After that turbulent four hour ride on the ferry, many sick persons anxiously leaving the boat, a two hour drive north to Dublin, and a rowdy entrance to our cheap as chips hotel – we have seen, done, (Jock has ran), and completed Dublin.
Our hotel is cheap, clean, nicely built and modernized, but the surrounding area is G-H-E-T-T-O. Our first evening, we didn’t venture outside from the long day of traveling and decided to get some food in the restaurant in the hotel. All appeared nice until I went to get us all drinks at the hotel, and noticed there was not one single female anywhere to be seen, and the stares sent a few chills down my spine. I thought the Irishman with a Guinness was a stereotype, but I didn’t see one pint without Guinness in it.
There have been multiple times of misunderstanding between me and the Irish as well. Ordering food, I asked for some gravy on the mash. He gave me a plate extra of mash, no gravy. I had to correct.
Stopping for directions when in a rush is a mistake. Like when Gemma and I were trying to rush to the next point in the marathon to get out our pom poms and do a little cheer for the boys, and got a bit lost. We asked this sweet man. Unfortunately, a sweet woman from the neighborhood saw we were lost as well, and decided to chime in. They are soooo sooo nice about it, but they describe each turn so specifically. They describe the trees you will pass, the pub they used to frequent as a kid, the turn in the riverbed and how it won’t hit the church exactly. But, unfortunately, they don’t know any names of the streets.
Asking for anything to do with numbers is a mistake as well. Like the number for a taxi cab that contains multiple threes. All I heard was TURTY TREE FITTY TREE TREE FO FI FUM. After five times of asking the sweet man to repeat, we gave up and pretended we knew.
Luckily, my accent, I’m finding, is closer to the Irish accent than the English and Welsh (Gemma and Liam are from Wales and Jock, obvi, is English).
BUT, they can be the best. Like last night when Gemma and I went to see The Birds at the Gate Theatre. I went to the loo, was washing my hands – as you do – and a nice girl about my age turned and said “Oh, honey, you might want to untuck your skirt from your tights.” My face grew flushed with blood and I couldn’t believe my narrow escape of every woman’s worst nightmare – the skirt in the tights fiasco! I thanked her a million times.
Most importantly – Jock finished the Dublin Marathon in a record time! 3:58:20! So so proud of him and Liam. Liam ran his first marathon about twenty minutes later. That’s impressive as well!
One of the pictures I managed to get of ANOTHER MAN while trying to catch Jock. No idea who he is. But, you can kind of see Jocko’s eyeball as he runs past the 18th mile mark. He was just so fast!
Other’s include our trip to the Guinness Storehouse, More Marathon Pics, Gemma and Me. More to follow of Dublin castle, etc. Sorry, no pictures of my bathroom foible will show up here.
Now, off to Kilkenny!
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