So in deciding to take advantage of this beautiful, a few days last week, my roommates and I went to St. Stephen's Green to enjoy the weather and people watch. St. Stephens Green is a well known park near the City Centre that is always brimming with people walking through to Grafton Street (a VERY popular shopping strip lined with all kinds of stores and shopping malls) or simply sitting in the grass. Due to the abnormal weather, the park was filled with all sorts of sun-worshipers working on their tans (which to me is a joke, I mean, it's Ireland, these people are WHITE (just kidding :-) (kind of)). After working on our own tans, we would wander through the City Centre streets stumbling upon coffee shops and indoor markets. The more I walk around the City Centre streets, the more I come to love Dublin. Despite all the confusing street patterns and crazy drivers driving on the wrong side of the road, this city is very charming!
A sunny day on the canal in front of my houseAfter waking up on Sunday to more glorious sunshine (and beginning wondering if all the stories of rainy Ireland were myths), I decided to take advantage of the day and head out to find the beach. I brought my camera also and some pictures should be attached to this blog (if I can get it figured out). My roommate Hakon accompanied me after realizing his beloved Liverpool (an English Premier Football (Soccer) team) wasn't playing on our TV. We went without really consulting any maps which is best when you aren't in a hurry. We figured all we needed to do was walk west.
The first thing we came across was an ENORMOUS stadium under construction called Landsdowe Stadium about 20 mins west from our house. The stadium was impressive but even more impressive was the mess that was being made in the adjacent canal. The canal was filled with construction waste and debris and was a shinning example of Ireland's reputation as the biggest polluter in the EU. This book I am currently reading (Chaos at the Crossroads by Frank McDonald and James Nix) goes into this side effect of the Celtic Tiger economic and development boom. I remember reading about how following their admittance to the EU, Ireland was sighted for 85 violations of EU environmental policy! The stadium is set to be the largest football stadium in Dublin (the 83,000 seat Croke Park is designated for the Gaelic Games exclusively) and is part of the final leg of the Celtic Tiger period.
After walking past the stadium, we were in Irishtown, a very blue-collar neighborhood on the west side of the city. I enjoyed seeing a different neighborhood and a different side of the city outside of own own "posh" Ranelagh village. It gives me a new perspective and more down-to-earth feeling for the city. A lot of the row homes in this era looked to be straight out a Charles Dickens' Industrial Revolution era novel! Ok, I realize Charles Dickens wrote about England so lets say a James Joyce novel (although different time period). We'll go with Oscar Wilde then!
Anyways, this was turning out to be quite the exploration so we decided to enter a very inviting pub we noticed along the way. We were both immediately satisfied with our decision upon entering to find a beautifully decorated and engaging space and a small group of intense Liverpool fans watching the game. To Hakon's enjoyment, Liverpool was dominating scoring 4 goals by the end of the day. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to advertise my touristy-ness in front of some hooligans but I have a feeling we will be venturing back to this pub.
After leaving the pub, we continued to explore the neighborhood and came across a large park. We figured it would eventually lead us to the beach and it eventually did bring us to Sandymount beach! The beach is long with wonderful views of the mountains to the south. There were large, posh homes and apartments along along the water, as one would suspect. I'm sure you could come up with a formula to represent real estate price in regards to distance to this beach as I have noticed this in many of the places I have gone.
We walked for a long time along the beach until we decided to head back and explore another neighborhood. This neighborhood called Sandymount could not have been more different than the first one on our journey. It was filled with mansions and extravangant Georgian rowhomes. There are also many embassies and consulates within the mansions and Georgian rowhomes including Hakon's Norwegian embassy. Once we realized where we were by finding a recognizable major road we had a long walk home. In all, we were out walking for a good 3 1/2 hours but it was all worth it. I'm sure we will go on many other adventures like this in the future!
A panoramic view of Sandymount Beach
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