Travel Blog - June 29th - Dublin

I was smart before I setout for the morning - I wrote down directions to the one main area I wanted to see most. I woke when Frankie and John were leaving, about 7:30ish. Ian was kind of stirring, but not really. I took a shower and waited until 10 to 9 to wake him for breakfast. It was crowded and I burned myself on the hot water ( I over pushed the button) for tea. I sat with a German family who would awkwardly pass the jam with me. I finished the two pieces of bread and jam and finished planning in the room. Made it to Dublin castle, but didn't find an entrance, so I want to a tourist shop near it instead. Made it James Joyce Center. Like the man a lot more now. Had lunch at "Candy Cafe" since "Chapter One" next to the Dublin Writer's Museum was too pricy. Good tuna panini, sauce was similar to a bic mac. One of many places run by someone from outside of Europe. Took plenty of time at Dublin Writer's museum, lots of inspiration, actually sat down on a bench and wrote. Debated about price of books, thankfully there is Amazon. Heading back took too far a ways down Dame st and ended up getting dinner at the little coffee shop near the castle I spotted earlier - a sandwich to go (take away) coffee, and he was nice enough to give me a cookie for free. It was dinner time and I found him eating - he had a nice smile. Very good coffee. Checking out where Connelly was, I asked a gent from the parking there, and he led me straight to it, said he had stayed late for a retirement party. Also said he knew people in Aurora. When I got back, planning to have a boring evening, and check email to get to bed early for train in morning, Ian came by to ask if I was still interested in teh Literary pub tour. Bye bye frugality, heloooo Jameson. The crawl was fun, met Helen from Australia, does something similar to what's been explained of the Stevenson center at ISU. Helen's waiting to hear about certificate for PhD. Traveling with Iliona from Finland, we talked of surfing. Ian mentions he went to Costa Rica to surf and work, and it rained too much to be any good. He says best surfing is in Malibu, but too many people. Helen offered Perth in Australia. Cathy and friend (Tyran?) from Cape Town suggested go to South Africa. During that time I met a man and his wife from St. Charles, IL there on holiday, he now lives in Boston. The actors of the actual tour were great, learned a lot from the man/woman pair, and won a t-shirt thanks to a talk during the tour with Ian about Oscar Wilde's sports interest (boxing.) Afterwards Ian, Cathy, Tyran and I talked of horrid adolesent poetry, how the Catholic church scares kids, and politics (along with a very sweet mix of Galiana? Vanila liquer and black currant) first at the Dukes, then O'Neils, where at one of the twnety minute breaks Ian and I talked about his writing on pregnency, then environmentalism and the internet - how to make hippie stuff cool again in free market strategy. The second time round at O'Neils we talked of Tolstoy v. Dostiefsky while finding out how lovely Ireland's whisky is. Also gave whole plot of my story to Ian, probably best shortened version yet. (The female head figure for a boat hanging above the door to the porch was wearing a hoody.) We went dancing with Cathy, Tyran and two new friends, guy from Wales (?) and his girlfriend from Scotland. The place was dark and steamy with a cover charge to make you feel you pay to be a slave in the pit. The Scottish girl from O'Neils lovely, sweet thing, and let me have a puff of her cig, telling me I'd have fun in Glasgow. Rain was still there to greet us outside and showed us the way home. Ian and I were debate directions, but finally just picking a way, we stop to get a fried something at Lucianos (?) just up from Avalon. I was parched, so I got a water there. Place reminded me of La Bamba's, small, bright, foreign staff. When I had left Avalon there was only one other suite mate, from Belgium (Nicolaus?) and now the room was packed, it was about 3:30am when I finally got to bed.