We have arrived!
Wonderful flight in; we took
Aerlingus from Boston and arrived in Dublin six hours later. Gotta love those direct flights!
After a LONG line at customs we got to our B&B about
9:30, we couldn’t check in until one, so we dropped our luggage off and set to
walking around the city.
We bought a Hop on Hop off bus pass that drives you along
the main routes and makes stops of the touristy stuff in the city.
The great part about this is you can get off whenever you want and jump
back on when you are done.
Due to the recommendation of the locals we stayed on the bus
for the entire tour and checked off the places we wanted to stop and check out
more closely the next day.
So I obviously knew about driving on the left side of road,
but it never occurred to me that crossing the busy city streets were going to
be so difficult. Cars come down the
opposite side of the street so you have to look the other way. Some of the cross walks had the direction to
look painted on the ground, but many intersections lacked these handy signs and
I think I may have developed whip lash from turning my head back and forth about
a dozen times. Every time we hustled across
the intersection, I said a small prayer!
By now it is the middle of the day, and we were ready for
some lunch and after narrow escaping death several times crossing the street,
we were ready for a pint as well. We hop
off the bus and start walking in search of good food and drink. We come across a pub with a sign “Irish
Stew-6 Euros.” Perfect! We walk into the small pub that was pretty empty
except for a few locals nursing a beer on their lunch break.
After we eat we chat up with the bartender, after we
exchange pleasantries, we ask him for any advice on what to do or see while in
Dublin. He asks us if we are doing any
walking tours like the Ghost Tour. My
eyes widen (for anyone who knows me, I don’t do ghosts) He must of seen my expression because he says:
(imagine the Irish accent as he speaks)
“Oh, no! Tis not
scary at all!”
And then he asks us if we knew what a grave structure
was. We shake our heads and proceeds to
tell us this story:
Many years ago, when someone died they of course would have
a proper burial, but sometimes the person was not really dead, but in a coma,
so much so, that doctors could not detect a heartbeat. This ‘dead’ person was then buried in the
church yard and would wake up finding themselves buried alive. The priest would then hear the people screaming
in the middle of the night. Apparently
this happened enough times that before they completely buried a person they
would attach a bell above ground with a string that they would place into the
ground and through the coffin of the deceased
or not so deceased person. If that person
woke up all they would have to do is ring the bell.
So apparently one of the stops on the ghost tour is seeing
the remains of some the grave structures left from those were unable to ring
their bells.
We sadly didn’t get to go on the ghost tour, as we were
exhausted from our trip, but maybe if we ever come again I’ll be brave enough.
Almost to the airport!
Here is a little history behind the brightly colored doors:
After the death of the Queen Elizabeth, England ordered the citizens of Ireland (which was still under British rule) to paint all of their doors black in mourning of the queen. The Irish rebelled and painted their doors bright colors, and the tradition has stuck.
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