Steve and Cathy's Blog

NOTE BEFORE WE START: For whatever reason, it takes an interminable amount of time to load photos to this blog site. So until such time as we have faster Internet service, my goal is to load photos on Facebook to accompany each post.

We wander through the big, beautiful Dublin airport, clear immigration easily and collect our bags. No customs clearance. Twenty-minute cab ride to Cassidys Hotel in the center of Dublin. 

Cassidys Hotel is a small Hotel located on O’Connell Street, the Main Street of Dublin. We are a ten-minute walk from the River Liffey, which flows through the city. In other words, we are in the heart of Ireland’s capital city. It’s just around 6:00am, and, upon checking in, Cathy and Steve discover their first travel error of this trip: we are told that we cannot get into our room until 3pm – nine long hours from now. Steve is a zombie by now. Cathy not so much.

We are handed maps to study, and inquire about restaurants in the area where we can obtain breakfast. The desk clerk says there are none, but offers a free continental breakfast, which we accept gratefully. Coffee, tea, toast. Enough to tide us over. We sit and watch as people check out, puzzled as to why rooms are being vacated at 7 but won’t be available until 3.

We decide that we just can’t sit around the lobby for nine hours stewing as to our inability to get a room. So we decide to spend the morning on the Hop On Hop Off bus (HOHO) and tour Dublin. Now it’s 7:30 and the first bus doesn’t begin the tour until 9, so we decide to take a walk down O’Connell Street to the Liffey.  We stow our bags in a storage area and venture out. It’s a beautiful sunny day; the temperature is in the upper 50s. 

The first thing we notice is: there are restaurants where breakfast can be had everywhere.  Now why did the desk clerk tell us otherwise? Oh well.  Within about ten minutes, we make four quick observations: 1) Dublin is very, very busy! It’s a work day and everybody is rushing to their job. 2) The city seems to be predominantly young people – people half our age or younger. It’s quite striking. Yes, we aren’t that far from Trinity College, but the people we are seeing are not just students. 3) Public transportation is incredibly abundant. There are hundreds of double-decker buses; one passes by every ten seconds or so, it seems. And there is a fairly new tram system whose trains you see every two or three minutes. 4) Dublin must see many, many tourists and know that they are confused about the left-hand driving. God bless ‘em, they put these signs on the intersections to keep us foreign pedestrians from blindly walking into the street and quickly being run over.

We wander down to the river, thinking that we will find a place to sit. We do, but stay only a few minutes. Unfortunately, the nice walkway along the river is full of litter, and there are four young people passed out on the benches. The city needs to pay some attention to cleaning this up. The river itself isn’t that inviting. We see it at low tide, to be sure, but it is walled in and turgid. We had considered taking a boat ride later, but this kinda discouraged that idea.

We do find the ticket office for the HOHO bus, then proceed to O’Connell Street where the bus tour begins. Of course we’re there a few minutes early, but the tour begins promptly at nine. As said before, it’s a beautiful day and the driver/guide is full of good information. There are 24 places where you get off and on, but we are there for the ride. 

Despite the interesting dialogue from the guide, and despite the interesting city we are seeing and learning about, Steve is giving in to the fatigue born of a sleepless night. He keeps nodding off, and so he is not the right one to chronicle all the sights we see as we drive along. Perhaps Cathy can add some information here. [There is a very nice park at the edge of the city. In between stops the driver played Irish songs on a tape. I heard “Sweet Molly Malone” about ten times. Also ”Danny Boy.” Very heavy traffic. That’s all I remember…! Extreme fatigue had set in.]

The tour ends at around 11:15am. We decide to have lunch, and head for Murray’s Bar & Grill at 33-34 O’Connell Street, just a block from our hotel and which we passed earlier. It claims to serve authentic Irish fare, and the menu sounds intriguing. Indeed, we are there for the tail end of breakfast and order same. Delicious egg, sausage and back bacon for Steve; eggs and smoked salmon for Cathy. Interesting to note: breakfast is served until 11:30, but lunch isn’t served until noon. In other words, there’s a half hour changeover time between meals. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to drinks. It is a bar, after all.

