7/9/10 - Ireland Summary

Day 1

We arrive in Dublin and take a taxi to our Air BnB place. We get to our Air BnB place - it’s a really cute house. The kids are excited as this is the largest place we’ve gotten and we can spread out. We even have a backyard. The laundry is yet again a single unit to do both washer and dryer which I am highly suspicious of after the laundry fiasco in Edinburgh.  John informs me that Ireland can be summed up by Church’s, Parks, Pubs and Doors. 

Day 2

John has planned day two for us.  Surprising us, the kids make it out of the house before we go to a museum and we meet up with them after to go to the Archeology museum. Next, on to the Museum of Dublin.  It was cool in a sense that they had hundreds of pictures, artifacts and the likes in one room.   However; I must be suffering the dreaded museum fatigue.  The tour guide sounds like the teacher in the Charlie Brown shows (won, wan, won, wan).  The main thing I remember is that the tour guide was at a loss to explain the connection between a wooden carved crocodile and Dublin.  “It just showed up here on day” he responds when asked. 

I’m hoping the trifecta of a diet Coke, Red Bull and Starbucks Mocha will jump start me in the afternoon without putting me in a hospital with a caffeine overdose.  It seems to be working as I’m feeling more energetic at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  It is really awe inspiring; especially the stain glass windows. 

We walk over to Grafton Street which is closed to traffic.  It is Saturday and there are musicians playing, street entertainers and people everywhere.  It reminds me of Venice Beach but alas no Jimmy Hendrix on roller skate’s sightings.  I could stay there all afternoon but we have YAMTGT (yet another museum to go to).  This one is the Irish Heritage museum.  Leanne and I have Irish ancestry so we connect with our past here.  It is a great museum - very interactive. 

Our friend Charlie from business school drove 2 hours from Kilkenny for dinner at Roly’s Bistro.  He has been living in Ireland for 3 years.  It was great catching up with him and introducing him to our kids.  We walk back after dinner and log 8 miles walking for the day.      

Day 3

Our intrepid travel agent John found a Game of Thrones (GOT) tour out of Dublin for Leanne and me.  The bus tour traveled to Northern Ireland to many of the sites used in the filming the show. You have to be 18 or older to go so we have an all-day bus date without the kids.  We rationalize that the kids really need a “free” day to recover and watch Netflix and this a once in a lifetime opportunity for us.

On our walk over, Leanne says “you know we might we be the only people over 40 on this tour.”  We arrive and Leanne is mostly right but we are relived that there is one couple older than us.  That is until the tour starts and the tour guide asks if there is anyone on the bus who has never seen GOT.  Sure enough the older couple raises their hand.  Puzzled, Leanne says “why would you go on a GOT tour if you’ve never seen GOT?” I respond, “they probably thought it was a trivia game about the Royal Family.” Well, I guess that makes us the oldest people on the bus who’ve actually seen GOT.

We cross the border into Northern Ireland and Leanne looks at me and says, “you know our kids are in another country than we are right now.”  Oh well, too late to go back now.  We watch a documentary on the making of GOT and then come quiz time.We have to take a 10 question quiz and the winner will be crowned “King of the North” for the day.  We manage to get 5 out of 10 right which I am fairly relieved at given we’ve only seen each season once. We feel better when one college student who was at our table at lunch had watched every episode of every season 5 times and he got 8 out of 10 right.  Apparently, college students have more free time than we do.  

The winner gets 10 out of 10 and wins the tie-breaker question.  Turns out that he has read all the books as well as watched the series. I make a note to self to tell the kids if they ever want to win a trivia game on a bus tour about a movie or TV series, they need to read the book and not just watch the movie / show. The tour guide asks who got the lowest score and eventually ferrets out the poor guy who only got 3 right.  She says when we dress up later, he’ll get John Snow’s sword because when it comes to GOT, You Know Nothing! I thank my lucky stars I beat that guy out.

Our first stop is at Tallymore National Forest.  It is a walking tour and we walk deeper and deeper into the ever thickening forest. We see the places where they filmed the opening scene in the Wildling Pit, where John Snow and Tyrion camped on the way to the wall and where the Starks find the Dire Wolves. The forest is right out of a magical setting, tranquil and serene. 

We stop at a nearby small town for lunch.  The entire town has been transformed into a GOT town.  We talk to the college student with too much time on his hands and his girlfriend and he says he came here just for this tour.  Leanne asks where he’s from and he says “Taiwan.” I gag on my Winterfell Tankard and think you have to be kidding me.  “You flew all the way from Taiwan to go on this tour?” I asked incredulously. “No, no.  I came to London to see my girlfriend and we came to Dublin for the tour.” Flying from London is better than Taiwan at least but this guy is clearly serious about GOT.  Leanne and I can identify all the House flags in the banquet hall but one so I ask our new friend.  He answers but whilst giving me a look that says, “you seriously don’t know which House flag that is?” I am left feeling unworthy and thinking that I should have asked to be seated at a table with other GOT newbies. 

While we are eating, this guy comes in who looks like he was straight out of the movie with huge flowing hair and long flowing beard.  He tells us the story of how he bought two northern Inuit dogs (they are closest breed to a wolf).  Two weeks later he gets a call saying this TV series wants to use the dogs in the show. Well he parlays two Dire Wolves into an entire GOT family career.  He, the two dogs, his dad and two brothers were all cast in the show and also had jobs in casting, picking scene locations and post production editing. We get to meet and take pictures with the dire wolves and family.  The dad has a book of articles on the family that have published all over the world and he has shown to over 500,000 people on tours over the past 9 years.  Some people win the lottery and some people buy two dogs that turn into a winning GOT lottery ticket. Now that’s capitalism at work.

