Thursday, December 24, 2015

Left Berlin To Do Some Shopping in Dublin

I've been going to sleep about 7 pm everyday from a mix of time zone screwiness and plain ol exhaustion: yesterday alone Lydia's Fitbit reported that we'd walked 9 miles. So our early flight to Dublin didn't bother me one bit.


We were really booking it to the airport with a pretty ambitious travel route considering how confusingly complex Berlin public transport has been.


We had one last bus to hop on. We found the stop and the bus pulled up. We double checked with the driver that the bus was in fact headed to the airport. The driver yammered something, and we were both like "HUH?". Well that set him off. He put the bus in park and stormed off onto the sidewalk, yelling and gesturing in a mixture of German and English that we needed to be at the stop on the opposite side of the street. The bus stop sign most definitely had the name of the airport on it, soo... learn how to write a sign people. Taxi!




After a bit of wrangling trying to figure out the apartment number of the Airbnb we'd rented, we met up with my parents for a week of Ireland Christmasy Green Luckiness. 


Ireland seems to be one of those countries that completely shuts down on Christmas. First thing on the agenda was hit the local Tesco and get some food so we don't starve to death tomorrow. Well a lot of other people had the same idea.


A pretty excellent fire safety sign in our apartment. "Fire action. If you discover a fire: C) If possible tackle the fire using the appliances provided." Sounds like a good time really.


With the food situation taken care of, we set off in search of adventure. It being Christmas Eve, we thought heading to a main shopping street might be interesting. Next stop, Grafton Street!


I am obsessed with these really ornate looking corner pubs.








"Dublin Castle off Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland, was until 1922 the seat of the United Kingdom government's administration in Ireland, and is now a major Irish government complex."






Grafton street was packed with humanity. Apparently Bono was doing a free show somewhere on this road and we missed it, which annoys me greatly. This interesting building here is the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre.


We were a bit concerned about getting some dinner before everything closed so we had a pretty early one. I think my parents' clocks were probably still messed up from the flight anyway so who knows what meal it was for them. We popped into this cool looking pub called The Bankers.


There were multiple Christmasy specials but they were out of all of them.




They didn't have a beer menu and I was feeling lazy so just had a Guinness.


Tom and Lydia still just weren't satisfied with their Guinness levels so they opted for the "Beef & Guinness Pie, served with chefs own Guinness brown bread." Helpfully the menu had beer pairing recommendations for many of the entrees. "We suggest a nice glass or pint of Guinness." I did not see that coming.


Mom and I went for the "Fish n' Chips, crispy cod fillet in Gallway Hooker beer batter, served with mushy peas, tartar sauce, & fries." I was most interested in the mushy peas, and they did not disappoint with their mushiness. So mushy.


We were pretty satisfied with our first day's progress so we marched back north to our apartment. Fun!

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