In which we delight in Dublin (Part I).

Dublin, December 2013: The mini-trip that almost didn’t happen thanks to a little storm named Xaver. Big winds, rains, hales, snows and such were forecasted for the afternoon & night preceding travel day, cancelling flights far in advance and causing my boss to send the whole department home early. The predicted celestial mess did in fact arrive as anticipated and its hurricane-esque winds plus high tide managed to up the Elbe, which was quite content to make itself comfortable all over the harbor and HafenCity. My warm, soup-flooded apartment provided a cozy contrast to the trees whipping at the windows, to the rain, to the hale, and the couple excursions onto the balcony were short-lived to say the least. The winds were still blowing when I arose in the December darkness the next morning and debated whether or not to attempt the risky travel shenanigans that lay ahead, namely S-Bahn to Hauptbahnhof, then train-Bahn to Bremen, then to airport. As my telephone is not of the particularly intelligent variety, I wouldn’t be able to check to see if my flight had been cancelled before taking the hour+ train ride to the airport -- that is, if the trains were running. The internet reported that the flight was still on-time by the time I needed to leave and I did very much want to visit my Darling Dubliner, so off I went. S-Bahn was late but running, trains were totally out of whack at the Hauptbahnhof but I was able to catch an extremely delayed one to my desired destination and got there with more than enough time to spare.

Trains leaving Hamburg going south always get a spectacular view of the harbor and steepled skyline, and in this case, of flooding galore. The train had been barely crawling down the track for about 15 minutes when the conductor announced that all the power had gone out at the Hauptbahnhof, meaning that they were driving in an unsafe state of non-communicado. Power and safety were soon reunited and we were on our way through a healthy mix of sun, sleet, rain, and snow. Got to the airport far too early and kicked back in the ryanair warehouse upper level, enjoying the sun that visited now and again along with the other passengers in front of me, though without the Rotkäppchen sparkling wine.

The view leaving Bremen was worth the trek in itself, showing off an excellent cloud display, storm-snowy fields, and more flooding – all of which look pretty cheery through a lens of bright sunshine. I then went into half-sleep-mode as the airline tried without success to make me buy buy buy things, then half-awaking as the Emerald Isle came into view below.

/snooze//snooze//snooze/

Taking the typical double-decker bus into the city proved to be a very entertaining experience, thanks to the red-haired English girl sprawling herself all over the seats and window space in the front row while singing “The Farmer in the Dell” in a teeny-tiny-but-loud-and-pitch-perfect voice and the Californian guy across the aisle chatting with a young couple from Berlin about his several-month-long European tour. He mentioned having visited a friend in Hamburg and having really liked it there, so much so that he was considering looking at grad programs, though Berlin would probably better for non-German speakers like himself. I felt very sneaky eavesdropping on their conversation, and even sneakier as I eavesdropped on the German’s conversation after the Ami had departed and they had switched back to their native language. Natürlich ist es beeindruckend, dass er so viele Länder besucht hatte, klar, klar, aber MANN, so viele Sofas… So viel Alkohol…? Das wär ja nix für mich.

The Darling Dubliner (a theatre friend who had studied abroad in Hamburg the year we survived 1984 together) was there to meet me as I hopped off the bus and whisked me across the street to show off his alma mater, including Trinity’s exquisite Book of Kells exhibit in the Old Library, home to the jaw-dropping, heart-warming long room, surely high on the list of the world’s most beautiful libraries (I did just find it on the third “best of” list I explored while agoogling, but in the meantime did a lot of spontaneous, uncontrollable drooling over the other libraries on the list – Warning! Procrastination hazard!). The evening set in with good food, good friends, ridiculous jay-walking, and – naturally a highlight – having the privilege of attending Darling Dubliner’s cubs meeting. So many wee (and hyper) Irish children with Irish names and accents and bandanas (and macarena obsessions – whyohwhy did I not think to take a video of that? – Oh, probably because I was doing the macarena, too).

After a morning of delicious sleep & porridge (hee hee, porridge!), we put ourselves back on the bus and coasted our way back into the city for a round or two of exploration/show-Margaret-the-cool-stuff. Never having been to Ireland before, I had only heard about its political, etc. hardships and histories from afar. Being there brought its history, particularly the violent side, into much clearer view. One stop we made was at the Garden of Remembrance, created for all who died for Irish freedom. I liked how it kindof sank below traffic level, giving it an air of quiet escape. The poem on the wall was very well-selected (though I’m a sucker for first or last lines that use “O” as an invocation); the Darling Dubliner just said the Irish version was a lot better. I’ve no doubt of this, though my squat comprehension of that most silly-looking language renders any other interpretation useless.    

A propos Irish, listening to it being spoken by Irish people somehow still didn’t make it seem legit for me. It sounded like people were speaking a different foreign language with a strong Irish accent (which makes sense. Of course, because they were, except that it’s not an accent… it just… is). I think this was because I was used to hearing German being spoken with an Irish accent. Anyway, totally intriguing, but not tackle-able enough to even think about tackling over a three day period. I thought about learning a few basics and asked what “yes” and “no” were, and when it was explained that, actually, there was no “yes” or “no”, but rather…, I decided to think about other things instead.

Probably my favorite moment of that day was when we wandered over to the castle just in time to catch a choir decked out in Santa hats and reindeer antlers (sometimes both on the same noggin) sing Christmas carols. It was early December and I hadn’t really gotten any xmasy feelings yet up to then. Darling Dubliner and I sang along to the traditionals from the sidelines and a charming little girl (in a fabulous pea coat) experimented in what happens when you spin around and around and around and around, only stopping when she crashed into her father’s legs after much flailing and wobbling. It made me want to throw up on her behalf, though thankfully that didn’t happen on either of our parts.

Later on we wandered into the Christ Church Cathedral, where a Christmas craft market was taking place in the crypt. The sparkly jewellery and little felt creatures somehow seemed out of place in the deep, dark, low-ceilinged and cool-aired chamber, but that didn’t seem to affect the many visitors of all ages and sizes. Back upstairs, it was a beautiful church, though unfortunately I don’t think I admired it as extensively as I should have because I was far too busy looking at the floor. This floor! What a floor! What a glorious, glorious floor! 

We wandered around town as the evening joined us for fish&chips and other goodies. A couple observations:

Okay, one thing that I was expecting of Dublin was that it would somewhat remind me of Edinburgh, which it did. One thing that I was totally unprepared for in Dublin was its elaborate and, well, confident array of tacky holiday sweaters/jumpers. I’m not just talking Santas and snowflakes here – I mean the whole works: stripes, spots, sparkles, reindeer, rhinestones, light-up & strobing Christmas trees and Rudolph noses that guide the wearer down dark, cobblestone streets in a kind of Olde Dublin Xmas Rave, and colours that seemed to stand proudly atop the North Pole, stretch out their colourful arms, and let out a primal holiday scream, daring you to avert your eyes or even blink. … Okay, so I’m hyperbolizing, whatever, but entertaining they were. I told Darling Dubliner about how such garments were usually only purchased for “ugly sweater parties” (or in which to dress your children for the traditional holiday photo that may or may not mortify them years later) in the States, to which he replied that, ähm, no, people just wore them. Just because. I’m still on the fence about whether I really, really like this and wish we could import it or if the Christmas jumper thing should be contained to its quirky island home. … Come to think of it, I haven’t actually experienced Christmas in the States for a few years – is this a thing now? Kann das sein?

Na ja, end of rant. The night ended with amazing chai, squishy sofas, steamy bus windows (hee hee, that implies all sorts of things), and another round of sweet, sweet sleep.