This morning, I woke up to the sound of seagulls.
After a late night flight into Dublin, I took an express bus to my lovely little Georgian townhouse hotel, Roxford Lodge. I was offered tea immediately and I just about died when the receptionist actually brought it to my room...on a tray. This was not a tea cup. This was the full tea experience: pot, cup, saucer, biscuits, cream in a jug and three different kinds of sugar. The room was perfect, the bed was soft and the next thing I knew I was awoken by seagulls.
I decided to forgo the bus and take the 15 minute walk into the city centre. Walking down the street was a truly Dublin experience. Northumberland Road is lined by brick Georgian townhouses all with brightly colored doors and elaborate brass knockers. Half of them belong to solicitors...solicitors! Flashback to the Murder on the Orient Express movie where Hercule Poirot discovers one of the characters was faking being British because she said, "I'm going to call my lawyers" instead of "I'm going to phone my solicitors."
My first stop was Lemon for breakfast. Lemon serves all day breakfast in the form of waffles and crepes...mmmm...crepes. I had the breakfast crepe with eggs, bacon, cheese and tomato relish which had the strange quality of looking nothing like ketchup but tasting exactly like it. Because of my early rising, none of things I wanted to see were open so I decided to wander...right into Grafton Street, the most famous shopping street in Dublin. And behold! There it was! Marks & Spencers! I practically sprinted into the store and spent way too much time browsing.
Back to touring...National Archaeological Museum was super cool with tons of prehistorical and bronze age artifacts from around Ireland...and the gold, the gold! Lots of gold torcs and shiny things. Of course there were loads of other things, quern stones and swords (funny enough the Celtic made swords were incredibly well-preserved while the much newer Viking swords had deteriorated quite badly).
Next up was the Chester Beatty Library...but there just happened to be a Zara on the way(Zara tailors their clothes selection to the local market and their selection was amazing! I'm definitely going back!) and...well, anyway, I eventually made it to the CB Library which houses some pretty amazing illuminated books. Unfortunately, very few of them (none) are Irish so it's not a good replacement for the Book of Kells but still pretty fascinating. The illuminated Qu'ran samples were gorgeous and the Greek codex of the New Testament on papyrus which used to be the oldest before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found were incredible--so old yet still readable.
By now, I was getting peckish and I knew I was near one restaurant I really wanted to go to: Queen of Tarts! The place is super tiny but so worth it. I could have ordered the entire place with all the amazing tarts, scones and cakes. But for lunch I settled for the healthy Queenie's Chocolate Fudge cake with Chocolate Ganache...I know, for lunch but it was so good!
After a stroll through the Temple Bar district (cute shops, but...), I walked back and had a lovely long nap. Dolling myself up for the theatre, I walked to the Abbey and got there insanely early which gave me plenty of time to come up with several silly and fanciful scenarios of what I would say if I just happened to bump into Alan Rickman or Lindsey Duncan. They were unneeded but fun to imagine.
I had an AMAZING seat literally a few feet from the stage. Really enjoyed the whole thing, mostly because everything worked together. There wasn't a weak link anywhere. Usually somewhere during a theater production I start feeling nervous because you can tell who doesn't quite know their lines or the cues are off or a number of things. But this, this was beyond professional. I totally forgot it was theater. Fiona Shaw, Alan Rickman and Lindsey Duncan were so good, so on point, so believable that even though the play is depressing, it was pure joy to watch. Alan Rickman was especially wonderful, playing the villain perfectly. His ending monologue "I love you"s were whispered in my direction and were as creepy as Ibsen could have ever hoped for. Seeing Lindsey Duncan was like seeing an old friend. Her role as Annie in A Year in Provence has been such a part of my family life ("Pluke!" "I think she's dying..."). What a treat!
I practically floated from the theater only to be met by a horde of roving gladiators...yes, gladiators. It was October 30 and since the 31st was a Sunday, most Halloween parties were being held on Saturday night. To my amusement, the gladiators (wearing nothing but shorts, leather straps and dorky fabric helmets) were waving sticks and plastic swords that my 4th graders would have been appalled at. I could almost hear J saying, "Miss Ernst, those are not Roman! They are from another time!" *cue whole class shaking their heads at the historical inaccuracy*
It just so happened that the gladiators were going my way so I followed along until the quay road. The light was red, but it was a short little one lane road and no traffic was coming...or so it seemed. The whole thing happened in slow motion, the gladiators walking across the street, the gigantic double decker Dublin bus rounding the corner, the cry of everyone next to me (and me) and the bus stopping inches away from crushing one tiny gladiator with a stupid fabric helmet. He tried to play it off with his friends, but you could see he was shaking. I was too.
I made it back to the Roxford Lodge without further incident, had another tray of tea and blissfully floated off to sleep with images of Alan Rickman with the fake snow (styrofoam shavings) stuck to his forehead. It was a good day.
How wonderful!
ReplyDelete