A Staredown with the City of Dublin

I was ready to tackle the city of Dublin.  Going in was a mixed emotional bag of anticipation, excitement, nervousness, and caution.  Often, spending a day in the city, any city, reminds me of how much I'm a country girl.  I like my space and fresh air.  I like grass and trees and...cows.  There's nothing like waking up to cows hobnobbing with each other in the fields, the birds chirping excitedly in the trees, the sun filtering in through the windows, uninhibited by tall buildings.  None the less, this trip is not about me being comfortable, it's about me purposely exploring and working my way through new things.  I need to be in situations where I don't have control and have to deal with it.  I can't anticipate or map everything out.  I need to think on my feel and enjoy the unexpected.

 

I took the DART into the city, which is much like our LightRail system back home.  It was clean and did the job.  I took my time looking at the maps and figured out which lines I needed to be on there and back.  Still, I asked other passengers if I was in the right spot, just to be sure, and they were always very friendly in confirming I was, or letting me know where I needed to be instead.  Like any other form of public transit, the train cruised through the less desirable parts of town.  When we approached the station in the heart of the city, the first person i saw was an older woman sitting on a bench, cigarette dangling from her frowning mouth, looking miserable with life in general.  She echoed the dull, dreary mood of the overcast, cold weather. 

Not to be deterred, I hopped off the train and wound my way through the station, onto the city streets.  It was like being in downtown San Francisco, as I was in their "financial district".  My first stop would be Trinity College, which was just a short walk away.  I should clarify that to me, a short walk is a mile or so, and during the course of the day I probably covered ten miles in total.  I paid attention to traffic, the buildings, and the people walking around me.  As I promised everyone back home (Dad especially) that I'd be safe, my head was revolving at all times. 

I noted the interesting spaces I was passing, the Bank of Ireland, The Carvery Pub and Meat Market, the Tara Street Bus Stop.  I knew these references would come in handy later when I was making my way back.  I don't use technology to navigate once I'm on foot.  Why rely on a phone when you can trace your path by visual memory?  It's a fun game to play.

I found Trinity College easily, and had a wonderful visit there (to be detailed in a subsequent blog entry :)  After Trinity, I made my way down Grafton Street, one of the main shopping districts.  Cars weren't allowed on the street, and so it was filled with people shopping, strolling, watching the musicians and the street performers.  The atmosphere was alive and entertaining.  They had wonderful clothing stores and I found myself wanting to actually shop, but between the prices and conversion rate calculations I made after seeing the prices, I decided to leave that to a day when I wasn't feeling so cheap.  Plus, being practical, I didn't want to explore the city towing around a ton of bags.

There were beautiful flower carts on the street, boasting every color and fragrance for the passers by.  There was a group of twenty-somethings playing an interesting arrangement of instruments together.  There was a quartet, and a ton of "statue figures" that would move in you gave them a coin.  American stores were well represented in the form of McDonald's, H&M, and the Disney Store (of course I had to take a picture of that).  Just the reference to my Happy Place put a huge smile on my face.  There were many outdoor cafes and coffee shops, one in particular with fabulous looking scones that I made a mental note of to stop at later.

Once I reached the end of the street I went through a small residential apartment section to get to the park, St. Stephen's Green.  There were good parts and "dodgy bits" in this area, so I made sure to stick with other people walking along.  Some of the apartment buildings had all the electrical wiring strung along the outside of the building, and all i thought was "that can't be up to code".  I passed an old woman wearing two very different shoes, one black flat and one blue tennis shoe.  I reached the black iron fence of the park, greenery spilling over its boundaries, and knew I was in the right place.  (I'll talk about the park experience in a later entry).  After walking the park, I went back to a different section of the city, now on my way to Temple Bar.

