5.9.10
Dublin.
11:38 PM | 
Posted by
Maj
Alright, let's do this.
J'ai mon voyage!
After walking down to the Brussels-Midi station with my gigantor suitcase at approximately 3:30 in the morning, I got on a bus which brought me to the "Brussels South" Charleroi Airport (which is about an hour South of Brussels.) I'd never been to an airport which dealt pretty much exclusively with discount flights, nor had I flown RyanAir before. Oh, and hey:
I did something which is (according to Jonas) rather unusual: I paid an extra € 35 to bring a piece of checked luggage with me on a RyanAir flight, since I knew I'd be bringing a load of my own books (along with some from the library) with me to Dublin. Well, it turns out this extra piece of luggage was supposed to be quite light -- 15kg, to be exact (which you make surprisingly quickly when you're lugging around a million philosophy texts, a ton of jewelry (just plain stupid, really...) and the biggest laptop known to man.) When I got to the check-in counter and had my luggage weighed, the woman helping me out was shocked I'd brought -- wait for it -- 24 kilos worth of crap with me, just in my checked luggage. Thankfully, I was able to move some of the heavier stuff from the luggage into my carry-on backpack, but I still ended up being 4 kilos over. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that you get charged an extra € 20 per kilo over. So much for my cheap flight!
Camden
Food is also stupidly expensive in Dublin. Consider: David came into town one night. We went to Temple Bar (the entertainment, errr... square?) He bought a shitty hotdog (and I mean shitty. We're talking a-Red-Hot-in-a-bun, $1-IKEA-hotdog shitty) for € 5. I couldn't believe it. I actually had to walk away from the vendor's stand as David was waiting for his food because I couldn't stop laughing. Who the hell pays €5 for a hotdog? No wonder Ireland's a mystery to economists.
Finally, I was super pumped to see there's Tim Hortons coffee in Ireland but THEY DO NOT HAVE FRENCH VANILLA WTF. Nor do they carry Timbits. They do, however, have weird crap which isn't served in Canada. (I can't recall what sort of crap it was, probably because the whole Irish Tim Hortons experience was traumatizing.)
Friends
I'd chosen to go to Ireland largely because I thought I'd be reuniting with Buggle and Pierce (they'd agreed to come visit, after all), so I became more and more bummed out that they were not likely going to make it to Dublin. Thankfully, it wasn't all bad. For those of you who remember that insane story about Kofman and I in Montreal (if you haven't heard the story, remind me to tell you!!)... well, now, it looks like things are totally normal between us. We got along super well despite the fact that we were sharing a room only slightly larger than my container, which came as a huge surprise. And as always, it was nice to really shoot the philosophical shit with him. I even got to contribute to the paper he was presenting (a bit of ethical-political philosophy concerning the West's moral obligations (or the lack thereof) to religious Filipino single mothers), which was uplifting. :) I'm also glad I got to spend some time with David, who turned out to be a decent, likeable guy. It's nice to learn something new. ;)
J'ai mon voyage!
After walking down to the Brussels-Midi station with my gigantor suitcase at approximately 3:30 in the morning, I got on a bus which brought me to the "Brussels South" Charleroi Airport (which is about an hour South of Brussels.) I'd never been to an airport which dealt pretty much exclusively with discount flights, nor had I flown RyanAir before. Oh, and hey:
Do NOT fly RyanAir with sizeable luggage.
REALLY.
I did something which is (according to Jonas) rather unusual: I paid an extra € 35 to bring a piece of checked luggage with me on a RyanAir flight, since I knew I'd be bringing a load of my own books (along with some from the library) with me to Dublin. Well, it turns out this extra piece of luggage was supposed to be quite light -- 15kg, to be exact (which you make surprisingly quickly when you're lugging around a million philosophy texts, a ton of jewelry (just plain stupid, really...) and the biggest laptop known to man.) When I got to the check-in counter and had my luggage weighed, the woman helping me out was shocked I'd brought -- wait for it -- 24 kilos worth of crap with me, just in my checked luggage. Thankfully, I was able to move some of the heavier stuff from the luggage into my carry-on backpack, but I still ended up being 4 kilos over. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that you get charged an extra € 20 per kilo over. So much for my cheap flight!
