dublin

as most people go to amsterdam for the drugs, it seems most people also go to dublin for the pubs. much like in the case with my trip to amsterdam, however, i had a few other reasons for visiting dublin up my sleeve. and no, it has nothing to do with "being irish." (isn't almost everyone in america at least a little irish?) while i did a little pubbing of my own, one of the greater pulls for my visit to dublin was my bookworm side.

there is so much history to this city and so many great authors lived there. james joyce, oscar wilde, bram stoker, george bernard shaw, jonathan swift. and those are just the safe names that most average people are familiar with. i won't dare list some of the others that made me excited. there were so many places that carried inspiration for some of the great stories these authors had written and so many pubs and cafes they previously visited. it was cool for a nerd like me to have a chance to walk in their shoes.

it's not all history and nerdy bookish tourism stops in dublin as you might imagine. the city definitely has a bit of a hard edge to it. the first hint i got of this was the hostel pub crawl. while most of the hostels i've stayed in run a pub crawl, dublin is the only place i have been so far that the pub crawl goes every night including sunday. i myself chose to have more of a casual sunday (i'm a nana, what can i say?), but roaming around the streets at night i noticed that every pub i passed was packed. sunday funday to the fullest. which begs the question, is new york really deserving of the title "the city that never sleeps?"

back to my point about being irish, i guess i did care a little bit that i was visiting the land of my ancestors. or at least i thought i was. you definitely feel irish with a name like Quigley, until you're standing in front of the standard coat of arms key ring stand in a dublin tourist shop and Quigley is no where to be found. so maybe i'm not as irish as i thought, but i'll continue to maintain my heritage. at least on march 17th.