time, sometimes together and sometimes in conflicting directions. This made it a bit difficult to dance, but Caitlin and I wouldn't let something like that stop us. And Freely and Foley were great about making sure we weren't taken down by the waves of people. They were such great party partners. They watched out for us, but weren't hitting on us or anything which made everything feel totally comfortable and safe.

Here are some pictures from the bit that we did walk around:

We didn't make it to the Leprechaun Museum. Jon refused :(

Here is Trinity College, where the Book of Kells is (some of my favorite images from Celtic-Christian art). It has a really lovely campus and atmosphere:

Coppers!! (the club):

One of the most exciting things about being in Dublin was that it's an English speaking country. It's amazing how nice it is to be able to specify what you want when buying something, to be able to keep up a conversation with the cab driver, to be able to fully understand directions. However, that doesn't mean we were speaking the same language. Irish accents are ridiculous. And moreover WONDERFUL. And it's not just the vowels and consonants that are different, it's also the music of the language and the slang. The way they say "heart" I swear has several syllables more than when Americans say it. Some things were starting to rub off on us halfway through our time there, although someone told me I sounded like a robot when I tried to imitate it [:[

The last day we had to say goodbye to Jon. It was really sad and I think he was pretty nervous. But it's a great city and hopefully it was the right choice for him.

So, that was supposed to be the last day, but then our flight got cancelled (due to Aer Lingus strikes) and the airline payed our stay at a fancy hotel, dinner and breakfast included. Although it felt like wasted time, we rested and slept a whole lot and I actually think it did us a lot of good.