The Streets of New Dubdon

There are few cities that I have immediately felt at home in while visiting. The main two being New York and London. And then I went to Dublin and discovered that the two cities had merged into an amazing combination that was better than both of them on their own. 

River Liffey divides the city into North and South Dublin, similar to the Thames in London. And similarly, it has an outstanding river walk, but unlike London with Southbank getting taken over by tourists too often, Dublin’s is a bit easier to maneuver, just avoiding those out for their morning run. 

Swap the red for yellow and Dublin even has London beat with their double decker busses — sorry, after a year in China, the color red tends to make me slightly nauseous. 

Christchurch Cathedral: I’m torn between being annoyed that I have to pay €3 to see a church and knowing that by paying €3 to see a church, I’m seeing a church that’s not fallen into disrepair. 

I do love cities that have the ability to put in a park that is able to transport you out of busy city life, if even only for a lunch break. St. Stephen’s Green with a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee? Whoa, and Toronto is in on the city merger as well. 

And while the city is uniquely Dublin, I can’t help but be reminded of neighborhoods in New York that I’ve walked through — other than the traffic all being reversed.

And the fact that after a block of New York, you have a block that screams Ireland!

Can I move here? Please?

A Drunken Protest

As you walk through the streets of Dublin you notice a few things. One, there are a lot of very similar doors all painted different colors and two, there are postcards of these doors in all the tourist shops. 

Of course, I’m picky. Especially when it comes to collages of similarities and differences. I once had to create one for a design class and I chose to use images from the 2004 Athens Olympics of gold medal winners. Do you have any idea how long it took me to resize images to get everyone’s heads the same size? 

But the point of that story is that the postcard wasn’t good enough for me. In fact, it pretty much annoyed me. So therefore, I told Kate that we would just have to make our own. 

And so we strutted around the North Georgian area of Dublin Sunday morning, being complete creepers shooting random people’s front doors. 

I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad to report that no one came through their doors as we were shooting them. Probably a little of both. 

Now, why do these doors have so many different colors? I’ve found a couple stories. 

One involves wives angry over their drunken husbands inability to stumble home from the pub and into the proper doorway of the uniformly similar Georgian houses. Therefore, they picked up the paint bucket and painted their doors a different color. I’m personally rooting for them also painting a stripe on their husbands jacket so they could remember what color they were aiming for.

The other story involves the death of Queen Victoria. The Irish were ordered to paint all their doors black to mourn the queen, but rather than listening they rebelled and picked up whatever color paint was the brightest. 

Either way, I’m down with this decision. 

Perfection

I’m quite certain that Ireland is my perfect country. I’ll have to go live there to make sure, but after my visit there were a number of things that I realized I am missing in my current location of Potsdam.

Color: Oh. My. Goodness. WHY do vast portions of Europe only wear black?! My wardrobe is far from neon colored, but still, there are many days where I feel bloody vibrant next to all the shades of black. And navy blue so dark it’s…black. And brown so dark it’s…black. 

Sweatpants: The kids here won’t even come downstairs in their pajamas. Me? I’m roaming around in yoga pants. Until I feel guilted into getting dressed. And then there’s Dublin. Do you know how many pairs of sweatpants I saw?! I’ve never been so excited by public sweatpants in my life!

Beer: Apparently, I’m quite picky when it comes to beer. So far, there’s approximately two kinds of German beer I don’t dread drinking. Ireland? They are not kidding when they say the Guiness is better in the homeland.  And also the Smithwicks. And really, who needs other choices when those too are such silky smooth perfection?

Biking: Honestly, Germany has too many rules. And I feel I break about nine of them every time I bike, usually out of ignorance. This leads to me feeling uncomfortable 100% of the time. From what I saw in Ireland — fewer rules. Better biking experience. 

Crosswalks: This same mentality applies to the crosswalks. There’s a joke about how the Soviet’s didn’t need to put up the Berlin Wall — they could have just put up the crosswalk sign and everyone would have stayed put. You don’t walk without the walk sign in Potsdam. There’s no Chinese/English/Irish mentality to look both ways to make sure nothing is immediately impending your path and make a dash for it. Oh my goodness, I miss taking my life into my own hands and racing in front of a bus.

Mountains: I didn’t realize just how much I loved living in locations where I can see the mountains — ok, fine, large hills, whatever. In Beijing, I could see the Fragrant Hills on a blue sky day. Plzen has hills and mountains off in the distance. In Phoenix, well, there’s a slew of mountains to choose from. Dublin has the Wicklow Mountains. Potsdam has….a hill into my subdivision that I have to bike up. Woot. Woot.

Bilingual: For not having an official language, America sure is set on only teaching English until High School. Ridiculous. I am all for countries displaying multiple languages and keeping their traditional tongue from dying. Keep up the good work, Ireland!

Bus fare: An optional price? Love it. Apparently having a ridiculously confusing system does work towards the travelers advantage at times. 

Tim Hortons: It’s not that I’m one of the die-hard Tim Horton’s or bust lovers, it’s that this restaurant holds so many memories. My best friend would pick me up for ELS church on Sunday mornings in high school — aka I’d sneak out of the dorm and gasp, get into a car! Then we’d hit up T’Orton’s for some bagels with cream cheese and be on our way. Oh, and they have awesome sandwiches. And coffee. And mmm. 

And side note: Ireland has a rather large immigrant population from the States. I’m not the only one thinking along these lines. And I should definitely be joining the numbers.