Dawn Xiana Moon: Intelligent folk pop with influences from jazz and traditional Chinese music. From Chicago.

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Thursday, October 01, 2009

Highlights from Ireland

Reading Joyce's Dubliners in a cafe and realizing that the coffee company mentioned in one of the stories was Bewley's. Guess the name of the cafe I was reading in? Exactly. It's been around since 1840.

Teaching two Israelis how to play euchre, a highly Midwestern game, in the middle of St. Stephen's Green.

Giant's Causeway. But I've already mentioned that.

Being amused at Belfast's imaginative names for their monuments. There's the Salmon of Wisdom (not Knowledge, as the link says) and the Thing with the Ring.

Getting help from not one, but three very kind bus drivers (and an Irish woman, who also missed her stop) on our first trip back to our hosts' house. A route map for the Dublin bus system does not seem to exist. What exists is a map with stops (with a separate page listing which buses go to each stop) and no clear way to route between buses (Google hasn't mapped this out for us yet). And the stop we needed that day does not have a name or landmarks of any kind.

The Irish trio at Peadar O'Donnells in Derry.

Seeing the Long Room at Trinity College, also known as the Old Library.

Hanging out in the oldest pub in Belfast, if just for a half hour. But we were right next to the fireplace. Mmmm.

Swing dancing with a Canadian on Grafton Street because the (entirely amplified) band on the corner was playing blues. This was the best dancing moment of the trip.

Dancing with lindy hoppers from twelve countries.

Getting locked in a garage/warehouse with lindy hoppers from twelve countries. Seriously. They locked the door for the late night venue once everyone was inside and you had to find the person with the key in order to get out.

Labels: Belfast, Dublin, Ireland, travel

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Monday, September 07, 2009

A Primer in Luring Tourists

Phase 1: Mention Vikings. Phase 3: Profit! But what's Phase 2?

Stained Glass, Dublin

Dublinia would have been much better if we were in elementary school. But even then, some placards had grammatical errors, one needed updating (2007 was in the future), and enough paint had worn off others that letters from multiple words were missing. The verdict? Half interesting history lesson and half boring. However, the building itself is beautiful, and it's worth walking around the entire exterior.

Speaking of Vikings, the oldest of Dublin's two medieval cathedrals was built by a Viking king. Most of Christ Church Cathedral was built and rebuilt centuries after the original, so it's not terribly different from other cathedrals, but the crypt is still medieval. We heard the choir rehearsing for evensong while we were there, and they sounded amazing. Interesting find: the crypt has a mummified cat and mouse on display - apparently they were running through the organ pipes and got stuck. They're famous: James Joyce references the cat and mouse in Finnegan's Wake.

After much walking, we were hungry. Leo Burdock's Traditional Fish and Chips has nowhere to sit, so we ordered food and walked a few blocks down the road to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which has a large garden (with an homage to Ireland's writers). We sat down and noticed the people on the bench next to us were also carrying paper bags from the same chippie. And so were the people near the fountain. Great minds think alike.

To finish the day, we decided to look for some music. Arlington Hotel Bar was recommended on Couchsurfing Zone Dublin (which is run by locals) as a good place for Irish music and dancing. Why it was recommended, I have no idea, because the bar was packed with tourists, the music consisted of boring covers backed up by synthesizer and guitar (to be fair, they did play two traditional Irish songs), and two of the four dancers looked like they hated their lives. The dancing was fine, but the men looked like they wanted to be anywhere but on stage for a crowd of tourists - who didn't notice, and cheered and hooted anyway.

Labels: Dublin, Ireland, travel

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Sunday, September 06, 2009

Greetings from Dublin

I love wandering through cities on foot - it's the best way to get a sense of a new place, and it's always fun to discover interesting shops and architecture. On a map, Dublin's city center looks much larger than it is - everything is just a few minutes' walk, and it's much more tightly condensed than Chicago (even if you were to limit yourself to the Loop). All day, I stumbled across places that I'd read about in articles or seen photos of, completely unintentionally. Flamenco in Dublin

Carolyn, a fellow swing dancer and friend from my Michigan days, and I arrived in the center around 8:00am, and much to our surprise, the streets were empty and most of the cafes were closed. Apparently Dublin wakes up late on the weekend. For breakfast, we wandered over to the Temple Bar Food Market, where everything looked amazing - it's actually not a very large outdoor market, but I could have eaten there all week. Unfortunately they're only open on Saturdays. After much deliberation, we both decided on Guinness steak pies, which we ate while listening to the musician in the photo on the left play flamenco guitar. The pies were crisp, with a fluffy crust, and full of flavor.

Grafton Street felt familiar, even though this was my first trip to Dublin. After watching a marionette dancing to Macy Gray, a giant leprechaun, a "coin-operated" man, living statues, and scores of musicians, I realized that Once must have been filmed on Grafton. (When I returned later to my computer, I discovered that Glen Hansard, the actor/musician from the film, and Damien Rice both used to busk there - which makes some sense, since the quality of the performers today was surprisingly high).

St. Ann's Church

The River Liffey is Dublin's equivalent of the Seine - it's similar to Paris in that the river divides portions of the city and its banks are walled in by stone. A few artists have booths along the north side, and I bought a black and white print there for my brother, an amateur photographer. With our accents, Dubliners can immediately tell that Carolyn and I are from the States, and they all ask where we're from. When I mentioned Chicago, the photographer exclaimed, "Obama's from Chicago!" He was relieved that Bush is no longer in office. Almost everyone we talk to mentions Obama, and a man selling scarves from a small storefront even knew our mayor: "You know the Irish, your mayor's name is Daley."

Dinner was at the restaurant of the first chef in Ireland to earn two Michelin stars, Kevin Thornton. They're running a special pre-theatre menu that effectively is a way to eat three courses (plus a chef's choice starter) at Thornton's for the price of an entree from their a la carte menu. While our meal was good, I have to say that I wasn't blown away. Across the board, the presentation was beautiful - I've never seen anyone else serve tea the way that they do - but the dishes themselves did not amaze me. In spite of this, it was fun to meet Thornton himself, who popped out of the kitchen for a few minutes to greet all of the guests who were seated before the main dinner rush.

All in all, it was an excellent first day.

Labels: Dublin, food, Ireland, travel

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Saturday, September 05, 2009

Flying to Dublin

I can't remember the last time I used the in-flight entertainment system on an American carrier - on a recent (long) flight, the TV screen in the aisle was flickering and the larger one for our entire section wasn't working. Flying to Dublin yesterday on Aer Lingus, which is considered a discount carrier, I got a large, personal touchscreen that allowed me to choose from video games, TV shows, movies, and music. And they gave us headphones (which most US airlines charge for these days). To add to all of that, we made excellent time and arrived in Dublin early. An hour early.

If this is "behaving like a discount carrier," the US airlines need to take note.

Labels: Dublin, flights, Ireland, travel

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