The Occasionally-Examined Life

Marti’s friends Marie and Kevin invited us to visit their hometown, Belfast, so we took the 2-1/2 hour train trip north for a long weekend. Like trains everywhere in this part of the world, the ride was a comfortable and very pleasant experience. There was no indication whatsoever at the time of having crossed a border, from the Republic of Ireland into the Northern Ireland (the U.K.).

Brexit occurred while we were there and, as Marti remarked, we “went to sleep in the E.U. and woke up in the U.K”. The Irish border, both between the Irelands and between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K remains a significant issue for negotiation now that Brexit has occurred. There appeared to be no Brexit celebrations, of the kind seen in London, in Belfast.

Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland and is a compact city of 311,000. Its 19th and 20th century shipbuilding and textile industries have given way to aerospace, defense, and high-tech firms.

Kevin picked us up at the rail station in his Tesla Model 3 and riding in it was a really fun and interesting experience, including an episode that left me laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. More about that later.

One practical matter we noticed right away was that we had to use pound sterling banknotes in Belfast. These are similar but, oddly, not quite the same banknotes as used in the rest of the U.K. They’re printed by four different banks and aren’t accepted by merchants in other U.K. areas. For example, in London you’d have to exchange them at the Bank of England. The sterling coinage, however, was the usual and is accepted everywhere in the U.K. VISA and MasterCard (but not American Express) cards were universally accepted.

Kevin and Marie have a beautiful home and made us very welcome. Though Belfast natives, Kevin’s job has seen them live in places as varied as Paris and Portland, Oregon, so their accents have moderated. Not so with others; we had a cabby one day that gave us his opinion of the IRA and “The Troubles” and I could barely understand a word.

Speaking of cabbies, we took a “gabby cabby” black cab tour one day. This was our own private tour, in a roomy black cab, through the sectarian areas of Belfast, and thankfully Sean, our driver, was easy to understand. We saw large murals of local heroes and movements painted on the ends of apartment buildings and the “peace walls”, and learned from the driver all about “The Troubles” associated with them.

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The Peace Walls separate unionist (pro-U.K. / Protestant) and republican (pro-independence / Catholic) neighborhoods. They can be as tall as 45-feet (to prevent firebombs and other projectiles from being tossed over them) and have street gates in them that are closed at dusk. The gates weren’t even regularly opened in the daytime until just a few years ago! This is definitely not some last-century strife, now forgotten.

Belfast is also famous for its “bonfires”. These resemble nothing like the small bonfires of my youth. They’re incredibly large structures built of thousands of stacked shipping pallets and often loom over the surrounding buildings. They’re lit to celebrate the victory of Protestant King William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne (1690). People often toss in anything they want to get rid off, like cast-off furniture and old tires. The danger to other buildings is real and, needless to say, the fires increase air pollution. Yet they persist.

We also learned, sadly, that schools remain segregated by religion and even the teacher colleges are similarly segregated, so future generations do not mix with each other. Overall, the cabby tour amplified and expanded on what we’d learned at the GPO museum in Dublin, took 90 minutes, and cost £25 each – well worth it.

We went to the Lyric Theater one night, for a very good performance of Trad. The small space put us right on top of the action and the Irish accents were very accessible. The play was a bit in the “Waiting for Godot” vein and, like a lot of good theater, it really made us think: we were all discussing details and “what it meant” for several days thereafter.

We padded our days with trips to the Ulster Museum and saw nice exhibits of Celtic artifacts, art, artifacts from a sunken Spanish galleon (gold!), and “The Troubles” (tying in with the Dublin GPO exhibit and our gabby cabby tour).

We had some really excellent meals at local restaurants like the Ginger Bistro and, our hostess, Marie, is also a wonderful cook. I’m now, back in Dublin, on a bread-and-tea regime to try to recover my waistline!

Finally, back to the Tesla. It’s truly a technical marvel and I was very impressed with it. Among its many amazing features, Kevin revealed that it has a “Toy Box”: a collection of quirky apps. One of these is called Whoopee Cushion and, yes, it produces farting sounds from any of the seats. There’s a selection of varied fart “styles” (I’ll leave that to your imagination) to choose from and the sounds can be set off randomly or when the turn signals are used. I admit to succumbing to gasping, adolescent hilarity as Kevin put the app through its paces. The Whoopee Cushion – timeless humor, in a space-age car.