Temple Bar is considered one of "the spots" in downtown Dublin.  It's a dichotomy of fancy, upscale shopping and rowdy, party-hard pub atmosphere.  It's where the Elite Class and the Fighting Irish collide, in an explosion of cultural expression.  There were street markets here, more performers, and more fabulous shops.  I saw beautiful, work-casual dresses in the windows that I was fighting the urge to go in and buy.  These were styles we didn't see much in the States.  Hand crafted and with attention to stylized detail, these weren't the cheap clothes one found at department stores.  I hurried on my way to keep from blowing the budget.
I entered one of the main street intersections and waited for the light to allow pedestrians the right-of-way.  A couple walked towards me, and I swear they had stepped straight out of a Paris design ad- he was wearing a pink shirt, complimented by a pink and white scarf, fitted tan pants and brown leather shoes, aviator glasses, and he had perfect wavy brown hair.  Accompanying him was a tall, slender woman with perfect blonde hair, skin tight white pants, a blue blouse, white scarf, and a "hers" pair of the same glasses.  I looked down at my all-to-normal jeans, black walking shoes, red sweatshirt and oversized tan rain coat.  My hair was in a mess of a pony tail, and I had my old, scratched sunglasses on because i didn't want to bring my nice ones on the trip.  I registered the fact that I looked like a total scrub, shrugged it off and walked towards the Candy Shoppe that had been hailing me since I'd stepped onto the street.

I could smell the chocolate teasing in the air as I approached.  Inside it was like an old-fashioned candy parlor.  Jars of every manner and color of candy lined the walls.  There were boxes of American cereal at the very tops of the shelves- Cocoa Puffs, Rice Crispies, Fruit Pebbles...that was interesting.  I didn't really want candy, so I just stayed in the corner and watched peopled come and go for a bit, soaking in the sweet, wonderful smells.  What i really wanted was a coffee from that shop I had passed ages ago.  Could I find my way all the way back there?  Sure i could...

I walked on, listening to the myriad of languages I was hearing, all very different.  I hadn't realised Dublin was such an ethnically diverse city.  I know I heard Spanish, German and Italian..but I also saw people representing the far corners of the globe.  I passed numerous Barber Shops and Hair Salons.  Here, they were still segregated if they were high-end.  The cheaper shops said "Unisex" somewhere on the windows, but those were relatively empty.  The Barber shops were full of guys getting their style on, and the Beauty Parlors were filled with crossed female legs, magazines in hand, heads under the bowl-shaped blow dryers.  I made a mental note to visit Supercuts when i was back home in a couple weeks.

I knew I was back in the right place, and the coffee shop would be around another corner and down the street.  I waited at the intersection, and noticed a woman, my age, sitting under a door frame on the street, cup in hand for change people could spare, a blanket covering her lap. She was staring into another world, one I couldn't see, but wanted to be able to imagine for understanding's sake. She had the most hopeless look on her face, and was very still. Under the blanket i could see a pair of bright-colored tennis shoes. She was thin, but not frail. I wanted to go sit next to her and ask why she was sad, why she was there, what her story was. She was so frozen in place. Minutes passed. My mind wanted to understand, and was yelling at my feet to move towards her. They stayed firmly planted, as if knowing they were not allowed to disturb her space.  It now felt like an out-of-body experience as I witnessed the argument between my mind and feet.  My feet won, carrying me towards the coffee shop, any my mind was NOT happy about it.  For a good ten minutes it went on about how cowardly I was, how it might have made her day to have someone to talk to, how I needed to grow up and stop being afraid of the unknown.  The coffee didn't taste as good as it probably would have otherwise.

It was going on 4PM by the time I made my way back to Tara Street, passed the Bank of Ireland and the Carvery.  I was self-proud at how well my visual memory had guided me around and back to where I needed to be.  My legs and back were tired.  It had been a great day, and the city and I had gotten along just fine.  There were spots I'd go back and visit once I was in the apartment.  Maybe I'd even go back and buy one of those dresses.  Maybe I'd go back and find the girl...