Jet Lagged in Dublin

Once we got checked in to our hotel, we immediately took a two hour nap. I took a quick shower in the tub, which you do by pulling the shower curtains around you so you shower in a little column. It’s kind of strange, but there’s so much water coming out of the shower head that it’s fabulous.

Our hotel is right by Trinity College, and Dave wanted to go see the Book of Kells exhibit in the library there, so that was our initial destination. When we got there, there was a huge line to get in, just as Rick Steeves said there would be at that time of day. So we decided to come back later, and went and walked around the Temple Bar area. Some things we noticed: all the official signs are in English and Irish. But almost nobody speaks Irish, so natives and foreigners are reading the same part. It makes all the signs much larger, but helps you remember that you are in a foreign country. Another thing is that within 10 blocks of our hotel you can get pretty much find any kind of food you can think of. We ended up eating at Gallagher’s Boxty House, where we had lamb stew and a corned beef boxty. A Boxty looks like Ethiopian injera breadbut tastes like mashed potatoes (which is what it is). You can buy a box of the mix which has this wonderful slogan: Fry boxty on the griddle/boil boxty in the pan/if you don’t eat boxty/you’ll never get a man.

One of the sites we saw.

As it turns out I had been able to get a man before I ever ate any boxty, so he and I left the restaurant and did more walking around. (It is interesting to speculate on the nature of time and predestination, and wonder if I was able to get the excellent man I did because of the boxty eating that would take place subsequent to that event.) It turned out it was good we ate where we did, because the next street was so filled with so many different kinds of restaurants I think we would have had the paralysis that sets in when there are too many options. Also Gallagher’s was serving traditional Irish food without having a dark interior and authentic people playing and singing traditional Irish songs, which we’re saving for our musical pub tour.

More walking around, including to Dublin Castle and the Ha’penny Bridge, and then back to Trinity for the book of Kells, where there was now no line whatsoever. By this time, unfortunately, lack of sleep was catching up with me, so I did a lot of leaning on things. The exhibit was actually very interesting, and I was fascinated by how the writing in the books looks to me like a combination of the Latin and Arabic alphabets. But my favorite part was the long room, upstairs, which is part of the original library and has very, very high ceilings and books along the walls in alcoves with windows. It looks like the library from a movie and smells perfect. Dave was suddenly struck with an attack of zephyrillis, though, and I was almost asleep, so we left the exhibit and went back to the hotel where I took a nap and Dave did research, and then I worked on the blog.  

We ended up leaving the hotel about 6 to look for dinner, which was a little late given that it’s Friday night in Dublin. I’d found a place on Yelp called The Pig’s Ear which sounded good, but when we got there they didn’t have an openings until 9. So we walked back to a place we’d seen called Farm, that advertised using fresh, local ingredients. (We stopped on the way to solve a small adapter problem – the one we bought to use on my computer didn’t accept a 3 prong plug – should have checked before we left!) They didn’t have anything until 7:15, but as they are only a short distance from our hotel we decided to wait. Instead we walked up to St Stephen’s Green to find the bus stop for tomorrow, and then we heard drumming, so we had to go find it. It was 4 punk looking guys in black tank tops and black kilts, entertaining a crowd. We stopped & got entertained too, then back to the hotel & off to dinner.

Farm Restaurant could be in Portland – it even had the list of providers on the menu. Dave had the best boar belly ever, on top of colcannon. My entrée was good, and both our desserts were totally excellent. Then a short walk back to our hotel, and now it’s bedtime, to try to get on Ireland time.