I felt better once I'd arrived in Dublin, though. Since I'd spent the night before sweltering in Jonas' apartment, alternating between avoiding heatstroke (by opening the windows) and insomnia ('cause when those windows are open, downtown Brussels light and noise pours into the room...), it was relieving to disembark in sunny, 12° weather. That, combined with the fact that there were maple trees and English signs everywhere, made me feel right at home. :D
Camden
I decided to go to Dublin party because Daniel Kofman would be there for a conference, and we'd spoken about meeting up in Europe many times before. I hadn't planned on staying with him originally, but since I was exhausted and out € 80, I decided to take him up on his offer to stay with him at his hotel room on Lower Camden Street, in Southern downtown Dublin. The situation was bittersweet: I didn't pay for accommodations while I hung out there, but no one could know I was there. (Upon my arrival at Daniel's hotel, he told me that the previous night, some staff member had kicked out some couple who were trying to pull exactly what we were trying to pull... yikes.) So I had to sneak out whenever I left, avoiding eye contact with the various people who worked there for days. And be back in the hotel room by around 7pm -- or earlier, if Daniel had to be gone again by then. Not the greatest, but it did force me to get a whole lot of reading done (several papers and the Gorgias!)
Lower Camden's a nice part of the city; it's proximate to St. Stephen's Green park and Grafton Street (which is something like Sparks Street on steroids.) Some photos:
A house on St. Stephen's Green.
A park map.
Old trees.
The St. Stephen's Mall. It's so bright it burns.
A poor night-time shot of a Thin Lizzy statue in the rain, just off Grafton.
Trinity College. Pretty but useless to visiting students: no access whatsoever to the library.
Captive photography: photos out of Daniel's hotel room window. (Notice the rooftop vegetation!)
Expedia
Daniel is a typical scatterbrained philosopher. The type of guy who, you know, books his return ticket with Expedia for a month later than he wanted. (Once we realized this was the case, I started feeling a whole lot less stupid for having skimmed over the fine print concerning my RyanAir luggage limits...) So while we'd planned to go to Galway and spend some time in the Irish countryside, our prospects were waning. Once his conference was over, Daniel began spending day after day on the phone with a bunch of fools from airlines, travel agencies and airports, trying to find a way of getting back to Canada within a reasonable time frame but without paying an $800 penalty. (He eventually managed to reach someone who got him back to Ottawa for something like $100, but only after I'd left Ireland. Originally, he was planning on leaving a few days before I did.) Since (among other things) it seemed like we'd be staying in town and I was getting tired of creeping around the hotel, I booked a room at a hotel down the street for the rest of my time in Ireland.
The Portobello Hotel is perfect: cheap (the hanging 'B' and nearby graffiti say it all), serving free full Irish breakfast, and most importantly, on the Portobello Road.
The Portobello was conveniently located near Mocha Café (see arrow), where I read plenty of essays on Wittgenstein.
Dublin feels a lot like a Canadian city, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Recently, Maria mentioned she (she'd been living in France) and Alex Viau (he'd been living in Germany) were experiencing "reverse culture-shock" upon their returns to Canada (from semesters abroad), and I suspect I was going through something similar in Ireland. There's something commercial and anglo and blah about Dublin, but I can't quite put my finger on it. The squareness and drabness of the buildings (along with there being so many perfectly normal looking brick houses), the straightforward street signs, the fact that nearly everyone dressed like a North American... it not only felt uninteresting, but stifling, especially after seeing Brussels for all of two glorious minutes. I felt like I had to get out.
At this point, it's perhaps worth saying a bit more about David the Angry Badger. David and I didn't really get along in Amsterdam until everyone else moved out of Zuiderzeeweg. (He's an angry badger for a reason, after all.) When I got to Dublin, however, David kindly invited me to go out with his friends to see a comedy show, which ended up being far more enjoyable than I was expecting. And since he knew I was excited to visit the countryside and get out of Dublin, he invited me to go to Rush (his town) for dinner with his parents.
