Live From Phibsboro, Dublin !

Saturday, December 9, 2006

Loyola House, Phibsboro, Dublin

Kevin Here. I am actually writing this on Sunday (catching up for now, as we don’t have internet access here at the Loyola House).

We spent a LOT of time walking around Dublin Sunday. Our big goal of the day was to see “School For Scandal” by Richard Sheriden, which we did but I’ll get back to that.

We moved from the Ariel House in the Ballsbridge section of Dublin to the Loyola House in another. According to the mapquest directions we downloaded it should have taken about 10 minutes, it didn’t. If Ireland is the land of missing and inaccurate signs, then Dublin is the capital, with lots of one ways and bus and taxi only streets thrown in for good measure. It took us over an hour during which we ended up back where we started and asked “Jimmy” our doorman from the Ariel House for directions. Oh, at another point we had asked two Gardai (policemen) for directions and they actually stopped the traffic in both directions so that we could make an otherwise illegal u-turn.

Well, the Ariel House was a four star residence located near the major Embassies. This place . . . not so much. Maybe two and a half stars. It is certainly a clean place. Obsessively so, in my opinion. It’s like the house of that crazy Aunt that is filled with knick knacked rooms and doilied chairs where no one actually is allowed to go. A bit strange . . . But, we’re making the best of it for the few days we’ll be here. The excellent part of this place is that it’s a five minute walk to the bus station which takes us to Dublin City Centre for 1.35 Euro apiece. That means we don’t have to drive through the crazy city.

Anyways . . . after we finally got here and got our luggage stowed we decided to go off to Dublin right away, as we had to be there for the 8 o’clock show at the Abbey Theatre.

We should have checked our watches before leaving. We were in Dublin, with the usual somewhat cold, somewhat rainy weather by three. Five hours to kill in a city we knew very little of. Oh, and another thing about Dublin, it is QUITE expensive. So, stopping off somewhere for a coffee and a pastry will run about 10 Euro for the two of you. I won’t bore you with what we did to kill the time, but it was a LONG time.

The show we saw at the Abbey was worth the wait. It (The School for Scandal) was written in 1777 by a Dublin man, Richard Sheriden, and it holds up quite nicely. The cast was superb, the theater was intimate, without being small and our seats were excellent, fifth row, center. In short, an excellent night at the National Theatre of Ireland.

A bus ride back (they run until just past midnight) and back to bed.

Hope you’re enjoying the Blog and we apologize for the lack of pictures, there’s something not set up right and I’m still trying to figure it out. But, we already have about four hundred or so to show you later.

Slan’ , for now

Kevin and Renee

This is being downloaded from Chartbusters, in Phibsboro, Dublin at great cost, I am sure.