Part 5 - Dublin
September 2 - 5, 2016
For a more photo-centric view of the trip, you can also check out my Flickr album for this part of the trip.
Friday, September 2nd: Dublin
To start the day, we walked from our hotel to Trinity College, which was very busy, with lots of Tech and Boston College fans around. There was a lot of game-related stuff set up at Trinity because it was hosting pep rallies for each team and pre- and post-game activities.
We got onto a student-led tour of the college, and the tour guide was really good - funny and informative - and told us a lot about the history of the school and how things work there. For example, they call you out in grade order at graduation, and alumni can get married in the chapel but only within 3 years of graduation and only to another Trinity grad. We also heard about the testing process to become a Trinity Scholar, a prestigious award that conveys a lot of benefits. (Basically, you take some really rigorous voluntary tests in January for the entire year's coursework.)
Afterward, we went to the library for the Book of Kells exhibit. The Book of Kells is a famous illustrated manuscript from around 800 AD. The exhibt was a little crowded, but was interesting and informative. The book itself was cool, but you only get to see two pages (one script and one illustrated) and have to fight the crowd to do it.
After leaving the exhibit, you enter the famous Long Hall of the library, which is pretty awesome - a long, tall room stacked to the rafters with 200,000 books arranged, at least partly, by size. There were also a lot of marble gusts, a copy of the Irish Declaration of Independence, and the Brian Boru harp (which is basically they symbol of Ireland and part of the trademark of Guinness).
Next, we wandered around town for a while. We walked through the Grafton Street shopping area, stopping in Hodges Figgis (Ireland's oldest bookstore) and surprisingly, a Tower Records store still in operation. The whole downtown area was decorated for the game, with Tech flags, signs advertising the game, bunting with GT and BC on it, and merchandise for sale everywhere. It was impressive how all-out the city went for the game, way more than any bowl game that I've attended. It felt really cool and welcoming.
We walked down to St. Stephens Green and wandered around for a while (we saw some pretty flowers and houses), then walked back north to the Temple Bar area (where we saw a bunch more game stuff around the bar district (which they got, um, mostly right), and also Dublin's Wall of Fame, with photos of famous Irish musicians). Then we met up with my friend Joe on the Ha'penny Bridge. Joe came over for the game from North Carolina, with a brief stop in Amsterdam beforehand. He joined up with Julie and I and we found some lunch and then spent the afternoon and evening wandering around Dublin.
First we did a mini-U2 tour of Dublin. We went to the Clarence hotel (owned by Bono and the Edge from U2) and then took my photo in front of the Bonavox hearing aid store (where Bono, aka "Bono Vox," got his nickname). We walked by The Spire, a large stainless steel monument that made all who have experienced the Tech Shaft feel right at home, a famine memorial, and the Samuel Beckett Bridge, built to resemble the Brian Boru harp. We walked most of the way down to the 3 Arena (formerly the Point Depot, where U2 played the final shows of the Joshua Tree/Rattle and Hum era before "going away to dream it all up again." Then we walked to the former site of the Hanover Quay Studios, where U2 recorded The Joshua Tree and other early albums. The studio is not there anymore, but there's a wall covered in U2 graffitti nearby.
We continued to wander, passing a weird art installation about how much oil Ireland uses, and making our way back down to Trinity College for the Tech pep rally. We heard our new radio announcer (who was MCing the event) for the first time, and heard speeches from the Mayor of Dublin and Bud Peterson, the president of Tech. There was a good crowd, but the pep rally was a little weak. They did some Q&A with a couple of players that we couldn't hear, a cheerleader tried to lead some cheers that nobody knew, and then finally, mercifully, the band played "Ramblin' Wreck," something the whole crowd knew. It was fun watching a couple of local schoolgirls trying to figure out what they'd wandered into while the band was playing the Budweiser Song, which is accompanied by a lot of bobbing and yelling from the Tech faithful. Randomly, we ran into the people who have season tickets next to ours and talked to them for a while.
