bono watch: day 2

Fact: The Irish tricolor flag, created in 1848, was designed to reflect the country's political realities. Orange stands for Irish Protestants, green for Irish Catholics and the white stripe for the hope that peace might eventually be reached between them.

Download this: “Here comes the sun” by george Harrison (alternate live version by jewel and rob Thomas)
Why: because apparently the weather today was some of the nicest weather Dublin has seen in the past 3 weeks – gorgeous and sunny (at least by Dublin standards…) the high of 64 is a tad on the low side for me, but I only needed a long sleeve shirt and jeans. No jacket or umbrella required, and it was a good day for sunglasses for the people here who actually own them

For those of you who were wondering, my arm is feeling much better. For those of you who don’t care, too bad. My arm is feeling much better and im starting to get full range of motion back. Its still a little tender right where the old lady poked me though so hopefully that will be gone. Im just happy that I can actually lift my arm up nearly all the way again… not that I really have any reason to, but should I choose to lift my arm, I can without the hurt. Woo hoo. Little things…

So anyway, niall got way carried away with the “fry” this morning that I mentioned in the last post. And you can take a look at the picture if you want to see what I mean. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was going to do the full on irish fry. The amount of food was ridiculous, but I soldiered on and ate as much as I could… even the stupid egg (more on that in a moment). So take a look at the picture and consider this is the list of food we had: rashers (the sausage link things) fried egg, grilled tomato, beans, some ham/bacon thing that I cant remember the name of at the minute (but it pretty much tasted like thick bacon) white pudding and black pudding (neither of which he would tell me what was in them, which I suspect means that I wouldn’t have ate them if I knew. And considering that, i opted to NOT try to look it up on the internet, and I certainly don’t want someone to spoil it for me either by telling me). in addition to the food listed above (that which was directly placed on my plate) there were baguettes and toast too as well as morning tea. To be honest, my stomach was not so happy with how much it had stuffed in it in terms of food and drink the night before which it is definitely not used to, so I wasn’t exactly feeling hungry. Obviously, I needed breakfast, and niall was very excited about making the traditional meal for me (which apparently is only eaten on weekends for the most part) and it actually looked and smelled wonderful, so I went for it… and I ate way more than I needed to. I tried all of it (the tomato and beans were fab, as was the bacon thing) and my catholic guilt kicked in over the egg (I didn’t really mention that I hate eggs because I had already said that I don’t eat mushrooms which are apparently part of a traditional breakfast so he said he wouldn’t make them, and then I didn’t want to sound picky or ungrateful or anything so I sort of just didn’t mention the egg thing) so I sucked it up and ate it and the whole time was like, please don’t be sick or make a face or anything… ugh. Honestly though, everything else was great, even the puddings which like I said, I don’t know whats in it for fear of ruining it. Definitely was way more food than necessary for the two of us, but it was so nice of him to do all of that. I think I nearly went in to a food coma though, especially being that I rarely eat more than a yogurt/granola bar/nuts and coffee for breakfast. Wow, im so going to get fat while im in Dublin with the way that we are eating right now… although, I guess if I get fat now, then ill probably take it all off when I get the pharaoh’s revenge in Egypt (im banking on it since ill probably forget to order no ice in the drink or something) so I guess it will equal out…

Anyway, after breakfast we sorted out the flat and headed out for a day of some sightseeing. First off, I had mentioned that I wanted to get a book of a famous irish author while I was here and I was given a copy of gulliver’s travels (by jonathan swift) by niall who im probably going to get in a fight with if he doesn’t stop being so nice and hospitable (seriously, he goes more than out of his way to do anything for me including to let me pay for most anything… which is nice, but I keep telling him totally unnecessary and that he should let me pay for things because he is already putting me up for a few days which is more than enough, but he wont hear anything of it – think that goes back to the irish hospitality thing but still, its crazy. I DEFINITELY need to send him a very nice and large thank you gift) and then he took me to a book shop near the flat that way if I wanted to get another book I would know a good place to go. We walked on from there to oconnell street which we took down towards the river. As we walked, he made a great tour guide pointing out the statues and explaining why that particular person is famous (hint, most of them were participants in the 1916 uprising) and the history with it. Apparently, quite a few of the rebels ended up holed up in what is now the general post office and you can still see the bullet holes in the front wall from where the british where shooting at the building. Niall’s grandfather incidentally was part of that uprising and was actually one of the ones who were in the post office although eh fortunately did not get the same punishment that some others did (being drawn, quartered, and hung – whatever drawn and quartered means).

From there we walked across the liffey (cant remember if its with or without the e) and down to trinity college. We walked around there a bit and niall pointed out various things (he did his master’s at trinity) and then we went to the library to see the book of kells which was quite cool. Hard to believe that its over 1000 years old and one of the oldest books left in Ireland. Apparently between the Vikings and the british (stupid british imperialists – george III and henry VIII im looking at you particularly), the monasteries kept getting burnt and leveled and contents destroyed so for 2 of the books of kells to survive its pretty amazing. The book of armitage and some other one were also on display, and there was a fantastic history of how the monks make the books and stuff. I cant even imagine how ridiculous it would be to make multiple copies of that by hand. Apparently, they believe based on analysis of style etc, there were two main scribes who did the copying, and then 4 illustrators. Very cool thing to get to see though.

