Hot Tips for Dublin your fun.

Every day, the cost of living is Dublin.

Like a bridge over untroubled water.
After all, it's not Belfast.

Hi there, friends! Long time no read! A brief word on free internet according to hostels: many hostels offer free internet. When you get there, you may discover that their definition of 'internet' is a slug that moves roughly the speed of dialup and cuts out every ten minutes. You may also find that you can only access it in the kitchen/by reception/holding your laptop up hopefully towards the sky. Or that it is only free between the hours of 10 and 6, when you are most likely to not be in said hostel. All of this contributes to my unacceptable lack of updates. Now that I have found a place with a solid connection, I can finally tell you about Ireland!

Let's take a moment to talk about Dublin. And some hot tips to enjoy your stay.

Hot Tip 1: Read some books before you go.

This is a city made famous by Oscar Wilde! (Well, he was born there, anyway.) And James Joyce!

Look at that jaw! A Ulysses among men.

Statues gone Oscar Wilde.

Hot Tip 2: Dublin Castle.

This castle has seen better days. Right now, it is an architectural wonder. There are few buildings that are attached to other buildings that are built in so many different styles. It's worth wandering around, and the courtyard has some free information, and unnecessarily large sand sculptures for no apparent reason!

Classic Castle.

Note the medieval looking tour behind the gothic looking part. Someone once escaped from that tower through the sewer. It was kind of a big deal.

Courtyard like a brick house & triumphant arch.

But it's really outside the castle that the architecture really gets confusing.

Pop art turrets? 

Back to the courtyard. Went there twice in a week. 

First visit: 

I couldn't shake the feeling a giant Lincoln would emerge from the earth.

Second visit, and the completed work:

Somehow manages to make even less sense!

Hot Tip 3: Learn History.

If you go on a walking tour of Dublin, or speak to anyone in Ireland, they might mention some history. There was this time when the Irish Potato Famine happened, and all the potatoes rotted in the field. This would have been fine, according to our tour guide, if Britain hadn't continued selling off most of the food produced in Ireland to Britain. I don't advise making jokes about potato famines, unless of course you like being punched in the face.

Not pictured: the starving dog statue behind the starving people statues.
A good idea to ensure sympathy points.

A ship. A perfect replica of something.

Hot Tip 4:  Guinness has a brewery in Dublin.

Enough history! I know the real reason you find yourself in Dublin. It's all about the Guinness.

You can go on a brewery tour and learn all about the production of Guinness presented in a mildly hilariously commercialized manner. It is like an enormous ad, with a bit of history thrown in, and an explanation for what has always seemed a mystery: their old advertising campaign with toucans. 

Spoiler: an artist decided it was a good idea.

Guinness. Made of More. And Horses, apparently.

Happy!

Fortunately, when you take a brewery tour, you don't just get to taste some Guinness, you also get to drink your Guinness while staring out over the entire city of Dublin from their Gravity Bar.

Dublin: just might be a unicorn.

Green roofs: probably related to copper, somehow.

Back to the street level of the city. For the mellinium, the powers that be in Dublin wanted a really tall statue. They also wanted a defense strategy against the possibility that the city would be crushed by a giant balloon. They knocked out both goals with the spire.

Spoiler: it's actually vertical.

Hot Tip 5: The book of Kells. 

If you are in Dublin, you may want to pop over to Trinity College and see the book of Kells. In case you don't know, it's the oldest illuminated manuscript thing made predominately by four(?) monks on a tiny island. It is a masterwork of celtic knotwork and bright colors and things that are pretty. 

The best strategy to see the book is to kidnap a student at Trinity College, and make them select you as their plus one to see the book for free. And by kidnap, I mean make friends or something.

Trinity College. No relation to the Matrix.

And when you do go to the Book of Kells, you get to see two pages of the book, some pictures and information about the book, and a walk through the Long Room library. It's pretty, and they display other written works of interest. Some Irish history ones, some poetry things, and in the middle of everything pretty understated, a couple of cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia, that are kind of way older than everything else.

The aptly named Long Room is, in fact, long.

Or just say whatever, and go to an Irish Pub. They have a couple.

Swan heard Mumbles, but what did the Swansea?

Wales Part III:

Good God! Are we still in Wales? You are so behind on your blog! At least get to Scotland before you leave Ireland! Sheesh.

Ahem.