Once the pep rally ended, we walked back down to St. Stephens Green and sat and talked to Joe about our trip for a while, then wandered through the restaurant/bar (a French-themed place, for whatever reason) that was the "home base" for Tech in Dublin. It was full, so we couldn't get a seat, but it looked awesome. We found another pub and had some appetizers and drinks, then walked back up to the river to see the sun setting - it was a beautiful day from start to finish.
We walked by a few more historical buildings and bridges before it got completely dark, then found another pub for dinner. Finally, we walked back to our hotel. It was kind of a long walk, busy and bustling for the first part and then totally deserted for the last part, but it felt completely safe. After a 31,000 step day, we were very tired, so we went to bed to get ready for the game on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday, September 3rd: Gameday!
Finally, it was gameday - the original reason behind this entire trip. The first game of the 2016 season, and the first chance to improve upon the uncharacteristic 3-9 2015 season.
However, the game wasn't until early afternoon, so we fit in a little more sightseeing in the morning. We walked to the National Museum of Archaeology, stopping at a little coffee shop along the way for breakfast. There were lots of Tech fans out and about, but the weather was miserable - cool and windy, with light rain. The museum was free, and we only had about 45 minutes to spend, so we went through the sections about prehistoric Ireland and about goldworking in Ireland in the early AD years. Both were really interesting, and we saw a stone axe head in person that we had seen in a photo at Newgrange way back at the start of the trip.
We walked back to the hotel, met up with Joe, and headed to the stadium at about 11:45. As I said earlier, our hotel was literally across the street from the stadium, with an entrance very close by. Super convenient! However, when we got to that entrance, they said Joe could go in, but they turned us away and said we had to use a different entrance. So we walked about 2/3 of the way around the stadium (in the rain and the crowds) to get to our gate, got inside, and found Joe sitting about 12 seats away from us. I guess those 12 seats made all the difference. My friends Jeff and Adriene were sitting nearby, too.
Aviva stadium was a new, modern soccer stadium. Pretty utilitarian in the concourses, but nice in the stands. Our seats were behind the Tech bench, in the first row that was open for seating. (The first 7 rows or so were covered with tarps because they were too low to see the game.) Our seats were also too low for a good view, but luckily, everybody stood for the whole game. The seating areas were mostly under a roof, but unfortunately, our seats were close enough to the field that we were exposed. Thankfully, the rain never got harder than a sprinkle.
Tech fans outnumbered Boston College fans by a good margin, but this was officially a home game for them (which means that even though they're in our conference, we'll go 16 years or more between visits to their stadium). So all the music and videos and things in the stadium were BC-related. The game itself was pretty terrible, and was looking bad for Tech in the 4th quarter, but we finally put together a decent drive at the end to pull out a win, 17-14. There were a locals few sitting around us at the game, and it's too bad that they ended up getting such a boring slog of a game. But we tried to give them a little American college football flavor, and thanks to the exiting finish, they got to see the Tech crowd get a little bit rowdy at the end.
We celebrated the victory and took photos in the stadium, talked with Jeff and Adriene after the game, and then stopped by the hotel to change into dry clothes. We walked back to the central part of Dublin to shop for souvenirs at Trinity College (where Waterford had a display) and elsewhere. There were still a lot of Tech fans around, but as the evening wore on, it seemed like the Boston College fans grew to outnumber us. Maybe the GT fans were partied out and went back to the hotel early - we certainly did. I was more tired at the end of the day than any other day of the trip. We ate a big dinner and dessert, did a little more shopping, then called it a night at 7:30.
Sunday, September 4th: Around Dublin Again
Our last full day in Ireland largely consisted of some random tourist activities. Julie and I enjoy zoos, so we went to the Dublin Zoo in Phoenix Park. We spent about 4 hours there - it's the third oldest zoo in the world, and it was just the right size and packed with interesting things.
