Arrival in Dublin

For my first two nights in Dublin, I was couchsurfing with a guy named Ronan.  Before I left Birmingham, he sent me detailed directions to his house, which I meticulously copied into my journal for future reference.  In hindsight, this is the only clever thing I've ever done in my life.  Reason: streets in Dublin are not very clearly marked, and by that I mean that they are not marked at all.  If they are marked, the sign is intentionally placed behind a bush or flipped the wrong way around in what is obviously a joke on the throngs of tourists that get lost there every day.  When you ride the bus, you have to intuitively guess which stop to get off at, or else you can ask the driver, in which case he might remember to tell you.  Luckily, my driver remembered, and three elderly gentlemen carrying canes and sporting bowler's caps (no, they were not James Joyce) escorted me from the bus stop to my destination, simply because Dubliners are the nicest, most helpful people on the planet.  (No sarcasm here, my friends.... the friendliness of the Irish is unparalleled!)

When I arrived at Ronan's house, despite being tired, smelly, sweaty, frazzled, and confused, I sat and talked to my host for an hour or so in his kitchen while he poured tea and I chugged water like I was trying to drown myself.  He was a great guy, and told me lots of interesting points of Irish trivia (people in Dublin hate Bono as much as I do) and we had a lot of good laughs.  I was originally set up to sleep on the couch in the living room, but his roommate happened to be out of town for the week, so I got my own room with my own bed and sink!  Fabulous.  After having a chat and the grand tour, it was time for a shower and then leaving to meet with friends.

I met Jenny and Rick at the Spire in the city center.  They had been in Dublin for several days already, and were very helpful in explaining just how things worked in the city.  The Spire, at 700 feet tall, is an excellent meeting-place, and you'll often see tour groups with matching t-shirts gathering there.  So, what was the first thing I did in Dublin with my new friends?  To the pub, of course!  We picked one at random (there are so many, it would be impossible to make an informed decision) and I had my first real Irish Guinness along with some chicken and veggie soup, served with homemade brown bread and butter.  Soup, by the way, is a budget traveler's dream.  At €5 for a very large bowl of homemade soup and a giant basket of hearty brown bread, soup is more filling and half the price of pretty much anything else on the menu.  I have actually had soup every single day that I've been here, at every meal, and I'm addicted.

After some great craic (pronounced "crack", it's a general term for having a good time), we headed back to Jenny and Rick's guesthouse to relax before my first big night out in Dublin.... but that's another story entirely.