Day 1: Avoiding Guinness in Dublin

Yesterday's flight on Finnair's Airbus319 (registered OH-LVG) was quick and comfortable. We are staying in the outskirts of Dublin with a friendly and homey family, and yesterday we were so tired after the trip that we only made a short walk around the neighbourhood before crashing into our luxurious beds.

Night falls on Dublin's southern suburbs
Today, however, we rumbled into town on doubledecker bus 11 (what a friendly driver! It makes the Helsinki drivers look like sociopaths) and started our "Dublin in two days - day one" itinerary with St Stephen's Green, a place I remember well from my last visit four years ago and a nice spot for a picnic. After that, Grafton street for some window shopping. Of course visiting Trinity College, in particular the very impressive library, was inevitable. Why is it always prohibited to take pictures in these places! It makes me so irritated - see below.

The impressive library at Trinity College
Lunch was at a funky place called Gruel (recommended by Lonely Planet - I know I sound pathetic but sometimes the easiest thing is to just look in the guidebook for advice which everyone else is following as well), dinner in not-so-funky Burger King (Mikko's first Whopper meal!). Of course we had a pint (or two) with a nice Italian couple in the Temple Bar pub district, and I now have a new mission for tomorrow - see title. How ironic I sleep under a poster advertising this ghastly drink.

Make up your own ending!
I had forgotten that the city's largest tourist office is a converted church - how's that for kitch. However, I didn't forget that in Dublin, there are shops selling "genuine Irish gifts" everywhere, and the thought of how all the money people spend on all this rubbish (Guinness underwear, anyone?) could be spent is better not contemplated. But now I'm being my cynical self and not praising this place enough - it's a nice laid-back city with a quirky character, the people are friendly and just like in the movies, and there's also a sense of history, especially in the area around the park, with its beautiful old grand houses with their fantastic coloured doors!

I spent some time just now reading and replying to emails and reading the news, which is harder every day. I also read my uncle's blog, which doens't exactly inspire one to burst into joyous singing, either. How easy it is for the rest of the world to turn a blind eye to human catastrophes like this or be brainwashed to think any massacre of innocent children is self-defence. Oh and by the way, how about the contanimation of the Meditteranean? And now I'm quoting my aunt, who says the sea is probably a terrorist as well.