August 12th. More Dublin

We did a lot of walking around the city today. Don’t want to get into too much detail. In sum, Dublin is a place to go to. Perhaps we can get to stay here one of the summers. It has so much to be discovered. It is a bit far from everything though.

Some of the highlights from today are St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Christ’s Church crypt, views along the canal and its many bridges, Temple Bar again, and the street of Antiques with its lovely Zozimus Gallery. For a city this size a lot of government infrastructures are somewhat exposed and we got to walk around the backyard of Irish FDA. They got themselves a very interesting looking property. Department of Education and Skills has a sculpture in its courtyard chosen with a good sense of humor – opened up hand. We went inside a few smaller churches. Liked St. Nicolas Church.

We wanted to see the Riverdance but they did not have any performances today and tomorrow’s does not have any good seats left. There are a few other dancing venues but they all require dinner to be bought and run somewhat later. So we had skipped on the cultural life from that standpoint.

On the eating side of things. As we walked around we saw four Polish deli shops. Apparently the area is very popular. The entire staff on the ferry that we interacted with was Polish. Bad Ass bar we went to for dinner is run by the Polish owner as well.

For lunch we went to the Mongolian BBQ. Conceptually it was pretty interesting. A large metal cooking surface where a chef stir-fries your selection of tired and anti-sanitary looking veggies and meat. One has to spice it themselves when they bring it for the grill, which is a bit of an iffy idea. You really have to know what you are doing to pick the right spice combinations and not to overdo on the spice side. Dan was a bit put off by that and the first thing. Just like yesterday, Isabella surprised us by eating a few new things. 

A major highlight was Murphy’s ice-cream made from milk that comes from Kerry cows, supposedly even rarer than great pandas. It was awesome. I had caramelized brown bread flavor. Kids had raspberry and black currant and those flavores tasted like the real thing.

The people seem warmer and more approachable on one hand. But on the other, they are cautious of the many panhandlers in the area. Many of those are young and capable looking. There is plenty of mullets and fashion seems to be in all directions.

In retrospect we should have covered museums more but after counting our steps we did about 30k+, most likely much more for the little feet who did not complain. So we took it easy towards the end of the day and gave them the time to enjoy themselves at the playground until the rain had started.

Going to explore the countryside tomorrow.