Éire go Brách - Part VI

As I mentioned yesterday, I planned to spend today wandering down toward the waterfront. It's a pretty good walk, about 3 miles, from my room to where I was heading so once I got out I started straight away. I started out taking some side streets between my room and the River Liffey that bisects the city. About half way there I stopped in at a pub along the way called Graingers where I had a pretty good Shepherd's Pie in a place that oddly enough wasn't completely decked out in dark old wood like every other pub I've been in. In fact it was a surprisingly cheery looking place considering it's a pub, with contrasting light and dark blues and embossed walls and ceiling. Graingers isn't on the busiest city centre streets, but it does have a pretty good corner location and had a fair amount of traffic while I was in there. After Graingers I made it river-side and strolled down the way towards Dublin's port area. It's a nice walk with lots of bike paths built in, lots of runners going to and fro, and several bridges that cross the Liffey including a large white suspension bridge strung up like a tilted harp. Part of the way along the river is the tall ship Jeanie Johnston, a replica of an 1850s trading ship that ferried emigrants from Dublin to North America and then timber back to Europe. It had scaffolding on the stern and workers hammering about on deck so I didn't check it out, assuming it was closed.

While I was walking I stopped to sit in front of a building that had banners for a World Press Photo exhibition. It was the last day for it to be on show so I went inside to check it out. It turns out that the World Press Photo exhibition is an annual juried contest of current affairs photojournalists with judges from the upper echelons of news and photography agencies. The contest covers nine different categories of photojournalism and the top three in each category go on a worldwide tour each year. It's an impressive gallery of photos that show some amazing, amusing, and even some absolutely heartbreaking images. The photographers represented are all exceptionally talented, a few are incredibly lucky, and it was a nice bit of serendipity that I got the chance to see to exhibit.

After walking all the way down the road on the north side of River Liffey I reached a point where I couldn't go any further as I was blocked by gated industrial yards. I took the bridge to the south side of the Liffey and it's all residential buildings. At least within the port area of Dublin there's not really a waterfront district. From what I can tell there are a few parks out past the residential areas, and a couple beaches north of city limits, but nothing wharfy, beachy, or seasidey that I could tell. Instead of getting lost in neighborhoods, I decide to walk back towards the center of town along the south side of River Liffey. While the north side of the river is more corporate and government buildings, the south side is much more replete with shops, cafes, and pubs. In other words it's much more people friendly. It was a slightly disappointing walk, but it was still a nice view of the city.

After walking back along the Liffey I went to my room for a little bit of recuperation and then went back out to my temporary haunt, The Parnell, to have some dinner, some pints, and take in some live music. I listened to a duo butcher some classics, but also put a pretty interesting, folk spin on some modern tunes and a really interesting medley of Blackstreet's "No Diggity" and Macklemore's "Thrift Shop." I talked to a girl who didn't admit she was stood up, but was dressed far too nice and far too alone for anything else who really seemed to enjoy the more bluesy tunes, a beautiful lesbian couple who ended up awkwardly sharing a table with an old guy and his hippy, new age son that didn't seem to approve, and a family in which the daughter had to deal with the awkwardness of her mom getting pretty drunk and reliving her more carefree years. All in all it was a very interesting night out.

I've gone ahead and rented a car tomorrow for several days to go ahead and venture out of Dublin. I figured since I was running out of obvious things I wanted to see that it was time to take to the countryside. I'm looking forward to getting a taste of Ireland's more natural beauties. Tomorrow, whenever I decide to wake up, I'll be hitting to airport to pick up my car and then heading north to see the Giant's Causeway. It's only about 3 hours away, so I don't know if I'll make that my day or keep on trucking and head west from there. I'll just have to let you know.