Onwards to Dublin

Sunday 11th September

After a restless night's sleep (I was paranoid about oversleeping and missing my Aer Lingus flight to Dublin, the capital city of the Republic of Ireland, because I don't own a watch or a travelling clock) I eventually climbed out of bed at 8am. I probably only had about two hours sleep all night, despite getting to bed at the relatively civilised (for Barcelona!) hour of 2am, and so consequently was a bit of a grouch for the rest of the day. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been a problem, except for the circumstances of my flight.

Richard's travel tip #18: Don't catch a Sunday midday flight from Barcelona - the airport will be full of still-drunk, loudly boasting British lads who are returning home from a weekend of shagging and partying and conspiring about what lies to tell their girlfriends. Worse, flights from Barcelona to Dublin at this time are, according to an Aer Lingus stewardess, traditionally full of Spanish high school kids on their way to Ireland for a week to help them improve their English skills. The horror, the horror!

Not only was the plane echoing with the uncontrolled shouts, shrieks and bellowed conversations of about 35 such teenagers, but their teachers did absolutely nothing to control them. Worse still, for some reason I was seated right in their midst!

Now, bearing in mind that I was sleep deprived and grumpy, you can imagine how little I enjoyed this flight. At one point, despite having my headphones on at my iPod at maximum volume, I could still hear them shouting and carring on, to the point where I was compelled to turn to the kid next to me, saying 'Habla ingles per favor?' ("Do you speak English please?") When he replied in the affirmative, I said sweetly, "Then will you please shut the fuck up and stop yelling in my ear?" He looked suitably surprised and abashed, and to his credit kept the volume down for the next hour. Didn't stop the rest of them though!

So, not the most enjoyable plane flight I've ever had. Far from it in fact. It was an enourmous relief to disembark, grab my luggage, and catch a bus into central Dublin. It was even more of a delight to run into Rob Nairn at the airport - a Melbourne lad who used to work at The Builder's Arms Hotel! Ah it's a small world to be sure, to be sure.

Rob and his girlfriend Hannah have been living in the UK for about a year, and were over here in Ireland for a visit; in fact he was returning their hire car to the airport when I bumped into him. He advised me where to get off the bus in town, and also advised me that I might have problems finding a room, as the all-Ireland Cork vs Galway hurley grand final was happening!

There were, indeed people everywhere, swarms of them flooding every street and spilling out of every pub. I still found a bed though, for €15 a night at the Oliver St. John Gogarty, in the heart of the Temple Bar district, the entertainment/culture centre of Dublin. It's a bit noisy (the downstairs bar hosts live traditional Irish music til 2am but what the fuck, I can always join em if I can't sleep) but large, clean and comfortable - plus there's only me and one other person in my eight-bed dorm room.

After checking in and dumping my backpack, I went for a stroll about town to orient myself. It's not an imediately beautiful city, but I really like it here and am considering skipping Amsterdam so that I can stay in Ireland for a few more days instead of leaving on Thursday.

One of the first places I found was a great independent bookshop called Books Upstairs, where not only did I pick up a gay and lesbian newspaper and a Dublin Fringe mini-program, but also a couple of local literary journals and a collection of new and emerging writers. I also visited The Body Shop to get some peppermint foot balm (I've been doing so much walking in the last week that I've got blisters. Owww.) and then dropped into an Irish pub for a pint, and discovered an impromptu jam session in progress, with a guitarist, a whistle-player, and an appreciative crowd - how very Irish!

That evening I met up with Rob and Hannah for dinner at a very good but slightly expensive Japanese restaurant called Wagamomas - sort of like a busier version of Melbourne's Chocolate Buddha, and equally pricey. In fact Dublin is a very expensive city all round, especially compared to Barcelona; the good thing about Wagamomas though was the quality of the food - good fresh ingredients - and the attentive service.

After we parted ways I dropped in to another pub, the International, for a nightcap and got talking to a couple of lads in the basement bar, which hosts live music later in the week. One of the lads was Bob, a burly, shaven-headed 25 year old-ish lift repairman (and quite cute I might add - indeed, so are many of the Irish boys, and their accents make me go weak at the knees...). After hearing that it was my first night in Ireland, and being quite drunk after celebrating the day's big game in style, Bob was generous enough to give me a gift: a small block of hashish which I promptly lost later that night, dammit!

Then it was back to Temple Bar and off to bed for a much-needed rest.

Tomorrow: Trinity College, the Book of Kells, Oscar Wilde and so much more!