Next: The Titanic Experience

My friend Marti arrived from Paris and we went into fun Tourist mode. She has always wanted to do an Irish Whiskey Tasting, so we went to the Irish Whiskey Museum on Grafton Street (the main tourist drag, south of the river).

Our guide, Andrew, conducted us and a dozen others through the four floors of the townhouse and gave us a great education in whiskey making. Also, at the end, in whiskey tasting, with the four samples shown above. Marti and I both liked the “pot still” varieties best. It was surprising how much of a buzz you can get from a few small tastes. I think the tasting should have been organized from the top floor down rather than the reverse – it was interesting negotiating our way down four flights of steep stairs after the top-floor tasting, at the end of the event.

We managed to get out of the gift shop with a sack full of miniatures and gifts Marti wanted to take back to Paris. Overall, the tasting was a nice experience and, because it was not at a specific distillery, we got to hear about and taste a range of whiskies. Not bad for €13.50 each (we got a double discount for being seniors and for booking online). If you’re in Dublin, I recommend this.

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During the week we met up with Marti’s friends Kevin and Marie, from Belfast, and enjoyed several meals and a tour of the excellent museum in the basement of the General Post Office (GPO). This visit provided the seeds of our understanding of recent Irish history and intersected again and again with exhibits and landmarks we were to see in the coming week. The museum exhibition covered the Easter Rising (1916), the War of Independence (1919), the Irish Civil War (1922), “The Troubles” violence (1969), and the Good Friday Agreement (power-sharing for Northern Ireland – 1998). To review again: the Republic of Ireland (the southern part) is a member of the E.U., while Northern Ireland is a part of the U.K. You may remember that Northern Ireland endured religious strife, IRA terrorist bombings, and British repression. I also recommend this excellent exhibit.

Why is the museum in the GPO, you may ask? During the Easter Rising, the post office was a strategic rebel target (in order to cut off communications with Britain) and the rebel HQ. The original bullet-riddle portico remains today but the rest of it was destroyed by British shelling, and was rebuilt.

Next: Temple Bar in all its glory.

After living in Dublin for a week, I’m getting into the Irish groove. I’m living north of the river, near The Spire, a 390′ tall chrome needle that sticks up in the middle of Connelly Street. West of Connelly are pedestrianized streets with all the big name department stores, mini-malls, chain restaurants, and buskers. To the east, where I am, are neighborhoods with a slightly lower socio-economic profile: lots of discount stores, tattoo parlors, pizza and kabob shops, pubs, and down-market grocery stores. There’s a fair Polish presence, too, with Polski Skleps (Polish stores) seen and eastern European accents overheard. It’s a grand way to spend six weeks. The weather has been mostly in the 40s and overcast.

As you may know, I like a good pint. The pubs in my neighborhood are very traditional and my local, The Celt, is no exception. Guinness is universally available but there are also offerings on tap from local breweries (draft lagers, not hand-pumped ales) and lots of colorful decorations referencing Ireland’s history, rugby, and music. Booze bottles are suspended upside down behind the bar, with one-shot dispenser nozzles. Smoking is not allowed, American Express is not accepted, and “anti-social behavior” is not tolerated. The staff is generally warm and welcoming, and stools at the end of the bar (where I like to sit) are often already taken by the pub’s hardcore regulars. I noticed that IPA here often means “Irish Pale Ale”.

The U.S. is well-liked here, as evidenced by the American flags on pub walls and music on the speakers (including Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett). John F. Kennedy is still revered, and his death memorialized. The image below shows a JFK Memorial album and a clock stopped at the exact time the fatal bullets were fired in Dallas in 1963.

There is no sales tax here and self-service cash registers (the “till”) may round your bill up or down if they have no pennies to issue as change. For example, I paid €1.50 for a €1.49 item and got nothing back. If I want to go to the management office, I can get my penny, but I presume most folks don’t bother. Probably adds up nicely over time for the company.

Food is not cheap here in Dublin. A Guinness may be only €6.50 but fish and chips at lunch will set you back another €16.50. On TV, I saw a Domino’s Pizza deal for two medium pizza’s: in the U.S. that deal is $8-10, here it’s €24 or about $26! The Starbucks-style Esquires Coffee shop in my building serves up a large Coffee Latte for €3.65, which is tolerable occasionally. I have to be careful about eating too many meals out!

