Dublin
February 2014
I am traveling with my friend Mari Zatman. We arrived at 9:00 am, which means for a long, long day to keep from falling victim to jet lag.
We took a 6 euro ($8.24) bus from the airport to the neighborhood where our hotel is. Fortunately, it was just a few blocks walk.
We are staying at Buswells in the City Center. Buswells is one of the oldest hotels in Dublin made up of several townhouses cobbled together. The lobby is lovely and the rooms functional.
The first thing one should say is that it is true – the Irish are the nicest people. Even customs was delightful, NOT something you would experience in the U.S. Everyone is so helpful, and due to the rather large camera around my neck, we are obviously tourists, and people stop to say – how are you enjoying your holiday?
We really just chose to walk all over the downtown area today with no real plans or stops in mind. It was a great way to get accustomed to the neighborhood without having to concentrate on anything. Everything of interest in Dublin is covered by a stop on the hop on / hop off bus, so tomorrow we will buy a two-day ticket and get around that way.
Dublin is a very, very walkable city, other than always remembering to look the opposite way you think you should when crossing the street. That isn’t even that necessary as Dubliners are as big a jay-walker crowd as New Yorkers and San Franciscans.
Economically, Dublin has quite the same feeling as San Francisco.
House prices in Dublin increased by 10 percent in 2013 and commercial property prices rose by up to 20 percent in 2013. But outside Dublin property prices are still falling and tens of thousands of houses and retail units lie vacant.
In Dublin, the unemployment rate is 12 percent, compared with a regional high of 18.3 percent in Ireland’s southeast. The last county by county analysis, which was carried out in mid-2011, showed one in four people out of work in Donegal, a rural county in the northwest.
This means that you see a considerable amount of homeless begging on the streets. A sign of today’s world for sure, but sad none-the-less.
The architecture of Dublin is a fabulous contrast between 1700’s and futuristic 22nd century. (These two doors are typical of the Georgian architecture that dominates much of Dublin). The area along the riverfront has been repurposed and done so really really beautifully. There is a feeling that it was important to appreciate the character of the city without forcing it down anyone’s throat. I point this out as the complete opposite is happening in the Mission Bay area of San Francisco where the architecture is obviously cheap, shoddy and thrown up with no thought other than saving the owners a dollar or two. I applaud the city planners of Dublin for making the transition from old to new seamless and enjoyable.
Dublin is not cheap. Bangers and Mash and 2 pints for lunch cost me $33US Not terrible but pretty much SF prices. Tipping is pretty much at your discretion, 10% being common, but mainly on food and personal services.
I will close with a fun little spot we tripped over.
This is Oscar Wilde in the park at Merrion Square looking back at his boyhood home. The home is a stately Georgian structure fitting in easily unnoticed on the street. The statue’s nickname is “the Fag on the Crag”, and while I have never read about it, you can bet it is a well known local landmark.
Born in Dublin in 1854, Oscar Wilde attended Trinity College and went on to write The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, among many other satires that have become literary classics.
Persecuted for his flamboyant homosexuality and tweaking Victorian mores, Wilde was arrested for “gross indecency” relating to “the love that dare not speak its name.” He was found guilty, sentenced to two years in jail, and imprisoned. After his release, he wrote the famous poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” based upon a hanging that he witnessed while incarcerated.
We will be taking a Literary Pub Crawl on Thursday night so hoping to have lots more fun author stories after that.