As I was saying, I was instructed by those in the know that the cities are not the reasons to go to Wales. That the natural beauty and sea cliffs are where it's at. Thanks to those in the know, I definitely had to check out Swansea.

Not pictured or present anywhere: swans.

It was decided that a boat tour was necessary. I learned quite a lot about the coal history of the region. I think. Maybe learning was the wrong word. It was a whole lot more industrial than I ever dreamed. And they have bubblers in the river so the fish won't die. JUST LIKE THE POND AT HOME.

Irrelevant: ducklings.

And that was cool. But I had wanted to see some things in Swansea, like, I don't know, any of their museums. Bad luck for me: the entire city was under construction, so all the museums were closed.

Good luck for me: the Mumbles are just a short bus ride away! And they had a castle!

When choosing a preservative, remember:
salt > direct assault by an army.

The castle was nice and quiet but for the sound of pigeons cooing. They also had a great view of the other Mumbly bits:

Pier also closed for construction.

Fortuitously, neither ocean nor rocks were closed for construction!

Scale note: It's a lighthouse, not a milk bottle.

There were also some more rocks and ocean bits:

Why is the sky more washed out than shore?

And you could walk on rocky bits:

It was pretty. 

That's obviously too many pictures of ocean and rocks. Here's a famous Swansean boat:

You have to wonder just what the quote marks are implying.

Overall, Mumbles was a wonderful harmonious area. It was quiet, as mumbling is mandated by law. I even saw some nature running around, coexisting in peace.

Bunnies. I was reminded not to trust them in a future episode.

It was a really great place to wander around and appreciate the nature things. It also answered a question that has plagued me for years: 

What would Red XIII look like as a boat? 

Answer: Pretty Badass.

Did I mention there were rocks and water?

Note: picture contains rocks and water.

It's great in person. Trust me.

Pembroke: All the Stairs. Tenby: more like 10-Sea.

Despite the good Doctor, it doesn't take too long to run out of things to do in Cardiff. Sure, you can sit around the glorious sun filled bay and drink cider. But when in Wales, consider taking the time to see some nature. Sea-cliffs come highly recommended.

I wandered around for a couple days. Heard there were some castles in the country. I decided to go to Pembroke Castle.

This was no simple voyage. A three point five hour train ride that turned into a three hour train ride plus an hour of bus and waiting for the bus. See, we were most of the way there when one of the train cabins started filling with smoke and the train just kind of stopped. But they fixed it enough to get us to the next station and dump us unceremoniously onto the pavement! It's cool, they sent a bus. Seven sunburns later, the bus arrived, and I finally reached the land of Pembroke.

Medieval-era learning tent outside.

It was a strikingly well preserved medieval castle, with all the charm of bare stone castles. Plus displays inside with mannequin/sculptures acting out historical scenes. I couldn't decide if it was cheesy or creepy. Maybe just cheapy. But it DID have a tall tower with a very high ceiling. I think there used to be intermediate floors. The obvious upshot: THE TOWER INSIDE LOOKS LIKE AN ARTISTIC ROBOT EYE.

Do castle towers dream of Welsh sheep?

So Pembroke was nice, but it didn't have sea cliffs.

Note the distinct lack of sea cliffs.

So I took the advice of the nice people I had been train-stranded with, and took the first train to Tenby, which was back towards Cardiff. (Yes, this was a psychotically planned daytrip).

Lo and behold, though I could have sworn I smelled smoke, the train transported me safely to Tenby!

Rocky ain't got nothin on this.

In case you aren't well versed in Welsh beach hotspots, Tenby is a picturesque beach community with cute shops and a medieval wall jutting out of the cliffs. It even has sand!

Sand > Brighton's pebbles

It was a beautiful day. I'm talking sunshine and lollipops nice. I was all ready to buy a summer house there when people started warning me that the weather was not, in fact, typical.

Condemned monastery (too easy). 

Nice is not the typical weather? Suddenly it made a lot more sense that the whole place had a weird sort of Florida retiree vibe. And by vibe, I mean, I passed a couple stores that were advertising walkers, and some places that used Bingo as a selling point.

They also had some mini-sea-cliffs.

Hard to traverse with a walker.

It was pretty. And windy. 

Not pictured; the 75,000 snails that live there.

On the whole it was a disappointing day. I went to all the trouble of coming to wales, and I didn't see a single whale.

Much like the rest of my trip, I saw some seagulls:

Unlike the gulls of Bath, this bird is at least thinking about eating sea creatures.