I managed to get over to the famous Temple Bar area yesterday afternoon, named after the ancient Temple family and the sandbank reclaimed from the river on which it stands. Adding to the confusion, the “Temple Bar” is also the name of a famous pub in the area. Plenty of opportunities for misdirection after multiple pints, mate. The Temple Bar pub is a sprawling place of many rooms and floors, with live music even at 1:00pm on a Monday. The area is notorious for raucous partying at night but that’s not really my scene.

My friend Marti arrives from Paris on Friday and she and I will be playing tourists with some Irish friends of hers during the weekend, which will be fun. More on that later. Cheers.

Dublin is a relatively compact city and it’s easy to walk about (cold and wet weather, or too many pints, notwithstanding).

Like most cities, Dublin is well-equipped with taxis and there are a lot of conveniently-located cab stands. Uber here operates solely as a taxi and car service hailing system (private cars may not pick up riders for money). Fares in town seem to be inexpensive and using Uber still eliminates the exchange of cash for payment. Another difference: the Uber app offers no mechanism for tipping when a ride is completed here.

There’s no subway system but there are street-level trams, called LUAS, a transportation mode that I like. They’re quiet, offer nice views of the city, and are powered by overhead electrical lines. The refillable Leap card is used to pay for rides.

Tram system builders have some infrastructure choices, though: trams in cities like Amsterdam put all of the ticketing mechanisms in the tram cars, which means a certain level of expense in the rolling stock.

Here in Dublin, the fare card top-up machines and tap-on, tap-off senors are on the sidewalk at the stops, not in the cars. This shifts the expense to every tram stop. I think here that translated into fewer stops being build, which is too bad. I’ve often found walking to nearest tram stop to be more than half the distance to where I’m going, so I might as well just walk.

There are also traditional buses here, but they have some strange routes and stop locations, so once again I’ve found walking in many cases is the better choice.

The Airlink Express bus coming in from the airport was something of a surprise: instead of a Greyhound-style tour bus, with cargo bays below and seats above, it was more like a double-decker sightseeing bus. Half of the seats on the lower level were replaced with luggage racks, leaving too few seats and too narrow aisles. That made it difficult for riders with multiple and/or large suitcases (like me) to maneuver. However, the price was right (€7), the ride only took 20 minutes, and I was set down two blocks from my flat.

Private bicycles seem to be popular and there are lots of special racks and lock-down railings provide for them. There are public bicycle rental schemes but they don’t appear to be very widespread, at least I haven’t seen many docking stations for them. One very noticeable bicycle-riding practice: bicyclists here stop and wait at red lights!

I’ve also seen fewer motorcycles, Vespa-type scooters, and e-scooters (Lime, Bird) here than I expected but that could be down to the Winter weather. E-scooters are relatively unregulated here and their numbers are said to be growing.

My verdict: walking, when you can, is the best way to get anywhere. But you already knew that.

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I’ve just wrapped up five weeks back in the U.S. visiting friends, celebrating the holidays, and taking care of annual health check-ups. The plunge back into driving a borrowed car and navigating suburban Northern Virginia was fun at first, but now I’m more than ready to pack my bags and take off tomorrow. First stop: The Republic of Ireland’s capital, Dublin. I have some Irish ancestry and have always enjoyed my visits to the Emerald Isle.

Let’s review: The Republic of Ireland (Dublin, Galway, Limerick) is the southern, larger country on the Irish island and is a member of the European Union. It’s not to be confused with Northern Ireland (Belfast, Derry), a separate country that’s part of the United Kingdom. And, no, we’re not going to discuss what happens to all that due to Brexit now.

I’ve been to Ireland twice before, once for a long weekend in Dublin and once, with my daughters when they were youngsters, for a week’s driving adventure along the western coast, that featured the Cliffs of Moher, traditional music in pubs in Doolin, the vast Wasteland, and the Galway Arts Festival. An adventure it was, too, what with driving on the left hand side of narrow, shoulder-less roads and dodging road-hogging tour buses and lorries.

I’ve booked a nice flat for the next six weeks in the center of town, north of the River Liffey, near Connelly Street but just outside the really touristy zone. I’ll be posting my usual observations about food, drink, and people, and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy my scribblings here.

And, naturally, I’ll be investigating the old adage that “Guinness always tastes better in Dublin”. Inquiring Minds want to know! Sláinte!