The lions (father, mother, and 2 cubs) were very active, walking around and playing. The rhino also had a baby, and the little baby was galloping around the enclosure with abandon while the mother chased after it protectively. Male and female tigers were active, walking around their enclosure. We saw three baby elephants as part of the herd of elephants. There were a few penguins - Julie's favorite animal. (Just kidding.) (Ok, for real.) We saw a gorilla with a baby, and also some mangabeys (a type of monkey) jumping around excitedly (including a baby). Also, an orangutan holding a rope. The pack of gray wolves started howling right as I walked up to their enclosure, which was really cool. And we saw an oryx following a giraffe around and harassing it - apparently oryxs are jerks.
After leaving the zoo, we went to the Guinness Storehouse, which is not quite a factory tour, but it's an interactive museum about Guinness located within a complex of old Guinness buildings. We ate lunch in their restaurant, which had surprisingly good food. Then we toured the Storehouse. The building it was in was very cool, but there was not a ton of information about the exhibits - the audio tour (which we decided to skip) might have been helpful. The museum of old Guinness ads, including a whistling oyster and a fish riding a bicycle, was fun.
We learned the proper technique for pouring our own pints of Guinness (I gave mine to Julie), then went to the Gravity Bar on the top floor to take in panoramic views of Dublin. In the inevitable gift shop, we bought pint glasses and got them engraved with the score of the game. We had to wait about an hour for the glasses to be engraved, and we talked with some other Tech fans in the line while we waited.
Since we still had a little time before sundown, we did a quick "U2 tour" of the greater Dublin area, driving by Bono's childhood house on Cedarwood Road, Mount Temple School (where the guys first met and formed the band), Larry Mullen's childhood house on Rosemont Avenue (where the band first practiced together), and Howth Presbyterian Church (which hosted an early U2 gig).
On the way home, we stopped by a Lidl grocery store and then a Tesco to buy some candy and get rid of some of our leftover cash. After stopping by the hotel, we had dinner at the Juniors pizza place I had eaten at a couple days earlier, then returned to the hotel to pack up all our stuff and do our final accounting for customs.
Monday, September 5th: Dublin to Atlanta
At last, it was time to leave Ireland and return home. It was a good trip, but also exhausting - I think we were both ready to get home and settle down for a while. We were able to stretch our trip to Monday because of the Labor Day holiday in the U.S. Our departure from the hotel was delayed because our car was blocked in (by a manual transmission BMW). Nobody on the staff could drive it, and I wasn't willing or able to back an expensive stick shift car out into traffic. Eventually they located the owner to come move it and help us back out into the busy street.
Traffic was particularly treacherous on the way to the airport - there was a car in front of us driving on the wrong side of the road, we had to cross a one-lane bridge, and there were bikes and pedestrians flying everywhere. We had to pay a toll to drive through the M50 tunnel, which was really long and probably extremely convenient, but we were just focused on getting to the airport in one piece.
The rental car return was smooth, except for the people on the shuttle bus with us that had bags everywhere. We even heard a song from Third Day (an Atlanta-native band that I go way back with) on Christian radio on the bus - I didn't even know they had Christian radio in Ireland.
Check-in, however, was complex. We went to the Delta counter in Terminal 2, but because the first leg of our flight is on a partner airline (AirFrance, and they more than lived up to the rude Frenchman stereotype), we had to go to Terminal 1 and navigate their check-in procedures. My Delta status apparently didn't apply to AirFrance, so we were only allowed one bag each and had to pay 85 Euros to check a third.
Once we got checked in, the security line was short and sweet. We bought some drinks and candy in the huge shopping area to spend the last of our money, then passed into the "point of no return" gate area about 45 minutes ahead of boarding, where it was quiet, peaceful, and deserted.
Our first flight was to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where we had a brief layover (just enough time to grab some lunch) before boarding our flight to Atlanta, bringing another epic trip to a successful close.
