Dublin: The Next PDX

So I've been in Dublin for just over 24 hours and I've already been hit by a car three times. Same car, too! Ok, I'm kidding. But it could easily have happened. I'm still a bit jet lagged and still lacking a few necessities (adapter for laptop/camera, an extra pair of pants, blah blah boring stuff), but fairly well settled. I even got myself a "mo' bile" so as to fit in better.

Dublin is turning into Portland. Last time I spent a significant amount of time here, I was disgusted with the way people treated their city. On several different occasions I saw people just toss half eaten food, drinks on the ground, then throw their cigarette butt in the other direction. Feet in front of them was a trash bin, but that would have been too much effort. The sidewalks were heaped with crap like that. This time around while I was trying to talk on a payphone a loud sidewalk sweeper truck drove past. Two minutes later a man carting a pressure washer came around and sprayed down the area around the garbage cans. Then the sweeper came back again. Along with traffic, I've been dodging these contraptions ever since. It's like the city tourist board reads minds! Then there's the bike issue. Dublin seems like the last place on earth one would want to ride a bicycle, what with the 24/7 rush hour traffic, the narrow streets and the bathshit crazy bus drivers in charge of carriages thirty feet tall. I'm fairly certain that the last time I was here a bicyclist would have been laughed and pointed at. This time? They're everywhere. You can see them winding their way between buses and trucks, and there are parking areas with dozens of bikes stacked up. Next thing ya know, Dublin will be serving Stumptown coffee.

Finally made it to the National Museum with all the neat archaeological finds, including the bog bodies. Third time in Dublin and it's the first time I've seen the place. To be fair, my second trip here was just going to and from the airport. I'm much more familiar with the street layout, so I only get lost 1/3 of the time now, instead of once every block.

Kevin, my buddy from the field school last here who spent the entire summer over there again, dragged me to the Jameson distillery and made me be a volunteer, which required drinking several shots of whiskey. Dublin is much easier to navigate in such a state.

Tomorrow I think I'm heading off to Westport and then to Achill to see my friend who will only be there a few more days. Other than that and the soccer match in Cork on the 10th, I don't have any solid plans. My army buddy in England hasn't gotten back to me, and I'm beginning to wonder if he's been deployed or something nasty like that. I'd sure like to see him.