We’re back at Cassidys Hotel around 12:15. It is mobbed because there’s a group of young people on tour checking in, but the madhouse quickly quiets down after they’re registered. We inquire about room availability but again are assured that rooms will only be available at 3pm. We sit and contemplate how to spend the next three hours. Cathy urges Steve to discuss our situation again. He waits and watches, plotting a strategy. 

Another employee arrives at reception. This guy looks and sounds like a manager rather than a clerk. The place is quiet. He is the only one there. Steve approaches, explaining once again that we checked in at 6am and inquires politely, as if he were addressing a priest, if, even for an extra charge, could we possibly be given a room. He looks up our reservation, switches us to another room, and we are issued keys to Room 562 in the Annex Building. We quietly rejoice, retrieve our luggage, and head for the room. 

Take lift down to Floor -1. Weave our way through pleasantly decorated basement corridor to another lift. Go to Floor 5 to Room 562. We enter at 12:55 and are asleep by 1:05pm. Finally, blessed slumber.

We arise at 5pm, somewhat refreshed, watch about a half hour of Irish television news, and decide to head for dinner. Food and sleep (including slumber on the HOHO bus) has consumed the day, but it is ending up a good day. Not feeling intrepid, we head back to Murray’s Bar & Grill, which is actually a very interesting and busy place, for dinner. It advertises – and certainly seems to have – a genuine Irish Pub atmosphere. We inquire if we can at a table outdoors, but are politely told that they are reserved for drinks and smoking, but the waitperson thoughtfully seats us at a table by the window that overlooks that area. Great people watching opportunity in the center of Dublin. Wonderful. 

Again we are there “between shifts,” so to speak. Lunch ended at 5:30 and dinner won’t be available until 6:00, but of course drinks are available. Steve has been waiting for this moment all day, and orders a Guinness. Cathy sticks with water. Our waitperson brings the drinks, and we relax.  She returns as the dinner hour approaches, and we order. Cathy has – yes, for the second straight meal – salmon, this time poached (I think). Steve, having spent the afternoon dreaming of this, orders Fish n Chips. Although it isn’t a dinner menu item, our waitperson makes it happen.

We have a delicious meal, do some serious Dublin people-watching, and feel very welcome in this very welcoming country of Ireland.

As in most of the rest of the planet, there is no rush for us to leave. The meal is leisurely and the service relaxed. We actually have to ask for the bill, and have a chance to chat with our waitress (yes, now I refer to her with this noun). She asks where we are from, and we tell her America. She asks where, and we say Connecticut. We begin to describe where that is, and she says “Oh, I know. I lived near Philadelphia for a while.” Noting an accent, Steve asks her country of origin. It’s Chile! We ask further how it is she ended up in Dublin. She answers that she came here to improve her English. 

We are extremely impressed with this brave and ambitious young lady. As mentioned before, this is a young person’s town, and probably 80% of the people in the places we have been here are staffed with people from other lands. As interested as both of us are in immigration, we find this a very interesting phenomenon. America isn’t the only place full of young people full of curiosity and ambition and the courage to upend their lives to follow their dreams. We are very impressed.

Back to the hotel. Needless to say, we are ready for the sack. We have learned a valuable travel lesson, especially when taking an eastbound flight across the Atlantic Ocean. If you leave in the evening, you are going to arrive at your destination VERY EARLY the next day, and you will not get nearly enough (or, if you are Steve, any) rest whatsoever. Then you will arrive at your hotel hours before you can get into a room. What to do? Answer for us: book the room for the night before. Bite the bullet. Minimize the jet lag and get your adventure started out right.

So that’s our first day, or what we can remember of it.  More of Dublin tomorrow morning before heading for Nautica.