A Weekend In Dublin? Pt 1

Dublin
Friday, 23rd

Friday morning I got on the train headed towards Frankfurt, from which I was to fly to Dublin via Aer Lingus. I had ordered all of my tickets ahead of time, online, and the gates I needed to get to were all clearly labeled. The train and flight to Dublin was painless.

I caught a city bus to the center of Dublin, or at least until I started getting worried. See, Dublin has a terrible city bus system. They are massive double-decker buses, and the routes seem to be endless. I rode for a good forty minutes before I got worried that I had missed my stop (turns out, I wasn’t even near the central part of town). There is no display inside the bus to tell which stop you are at. The stops outside aren’t clearly labeled. And, perhaps most surprising / off-putting, is the fact that the bus driver sometimes just blows by the stops. Even when there are people waiting for the bus. That ride on Friday, I watched numerous groups of people stare at the bus, slackjawed, and then try to run alongside it, motioning for the driver to stop. Was the bus full? Was the driver in a bad mood? No idea.

Anyways, I got off pretty randomly (a lot of people seemed to get off at the same stop, figured it was a good spot), and then wandered around Dublin. I was still quite a bit north of the proper city center, and it wasn’t a particularly nice or scenic neighborhood.

Perhaps a few words about Dublin are in order. Before my trip, as I Google’d for suggestions about what to do, I had read about a few problems with Dublin. Specifically, that it was a dirty city. I shrugged this off when I first read it. People complain about NYC all the time, but I have no problems there. Cities have odd, sometimes disturbing smells. It’s part of the charm, perhaps.

But once I got there, the filth level was on a whole new level. Every three steps, I had to avoid a pile of dog shit. Every five steps, a pile of vomit.

I’m not even exaggerating that much. Dublin does not seem to spend any money on basic sanitation. On Saturday, when I got up early and was walking around, I saw many shop owners washing the sidewalks (and walls) directly in front of their shops. This was the only effort I saw the entire time I was there.

Anyways, the dogshit and vomit initially put me off. The rest of the city didn’t have much going for it either. The buildings were pretty ugly and utilitarian. Traffic driving on the other side of the streets made it difficult and confusing to cross at intersections. You wouldn’t think it’s a huge deal, but it is.

I walked around lost for a few hours. I eventually found the hostel that I had booked. It was nice, the staff were friendly, generally a clean place. None of the other people had arrived at my room. I read about a decent pub / restaurant in the neighborhood, went and had dinner. Drank a Guinness (mandatory for anyone who ever visits Dublin). Went back to my room, and read for an hour or so, went to bed at maybe 10pm. I was tired and disappointed in the city, give me a break!

Then the fun started. A group of three Irish, college-age kids arrived at the room, dropped their stuff off, and went back out. They came back maybe an hour or two later, wasted. I didn’t care, I knew I had went to bed way too early, didn’t blame them. Two other individuals eventually slept in the room also (it was an eight bed room).