Dublin and County Wicklow

OK, I promised myself (and all of you out there reading) that I would keep up my blog so each entry didn't need to begin with 'sorry it's been so long'...but here I am again, proving myself fallible. Apologies. Aren't you lucky though - absence makes the heart grow fonder. Enjoy, you've waited long enough! I'm going to write this first-entry-in-a-long-while with our trip to Dublin...way back in the June half term break. We've become so accustomed to mid term breaks, I'm not sure I'll be able to cope with a 'normal' Australian timetable again. For those who've just tuned in, let me fill you in. In the UK, there are three terms. If you're in a normal school, they're called September term or first term or Autumn term, then there's Winter term over December and January, followed by Spring Term from Easterish onwards. If you're in a posh school (or pish-posh, as I have come to call it) like the one I'm about to start with this September (more on that later) then you call them by old fashioned names that sound much better if you pretend you're a member of the Royal family and enunciate, head held high: The Michaelmas Term, Lent Term, and...Summer term. (enunciate, it sounds better) These terms are all divided by two week term end holidays (except for summer where we have six weeks off) but in addition, each term is halved with a half term one week break in between the halves. In each half term thus far, and our holidays too, Ross and I have managed to take trips overseas, so I'm very proud of how proactive we've been about it all, even if the whole planning/booking hotels thing relies a little too heavily on lastminute.com..... So, because of a long summer of no paid work ahead of us, back in June we decided to head to another country, but to make it a little closer to home and thus less expensive. We headed to Dublin for four days, and explored it and the surrounding villagey areas of County Wicklow. Dublin was a good trip and lovely chance to relax, but I must say that it really confirmed our desire to head away from the big cities on our next trip. I think I've blogged about it before; the big European cities, and how the grime and stuff can get a bit uninspiring, and I have to say, we expected Dublin to be a fair bit prettier and more 'Ireland' than it turned out to be. If I'm honest, I was picturing something a little more Maeve Binchy 'Circle of Friends' and a little less 'Snatch' (which isn't set in Ireland, but works for purpose of comparison ;).....) So we arrived in Dublin with subtly incompatible expectations, Ross' dream was to hit up the Jamieson Distillery and Guinness Factory, I wished to meet a Gerard Butler lookalike and have my own person 'PS I Love You' experience...purely to honor Stef's requests, of course. Our arrival in Dublin was lovely actually, said Butler lookalike greeted us at the passport checking desk, smiled winningly and cheekily tried to take my notebook from me while I made quick witted remarks about never reading a girl's diary, while Ross rolled his eyes at my embarassing myself. That done, we headed into town on a local bus and arrived at our hotel (a nice place, similar to big country town hotels like The Vue Grand in Queenscliff, thought less luxurious, for sure) before taking a wander through Dublin and relaxing by the river with coffee and lunch. My first impression of Dublin 'My, this looks a lot like Tooradin!' (from the bus on the way in, it really did) My second was 'My, this is like a mini Melbourne!' Ross and I have actually encountered a few European cities now with touches of Melbourne in them, which I guess explains why Melbourne is often referred to as being quite European and cosmopolitan. Excellent deduction Allie. Our first day in Dublin was all about orientating ourselves, eating delicious traditional food (heavy soups and casseroles, heavy brown Irish soda bread) and confirming the short day tours we'd booked in advance. On Day 2, we headed out of Dublin on a tour of County Wicklow. What a stunning part of the world. It takes about fifteen minutes to leave Dublin, which really is a very small city, before you bypass some of the pseudo Cranbourne stuff and move up and out into the rolling, gorgeous, lush green countryside that stereotypes and ABC TV series are made of. Wicklow is actually known as the 'Garden of Ireland'. Our trip to Wicklow Mountains included a fabulous chatty tour guide/bus driver who informed us about everything from the new adventure playground at a McDonalds we passed to the conference facilities at a resort hotel we drove by and the more interesting tidbits too. He stopped to allow myself and other ridiculous women on the bus take snaps where 'PS I Love You' was filmed (you mean Gerard stood here? He looked at this?), he showed us places where 'Braveheart' was filmed, which, though it was set almost entirely in Scotland was actually filmed in Ireland. A highlight was definitely the stop in the ancient monastic settlement 'Glendalough', where ruins of a church, houses, gravestones, etc all date back to the sixth century. It was a truly amazing place and Ross and I had a really nice wander there through back lanes and up into the hilly areas. Glendalough actually means 'between two lakes' and it was lovely to wander this area and see all the breathtaking scenery. 'Really nice wander' translates into Allie moaning about the hills we have to climb while Ross fulfils his lifelong quest to search for the source of water at every place we visit. After finding a waterfall and chatting with a groundskeeper, Ross permitted us to head back to the coach for the rest of our tour. In the afternoon we headed to Avoca, a small village in Wicklow that is famous for two reasons 1)It has the oldest working mill in the world and distributes Avoca milled products all over the world 2)It is the town where ABC series (and one of Mum's favourites) 'Ballykissangel' was filmed. The old ladies on the tour were very pleased. Our following two days in Dublin were lovely, and included visits to traditional Irish pubs (which are EVERYWHERE) to hear great music (both) and drink Guinness (Ross), taking in the whole city on the City Sightseeing Circuit bus, seeing the Book of Kells at Trinity College (an ancient text from 800AD, that features the hand copied text of the four gospels and is lavishly and intricately decorated) and enjoying tours, tastings and pour your own opportunities at the Guinness and Jamieson factories. Both Jamieson and Guinness and impressive places, and though I had my doubts about it, I actually loved touring the Guinness factory. The whole brewery area is massive and you can smell it in many parts of the city, but it;s a lovely earthy smell. The tour is self guided and leads you up through a building that is actually shaped like a giant pint glass, where the froth and top of the glass' equivalent is a 360 degree viewing space/bar at the top of the building where you drink a complimentary Guinness. I can also wholeheartedly endorse the city sightseeing bus that circles the city; we found out tons of interesting local knowledge. A statue of Oscar Wilde stands at the corner of a village green in Dublin, looking across an intersection to a house opposite, his house where he grew up. Interestingly, Oscar used to sit in his home, staring across at that same village green and watching the children that played there. That's what I'll remember most about Dublin, the lovely little secrets or quips the people offered us about the town. Dublin is a lovely place, but sadly, Ireland seemed a sad country in many ways. Economic troubles have hit it hard and many people have had to leave Ireland to seek work in other parts of the EU or further afield (such as my master eyebrow lady from back home, Hazel) out of necessity. Homelessness and other sad scenes were prolific in Dublin, perhaps more so than other major cities we've been to, or more surprising because it's such a small place, I don't know. We loved our time in Dublin, but were encouraged by the experience to make sure our next trip would be one where we had chances to head out of the city and explore the surrounding countryside. Depending on who you are, our trip to Dublin ended with either a) a fabulous sight or b)a tragic scene. Outside the windows of our bus as we headed out of town to the airport.....as thousands and thousands of middle aged women scrambled through the streets, headed for the city stadium...to enjoy their mush anticipated 'Westlife' concert. :)