Dublin Day 4: I'm Just Browsing

My last day in Dublin was a quiet one. I awoke much earlier than I wanted to, surrounded by empty wrappers from the free cookies housekeeping leaves. I brewed a couple cups of Nespresso, settled back into bed to watch Everybody Loves Raymond and tried to answer that age old question “Does everybody in face love Raymond?” After 2 episodes I determined that no, no they do not.

I had a bit of a quandary for my last day. Checkout was noon and my train didn’t leave until 6:45. I had already seen pretty all that I wanted to, anything left on my list was too far away for my liking. It was Sunday and I wanted to take it relatively easy after the action packed 3 days I just had. I realized I hadn’t really taken any photos of the city itself so I decide to simply wander the streets of Dublin , take a few photos and see what would happen. So I left my bag with reception and started a-wanderin’.

Now, normally I’m sure, most people would go about neighborhoods they hadn’t seen yet. However I did not take that approach for whatever reason. I decided to stick around the areas I had been around all week, in other words: the mostly touristy area around Trinity College and Temple Bar. Nothing like the early afternoon bouncing off the windows of an H&M to really get the creative juices flowing. I’m not entirely sure why I picked this area to wander on a Sunday afternoon rather than a most residential neighborhood or literally anywhere else in the city. I had been there every other day I was there. I think there was a bit of residual from the day before.

After the stress that I manufactured and put on myself throughout the day, I was just kind of drained mentally and creatively. I got too in my head and didn’t allow myself to sit and think “ok what can you do to work this out?” Instead I went right to “well shit. *tears*” I only had so much time left after I got the battery to work again and I thought it could die for real at any second so I rushed myself. Again, instead of just chilling out for a moment to find my shot I was like “NOPE JUST DO IT DO IT DO IT IT’S GONNA DIE AND YOU’RE GONNA GET STRANDED” In the series of photos from that day, there’s a lot of what I believe are good starts but they don’t go anywhere, I don’t expand on that. It’s like writing a book and you’ve got a really great first chapter but the rest of the book is pretty meh and it doesn’t evolve. So, the photos from the cliffs are fine, but there’s not really one where I think YES. YES. THIS IS IT. Nothing has blown me away. You may feel the opposite way, I don’t know, but I’m always going to be my biggest critic so literally your opinions mean nothing to me. Just kidding... ish.

I spent a lot of time exploring St. Stephen’s Green, had a flat white and a sausage roll while watching kids chase pigeons then get chased by swans. It was a really beautiful day, and in true Ohioan fashion I couldn’t help but think how much warmer it’d be “if it weren’t for the wind.” I browsed some used book vendors set up on the street in the Temple Bar area, ducked into a couple vintage stores, considered an ugly sweater at Urban Outfitters, and grabbed a crab BLT for lunch. I eventually wandered over to Merrion Square, the park across from Oscar Wilde’s childhood home, which features a statue of the writer affectionately named “The Fag on the Crag". How quaint. I think I actually enjoyed Merrion more than St. Stephen’s. There was an air about it that I loved. It seemed less… formal? than St. Stephens. St. Stephens had very manicured gardens and keep off the grass signs everywhere while Merrion had landscaping around most of it that made you feel like you were walking through the woods. People were picnicking, meditating, and just hanging out on the lawn. Not to mention is was quiet. You didn’t feel like you were in a major city at all.

By this point, I still had a good 5 hours before my train left. So I headed into the small National History museum for a bit, realized it was packed full of children, rushed my way through, and headed to the National Art Museum instead, knowing full well that there was going to be about 75% less children. I have to keep reminding myself that because I’m in an art museum in Europe, that a majority of their collection is going to be religious art. Which like… fine. I get it. Who doesn’t love a good portrait of the Virgin Mary squirting breast milk into baby Jesus’ mouth, right? But it gets old. Give me a painting of Jesus dressed like David Blaine going “I will now lock myself in this cave for a week” or “watch as I magically turn this one loaf of bread into 40!” I’ll stop and stare for a few minutes once you give me that. Until then, thank you, next. I didn’t stay long in the museum, I was starting to get restless so I grabbed the bag I left at the hotel and headed to the train station with a good two hours to go.

I ended going a bit of a long way around and finally through an area I hadn’t been to multiple times. This helped waste a bit of time as stopped repeatedly to take a few photos. I also took the stops as a chance to take my bag off which had gained a few pounds in new clothes and was now uncomfortably heavier than before. I waited at the train station for an hour and a half, just hanging out, crushing a bag of Cadbury Twirl Bites. It should would be cool if the states were up to par on train travel. It would be cool if we were just up to par in terms of train maintenance. Hell I’ll settle for better maintained roads and bridges and I don’t even drive. Ooh shit look at me getting political.

Anyways

I really loved Dublin. It was comfortable and not in the lease bit overwhelming. The city is incredibly walkable, and I’m not saying that as someone who walks everywhere. All the sites are literally within blocks of each other. If I were to eventually move to Ireland, I could definitely see myself living in Dublin.