In the afternoon, we go to Castle Ward which is where a lot of Winterfell courtyard scenes were filmed. The tour guide showed us what in the scenes was real and what was computer generated images.  She says, “I bet you are a little disappointed to learn that only ~25% of the scene is actually real.  Yeah, I was disappointed too when I first learned that. Oh well, time to move on to the next scene.”  Hmm…I don’t think they should put her in charge of marketing the GOT tour.  

We go to a place in the woods with a tree along the road.  The tour guide asks if anyone knows what scene involves a character standing up against this tree.  Everyone is stumped except our college lunch friend who says, “oh that’s easy, when Jamie was tied to the tree and Lady Brienne kills the 3 starks on the roadway.”  Did I mention that I think he has too much time on his hands?  

We arrive back at the flat, the kids are just fine and we declare our GOT date day a success!

 Day 4

Similar to London & Edinburgh, we set up a bus tour so the kids can get out of the city and see the countryside.  There weren’t a lot of options so we settle on the Blarney Castle and Cork one knowing it will fall on the touristy side of things. 

We stop for lunch in Cork and one of the passengers asks him if there is anywhere they can buy weed in town.  Oh the bus driver had a field day with that the rest of the day.  He tells us after lunch that the tour has been changed to the puff, puff, pass it on tour.  I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that Ireland is not as open to the concept of recreational pot as let’s say California, Washington or Colorado.  I’m thinking that the Irish government wouldn’t be thrilled having a gaggle of stoned Leprechauns running around scaring the hell out of all the tourists.

We know these bus tours involve a lot of driving but this one seems to have more than London and Edinburgh.  The problem is that Leanne and I spent the entire day yesterday on a bus.  So at this point, I think my butt is molded into the shape of a bus seat.  I’m convinced I’ll be walking around with bus butt the rest of the day.  

We go to Blarney Castle.  Apparently, the whole point of going to there is to kiss the Blarney Stone and get 7 years of eloquent speech (otherwise known as the gift of gab).  My kids are joking that they should charge twice the amount for 14 years of gab and 5 times the amount for a lifetime of gab.  I think to myself that they have a bright future career working for an Internet recurring service business.  

We arrive back and it’s our last dinner in Ireland.  I said when we arrived in Ireland that I was not leaving Dublin until we had dinner with live traditional Irish music.  So we are down to the last night tonight.  We find a place that markets itself as traditional live Irish music.  We get seated and settled and order drinks.  The music starts and the first song is…Pink Floyd. I’m confused.  I’m looking for songs like Danny Boy, Molly Malone, The Wild Rover and I get Wish you were here? That’s it, check please!  We’re out of here.  We go to another pub where the live signer has a noticeable Irish accent and he avoids English cover bands but it’s not what I was hoping for.  Oh well, I guess I’ll to wait until to next time I’m in New York and convince my cousin Brendan (who is amazing at playing and singing live Irish songs) to play for me.

 Day 5 

 Overall, I think Dublin did not live up to our expectations. Given our Irish ancestry and heritage, I think expectations were high and London and Edinburgh were going to be hard to top. Part of it was that Dublin is big and nothing really stood out. Or maybe it was that Irish pub marketing traditional live Irish and then playing Pink Floyd. The Game of Thrones tour was awesome but it was Northern Ireland so I’m not sure Dublin gets credit for that.

 We fly to Seoul, Korea today. I’ve identified the self-service kiosk where you have to print the baggage tag for the checked bags as the one of the biggest bottlenecks for the group. While we all have backpacks, usually they are too big to take as a carry-on so we have to detach the small pack and check the big pack plus we have 3 common bags to check. So we have 7 people, 7 carry-on and 10 checked bags camped out in front a kiosk but we end up blocking three other kiosks. Three bags in and I get an error message. I go up to the counter to ask. She takes one look at us wrecking havoc on the kiosk area and tells us to get our bags and come up to the counter and she will check them all in. 5 minutes later we are done. That would have taken us an hour to do at the kiosk. Score one for Luftansa! The rest of the way goes smoothly and we are off to Korea.

Ireland / Northern Ireland Snapshot

Overall Assessment – somewhat disappointing despite my Irish heritage, expensive, a little bit of a sprawling city where the doors are what stood out the most

Known For – Churches, Parks, Pubs and Doors

Top Highlights – Game of Thrones Tour, 

Activities – Game of Thrones Tour, Grafton St walk, 

Towns – Cork, Downpatrick Square (N Ireland)

Cultural / Historical – Archeology Museum, Museum of Dublin, Irish Heritage Museum, Castle Ward, Blarney Castle

 Geography – Tallymore National Forest, Northern Ireland countryside

Religion – St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Dinners – 51 Bar (Irish Pub), Roly’s Bistro (Steakhouse with Charlie), The Auld Dubliner (Irish Pub), O’Connells (Irish Pub)

 Reminds Me Of – Boston (Dublin)

Interesting people met – Taxi drivers whose favorite topic was to rip on American tech companies setting up their European HQ in Dublin and paying their employees too much driving the housing pricing and making Dublin 3rdone of the most expensive citites in the world

UNESCO Sites – None :-( (there are only 2 sites in all of Ireland and none in Dublin)