From trinity college we walked to a small park right across the road (archbishop ryan park) where they have this pretty funny statue and tribute to oscar wilde. Not too far from there was the national gallery of Ireland that we spent quite a bit of time exploring. For such a small, new museum, it had a decent number of the more famous artists (velasquez, el grecco, van gogh, monet, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and piccasso) although none of the paintings were the hugely famous ones you always hear about. There was also a special impressionists exhibit that was on at the time, but I might save that for one of the next two days when im on my own. They also had a great display of jack yeats (brother of William butler yeats) who I had not heard of but who was irish and did some great pieces even though they are not as famous as others. Overall, its not a bad little museum.

After that we walked down to saint stephens green which is essentially the big park in the city. It was actually quite a gorgeous day for being in the green, and if one of my days alone are as nice, I think ill probably take a book and stop at marks and spencers to pick up a picnic lunch and just hang out there for a bit since its so nice and lovely with the ponds with the swans and stuff. We did a quick walk along the park and then back out where we walked down grafton street (definitely be back to do some shopping in the next two days) and over towards temple bar. It was later in the afternoon and niall was getting hungry and had a place picked out that he wanted to go for lunch but I talked him out of it (feeling guilty the whole time) because it was a whole 3 course meal which I absolutely couldn’t do after the gigantic breakfast. Seriously, ive done more eating in the past 24 hours than I normally do in several days. I usually do just light lunches too, so even though im sure he was just trying to be helpful, I talked him in to a small café where I could just get a sandwhich or light lunch. Apparently, I cant keep up with the irish way of drinking OR eating. I had a nice tomato, mozzarella and basil ciabbata which was still way too much food, but whatever. I don’t meant to sound like im complaining because im not. All the food has been great so far, but its just so much more than im used to. Nonetheless, im enjoying what im trying.

So after lunch we wandered over to the Dublin castle which included the chester beatty museum that neither of us had heard of so we checked it out. Turned out to be one of the most extensive private libraries ever and there were some seriously rare and amazing books like the qu’ran and such. There was also a special exhibit of etchings by Rembrandt on display there as well that we were able to see.

After all the walking we came back to the flat for a bit to just rest and take a break from being out an about. We talked for a bit about this and that and after a while he put on the news to see what the headlines were. I don’t know if youre getting much coverage of this in the US or not, but apparently Zimbabwe is a huge mess right now with that idiot mugabe having the opposition beaten and such. Sounds to me like that’s going to be the next big messy spot in the world. I absolutely hate the “war on terror” that we’ve got going, but that this point, I think it will definitely keep us from being dragged into that mess down there. Lets hope at least. Im thinking that none of you really care about this whole last paragraph, but whatever…

Obviously, we had to go out for dinner so niall ran a list of different foods past to see if any sounded good to me (I was still not particularly hungry, but im sure he was, and it was getting late). There is a huge variety of ethnic food available here so a lot to choose from. Im kind of curious to try one of the polish restaurants, but since I have only had Indian food once when the girls took me to the Indian place for lunch, and there are so many Indian places here, I decided to give it a try so we were off back to the temple bar area for a place called jaipur. I cant even begin to tell you the Indian names of the things I had, but it was basically boiled potatoes with spinach, something else and a spicy sauce. Niall had this lamb and rice concoction and we had some nan bread (I had lemon rice as well). I managed to deter him from getting more alcohol for dinner because seriously, I only have so many tums with me and I dotn want to destroy my stomach on day 2 of 21. I also completely forgot that they look at you like a 3 headed freak when you ask for tap water here because they all drink bottled water (and often the nasty sparkling stuff at that). The thing is, the water is perfectly safe, its just Europeans have this snotty thing about drinking from the tap. Ive decided that if anyone gives me any grief about it, im going to tell them to stuff it and ill just go take a drink from the garden hose out back if I have to. All in all, the food was quite good, and im willing to add Indian food to the list of cuisines I like.

On the way back (it was only 1015 or so) we stopped into a pub that is a favorite of niall (cant remember the name off hand) for a drink. I didn’t really want to drink, but again, I let the guilt get the better part of me and ordered a drink although I did state that it was my only drink of the night and that I was getting a bit tired. Im actually doing surprisingly well avoiding the jet lag, although as I write this, its nearly 2am and im wide awake, but that’s not very different from home habits anyway, and Im planning to sleep in a bit tomorrow since niall has to work and im entertaining myself for a day. We did manage to keep it to a one and done and then walked back to the flat and I took a few pictures of the ha’penny bridge lit up on the way back. Honestly I was getting tired a bit, but I really just didn’t want to stay out drinking like we did the night before and have to feel bad tomorrow.

Really though, today was quite nice getting a personal tour around the city. Im not sure what im off to do tomorrow though. The weather report said its supposed to be a pretty rainy day so whatever I do will need to be an indoor thing. Basically this means that amy will probably use tomorrow as one of her notorious shopping spree days. Ill probably explore grafton and henry street shops. Maybe pick out an irish book at the bookshop down the road. I may or may not go back to the art museum to check out the special impressionists exhibit that they have going at the moment, and there is always Christchurch cathedral to explore as well. I do have the next two days on my own while niall has to work. He left me with a set of keys to the flat so I can come and go as I please which is nice. Im not sure about taking a day trip out of the city as well. I think I might stop by the tourist booth down on grafton street to see what is around the city and may venture to that since the country side here is beautiful and ive heard there are a few things to see nearer to the city for day trips. Who knows. Im kinda just winging this whole trip to begin with mostly so why bother to play ahead. I just go where the wind blows really, and lets face it, as long as it doesn’t blow me into the irish sea, im doing alright.

Oh and if youre wondering, no bono sightings yet. Ive not been stalking them too heavily yet, but niall did point out the area where their studios are located, so I may have to step up the stalking game if I really want to ask him when the next time he’ll be kicking it with the pope will be…