Day One in Dublin

Should we be concerned that as we walked down Lord Edwards St and what could well be city hall (or maybe I am making that up), we cut through a sidewalk demonstration of men and women protesting something about bin tax but with the words Sinn Fein on their placards? I got a little (as Emma used to say) 'nuh-vuss' but kept on walking, as it is usually better to do in such situations. (I'm remembering the 'manifestacion' during the general election in Mexico City when we were there in 2005 and how out of control it felt to be caught in the middle of it. It is better to steer clear of any street activity that Christiane Amanpour is likely to be covering. No such activity here, but I've had a lot of coffee.)

So here I am, in DUBLIN. Wow. The 737 landed in darkness, with just the lights of the city showing anything Irish from the sky. Walking out of the well-used airport to the carpark with none other than himself, Paddy Ryan, leading the way, I was struck by how dark the sky was and how the dark clouds seemed low enough to reach up and touch. Paddy was the fellow holding a sign with my name on it as I came through baggage claim. He drove me into town and dropped me at the hotel, all the while reminding me of one of my uncles.

In fact, a lot of the men here remind me of the Leadem boys. Who knew so many people in Dublin would look so, well, Irish?! It's like a huge casting call for a Eugene O'Neill summer stock company. The characters from Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake walk by, heads tucked, looking somehow sad and happy at the same time, nodding if eye contact is made.

The guy across the aisle and one up on the plane looked exactly like my brother Frank, if you could somehow lift the transparency containing all the Italian features from the picture. He was funny. He and a bunch of his very large and burly and, truth be told, perhaps a little buzzed from the airport bar buddies filled all but one seat in the row in front of me, left and right. I believe at least one of them had a former career as a boxer. Down the aisle came a hapless man, young and lean and perhaps eastern European in origin, looking at his ticket and, in the moment when he realized he'd be cramming his scrawny self into the row with two hefty Irish lads, registering the fact with bare dismay. The one who reminded me so much of my brother Frank said, loudly, 'Aye, and you'll be wishing you were travelin' wit the baggage before this trip is over.' Made me laugh out loud. Which prompted immediate conversation--well, monologue (they were Irish, after all)--over the seats. One warned me that the other was nothin' but a predator, and then offered me a candy. And then they chatted on, offering to lift my backpack to the overhead bin and telling me about themselves. I understood about 30% of it all and just laughed. And that's how the flight took off.

So thumbs up for Continental, where the spiffy flight attendants are actually attentive, and they feed you. I guess I fly Southwest too much to know any better. And get this--they have a little touch screen on the back of every seat, and little headphones in the pillow/blanket bag, and you can watch any of 19 movies or listen to 50 albums. So I'm flying over the Great Banks listening to Exile on Main St. and Billie Holliday before getting out my own iPod for the long haul. The Stones at 30,000 feet, watching a little animated flight plan move us closer to Dublin by the hour.

Fun moment in Dublin airport between the passport stamping and the luggage claiming: Got caught walking among a bevy of veiled flight attendants from Qatar Air. I was the big black crow amid the fluttering little starlings, all chattering to one another, fragrant with their duty free designer perfumes. There was a moment.

OK, so I know most of the people in the airport were speaking English, but I swear I understood more that was spoken to me en Espanol in Mexico City than I did this morning. I have to learn a new way of listening.

So Paddy is driving the VW van up McConnell St and he gestures with his right hand and says, that'll be the post office. There was a bit of an uprising there back in 1918 or so. I'm like, you mean the Easter Rebellion?!? He says, ah, yes, you know of it? So I'm rubbernecking at this historical edifice as he chats on about how the city won't let developers touch the facades of the building. I had chills.

I checked into the Jury's Inn Christ Church, so named because it is directly across the street from the one and same Christ Church Cathedral, where construction started in about 1050. Apparently the plumbing in the hotel was installed at about the same time. It is a bleak affair of a hotel. Maybe not 1050, but think somewhere on the far right of the European map during the height of the cold war. Oh my.

FYI, the folks with the Sinn Fein signs are now chanting across the street.

So I dumped my stuff in the aforementioned dreary hotel and took a little nap, since it was only about 8 a.m. by the time I got there. And then I bundled up and headed out to see what I could see. I like to just start walking, turn down a street, walk some more, turn up an alley, keep walking, and so on, getting the lay of the land. (I have been blessed with my father's sense of direction. Thanks, Dad!) I was somewhere on St. George's St. when the rain, misty until then, became a spitting drizzle. The wind blew off my hood one too many times. I tucked in to a cafe, where a Polish girl took my coffee order and a Chinese barrista poured it, and I sat at a little table and drank it, watching the street traffic. Umbrellas don't stand up to the wind, it seems. Everyone just gets wet and keeps walking.

The music in the cafe was some Euro alternative stuff I didn't recognize, followed by Petula Clark's Downtown, and then REM singing End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine). Both songs seemed apt for the moment.

Dublin seems a hip, youngish city. I'm way older than what I'd guess the median age to be. Lots of languages, lots of facial structures, lots of young adults from someplace else.

So I spent most of the day walking and dodging the rainfalls, getting a couple of coffees along the way. I chuckled at one point when an older gentleman in a tweed cap stopped and asked me, in a brogue, for directions. I smiled and shook my head (but felt way cool for looking enough like a local that he would ask, or perhaps he didn't see well...) I went into Dunne's, a nifty food store (Kyle would love it) and bought Belgian hummus to take back to the hotel for lunch with the carrots I'd packed for the flight.

In the afternoon I went over to poke around Christ Church Cathedral and enjoyed that very much, including the spooky crypt where all kind of marvelous artifacts from centuries of altar action are kept. Oh, and guess what they have there? The mummified remains of the cat and mouse that Joyce mentions in Finnegan's Wake. As the story goes, a cat chased a mouse into a big organ pipe and they both got stuck there. So now the mummified remains are on display. Who knew? On the main floor, there was a sweet Lady Chapel with a beautifully embroidered altar cloth. The church is open to the public for services, and I want to go back. Those Anglicans do a church right. No candles to light and no bleeding statuary of martyred saints, but I'll get over it. I want to stand in the two story high pulpit. I wonder if the deacon could be persuaded to let me try.

It was wonderful to meet up with Jo in mid afternoon. She took me walking again to show me routes to cool things I will do on my own for the next few days, including Trinity College and the Temple Bar district and Ha'Penny Bridge over the River Liffey and all the places I am itching to see. We are right in the middle of Dublin, where everything seems walkable. I like to walk. Moving under one's own power is a good thing. I was thinking back three years to when I was so weak. To be walking around Dublin in the rain this November is just another in a series of blessings in my life.

Dublin has every cuisine imaginable, so for two girls from Grove City, where the culinary options are severely limited, it is wondrous indeed. (We get this way in cities, in general!) We ended up tonight in a beautiful Thai restaurant with big chairs upholstered in rose and olive velveteen, and lovely carved statues in little nooks all around. So my first meal in Dublin, if you don't count the Belgian hummus (why import chickpeas from Belgium, I wonder?) was Phad Thai. It was really good.

It's cold and windy this evening, and we're in a warm internet cafe run by a guy who looks like Luka Kovach on ER. Very handsome. The guy to my right is shopping for cars online. Jo is to my left, answering email. The clock is ticking, and it's time to go.

So, what have we learned today? That there are lots of Irish people in Ireland--and lots of folks from Other Places, too. That the natives may be speaking English, but my ears aren't yet translating most of it as such. That it rains a lot and no one much seems to care. That there is much to see and do, and the adventure is just beginning!

As Paddy Ryan said to me this morning, 'Aye, it's a grand city, Dublin.'