Thoughts on Dublin

The June marathon of weekend trips continued with a trip to Dublin at the end of the month. My friend Hailey was studying in Florence and wanted one last destination after a week in Amsterdam. I was looking forward to checking another national capital off my list.

We spent Friday night exploring the Temple Bar area and some of the Irish pubs (or as they call them there, pubs). First, was dinner. I tried the Guinness beef stew, with what else but a Guinness:

Next, we visited a couple of the aforementioned pubs (here's an example of one):
It was great to find Guinness on tap everywhere, and also my favorite Irish Beer, Murphy's Ale.

The next day we hit the town for some sightseeing. The key attractions were Trinity College, the Guinness Storehouse, Grafton Street, and the two main churches. Here's a couple of pictures:

While in Dublin, I realized that this was my first venture into an English speaking country since my visit to the US for Christmas. It was strange to be in an English speaking country again. For example, I've become accustomed to automatically deeming any restaurant with an English menu posted outside to be a tourist trap. It was refreshing to not have to think about language. That said, the Irish speak with a very strong accent and it can be difficult to recognize that people were actually speaking English. Several times I thought people were speaking Gaelic (the official Irish language), only later to find out that it was in fact English.

So, my thoughts on Dublin? The city is low on great sights, but it's people and its pub culture make it a great stop. First, this city probably has the friendliest people of any city in Europe. Everyone, from restaurant staff, strangers on the street, and even the bums asking for change were super friendly. We were able to watch the US - Ghana world cup game at a bar in Dublin and the locals were not only cheering for the US, but very friendly towards us once they recognized we were from the US. Second, the pub culture here really is awesome. Just like all those Irish pubs at home, but the real deal. There's a reason that just about every city I've ever visited has at least one Irish pub.

I had never been too enthralled with the idea of Ireland as a destination. It has a reputation for lousy weather, mediocre food, and it seemed like a fairly "vanilla" English-speaking destination. I feel confident that I can cross Dublin off the list, as I've seen and experienced what it has to offer. However, the friendliness of the people and the great culture has piqued my interest in returning to Ireland in the future (but next time I'll see the cliffs and the countryside).