Though I'd never thought to visit Rush before ending up on a bus bound for the town, that night in Rush was hands-down the best time I'd had in Ireland. In my (very limited) experience, the Irish are a ton of fun to be around. Indeed, going to dinner at David's instantly brought me back to 96N: crowding around a table, telling stories and laughing loudly over bottomless tea and biscuits. David's family was lively, friendly, helpful and caring. And also unusually talented: David's brother Stephen illustrated an Irish sign language kids' book, his mom is into fine arts (her paintings are on display all over the house), and his dad's brother is apparently a relatively famous Irish painter.
Though I'd never thought to visit Rush before ending up on a bus bound for the town, that night in Rush was hands-down the best time I'd had in Ireland. In my (very limited) experience, the Irish are a ton of fun to be around. Indeed, going to dinner at David's instantly brought me back to 96N: crowding around a table, telling stories and laughing loudly over bottomless tea and biscuits. David's family was lively, friendly, helpful and caring. And also unusually talented: David's brother Stephen illustrated an Irish sign language kids' book, his mom is into fine arts (her paintings are on display all over the house), and his dad's brother is apparently a relatively famous Irish painter.
Food
Oh, Irish dishes... totally sick, in both senses of the word. Take Irish breakfast, for instance. (I didn't take a photo of the full Irish breakfast I ate nearly every day, but here's its wiki page.) The version I had came with a fried egg, rashers (back bacon), sausages, hash brown, white and black pudding, beans and a fried tomato. (Holy crap, black and white pudding are amaaaaaazing.) Thankfully, there's some delicious healthy food, too: Irish soda bread (which they call "brown bread") has a beautifully crumbly, cake-like texture. Highly recommended. :)
I decided to try out the fish and chips, too, since I figured they'd probably be pretty good. I don't think I'd ever had cod before, and I thought I'd go with the smoked option. I was not disappointed at all -- best fish and chips I'd ever had for sure, despite the lack of tartar sauce. I couldn't even eat half of it, though, since the meal was intensely greasy and salty. Sadly, that isn't fully captured by this photo:
I decided to try out the fish and chips, too, since I figured they'd probably be pretty good. I don't think I'd ever had cod before, and I thought I'd go with the smoked option. I was not disappointed at all -- best fish and chips I'd ever had for sure, despite the lack of tartar sauce. I couldn't even eat half of it, though, since the meal was intensely greasy and salty. Sadly, that isn't fully captured by this photo:
A delicious way to stop your heart: smoked and battered cod with chips, ketchup and garlic sauce. (I'm so confused. I mean, I can see the photo is disgusting, so why is it making me hungry?!)
Food is also stupidly expensive in Dublin. Consider: David came into town one night. We went to Temple Bar (the entertainment, errr... square?) He bought a shitty hotdog (and I mean shitty. We're talking a-Red-Hot-in-a-bun, $1-IKEA-hotdog shitty) for € 5. I couldn't believe it. I actually had to walk away from the vendor's stand as David was waiting for his food because I couldn't stop laughing. Who the hell pays €5 for a hotdog? No wonder Ireland's a mystery to economists.
Finally, I was super pumped to see there's Tim Hortons coffee in Ireland but THEY DO NOT HAVE FRENCH VANILLA WTF. Nor do they carry Timbits. They do, however, have weird crap which isn't served in Canada. (I can't recall what sort of crap it was, probably because the whole Irish Tim Hortons experience was traumatizing.)
Friends
I'd chosen to go to Ireland largely because I thought I'd be reuniting with Buggle and Pierce (they'd agreed to come visit, after all), so I became more and more bummed out that they were not likely going to make it to Dublin. Thankfully, it wasn't all bad. For those of you who remember that insane story about Kofman and I in Montreal (if you haven't heard the story, remind me to tell you!!)... well, now, it looks like things are totally normal between us. We got along super well despite the fact that we were sharing a room only slightly larger than my container, which came as a huge surprise. And as always, it was nice to really shoot the philosophical shit with him. I even got to contribute to the paper he was presenting (a bit of ethical-political philosophy concerning the West's moral obligations (or the lack thereof) to religious Filipino single mothers), which was uplifting. :) I'm also glad I got to spend some time with David, who turned out to be a decent, likeable guy. It's nice to learn something new. ;)
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