From Kev:
Subject: greetings from Dublin, Rep of Ireland
Date: Wednesday, 3 September 2008 11:50 PM
Hello all
Spending our first full day in Ireland doing the tourist thing in Dublin and we needed a seat so decided to spend some money while sitting (in an Internet cafe). We've just visited the Chester Beatty Library which houses the lifetime collection of Mr Beatty, a Dublin resident before his death at 93 years in 1968. It features mainly ancient manuscripts and state of the art (at the time, going back several thousand years in all cultures) examples of the book builder's art, most of which are not viewable anywhere else.
All going well so far, weather does not disappoint us as we weren't expecting much anyway. It's quite cool with occasional showers but the inside of the pubs is cosy and so I think that we'll find another soon and spend some time talking to the locals over a pint of Guinness.
Had a fun stopover in Singapore, and were as ready as we could be for the 15 hour haul to Manchester/Dublin which inevitably followed. Nevertheless we were very glad to disembark at Dublin and were especially glad to be reunited with our luggage which had miraculously survived being crossloaded at Manchester from Singapore Airlines to Aer Lingus, as were its owners. A trouble-free hire car pick up at Dublin Airport served to further comfort us and an hour or so later we were ensconced in our tiny but adequate room in a B&B at Dalkey (pron: Dolkey), a seaside village on the SE outskirts of Dublin.
It's really great to be able to speak the local language, for once and I've already been complimented on my Irish accent, which I intend to work on in the
next three weeks or so by visiting as many bars as possible.
Off to the Wicklow Mountains area tomorrow. Hope all is well with you.
pics from Dublin area
Mary in bar with bottles: Here they sell wine in 1/4 sized bottles. This pic shows M trying to choose from the red wines available. She chose a South African wine and kept the empty as a souvenir.
Seafront view with bench seat in right foreground: This photo was taken near where we stayed in Dalkey. It's just a shot of the seafront area at low tide.
Plaque: This plaque was affixed to the seat which features in the pic above
Lady in bathers and man changing: On my early morning walk in Dalkey, all rugged up wearing a beanie plus four layers of clothing, I happened on a sea-bathing facility. To me it was freezing, but several locals were in the water, including the lady in the pic, who said to me "You must think we're mad!". "Yep", I replied. Note the sign ref dress requirements. I was told that this was often ignored. The pic was taken at the dressing shed, open to the elements and used by all sexes.
Regards
Kev
From Mary:
Subject: Hi from Mary in Dublin
Date: Thursday, 4 September 2008 12:20 AM
Hi All,
This internet cafe is in the famous Grafton St in Dublin. It's a very trendy shopping street with lots of people busking as well. Very colourful. We came in to get out of the cold, drizzly weather - it's a lot like Melbourne weatherwise I think. We've walked around Temple Bar and Dublin Castle and will go to Trinity College after this. Then we'll look for a pub to sit in I think.
The trip over was very tiring, especially the second leg from Singapore to Dublin via Manchester. Singapore Airlines had Kevin and me sitting separately on either side of the aisle which was OK until the two people next to me wanted to go to the toilet. I don't sleep well on planes but had just got off (Kevin reckons I was snoring) when they tapped me on the shoulder. They did it again later too. Kevin had two young heavily tattooed Welsh men sitting next to him but they turned out to be OK despite their looks.
Anyway, we arrived in Dublin eventually and picked up the little car without any trouble. It's great to be driving on the same side of the road but there's a lot of traffic. We arrived in Dalkey OK but had to call on one of the locals to get us to the B+B. Not many of the streets are named so it was a bit hard to see where we had to go. Anyway, we eventually got there and fell into bed for a couple of hours. Then we ventured out to a funny old pub where we had an early dinner and went back to bed. At the pub these three fat ladies walked in and sat near us. We thought they were locals and imagine our surprise this morning when they walked into the breakfast room at the B+B. They weren't locals at all but were from Manchester. They sounded Irish to us.
No more news.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Cheers,
Mary (Mum)
No comments:
Post a Comment