Dublin City Exposed - Part Quatre

Am back in London after a rather tiring few days in Ireland. Saturday (16 Sept) was largely spent visiting the Guinness Museum (also known as Guiness Storehouse), The National Museum of Ireland, Oscar Wilde's memorial and residence, and by accident, the Natural History Museum of Ireland (more on that later on).

But first, we finally managed to sample quintessential Irish breakfast! Thank goodness our hotel's restaurant offered it. Paid 8.50 euros each to have a serving of baked beans, hash brown, streaky bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs (v blend), toast and the pièce de résistance - black and white pudding (or fried blood and assorted meat pattie??? The b/w pudding are the 2 knob-like things in the pix). My verdict? Errr, what's in the white pudding? Tried a bit of it and when I couldn't identify what was in it, gave up. Didn't want to be chomping on strange bits of pig/beef offal, just in case... And Dee and I didn't eat the black pudding in the end. He was about to tuck in when he remembered the Bible saying something about how Christians shouldn't consume blood. And while he was still deliberating, as if a sign from God, he bit his lip! We decided it best to heed 'The Sign' and left the blood untouched on our plates. :)

After brekkie, we walked to The Guinness Storehouse on St James Street. It took us about 20 min to get there but we figured we needed to walk off all the fried stuff we'd had for breakfast. Within the walls of the Storehouse lies 7 storeys of exhibition space, each floor revealing the rich history behind 'the black stuff', how it came about, and the ambitions and aspirations of its founder, Arthur Guinness. Can't say I had the best time there but was certainly well-informed in the making of the perfect Guinness - the finest Irish barley, purest Irish spring water, Hops (a kind of plant) and the all impt - specially formulated YEAST by Arthur Guinness himself. Dee was enthralled, to say the least. He took time to go through ALL the panels and listen to the commentary. But the highlight for him was redeeming that free pint of Guinness at the top of the Storehouse! Mmmm-mmm...

Unfortunately, Danielle lost one of her Bonds ankle socks (given by Mel from Oz) in the Storehouse and despite searching for it and asking Lost & Found, 'twas not to be found. V upset... :(

Our next stop was the National Museum of Ireland. We decided to hop into a cab to save time, but ended up wasting it instead when we landed at the wrong museum! Turns out Dee mistook 'Natural' for 'National' and directed a rather disconcerted cabbie to the wrong place! We decided to mill around the Natural Museum for abit and browsed through exhibit after exhibit of embalmed animals (A Giant Irish Deer! An Irish Hare! An Irish Badger!). But at least I found out that Danielle can identify a wolf coz when she saw one in an exhibit, she muttered 'Wolf', 'Raaaah!', 'Blow house down'! Heehee, all this from listening to the story of the 3 Little Pigs. :)

We headed to the actual National Museum finally and spent about an hour there. Enjoyed the exhibit 'Kingship and Sacrifice' where several 'bog mummies' were out on display. Quite awesome, but in a macabre sort of way. But our overall verdict? Quite disappointing. Whilst the Museum showcased a whole mélange of artifacts, they failed to tell how these things played a part in Irish history. There were artifacts from the Archaic, Medieval, Viking era etc, but they didn't illustrate how those periods affected or formed Ireland. Quite a pity, really. Or perhaps we just went to the wrong place?

After a short stop at the Oscar Wilde memorial and residence, we headed back to York Street where we'd parked the car and headed to the airport. Didn't quite like rushing through the day but guess we couldn't anticipate Danielle falling ill. Our flight was delayed for an hour so by the time we got home, it was 11pm. Thankfully Danielle was fast asleep by then. That meant I could clean the house, unpack and do the laundry... *yawn*

Top 10 Things I Learnt about Ireland
1) Irish are warm and friendly! They smile before you do, offer help in directions and photo-taking even before you ask them! Amazing!
2) In North Ireland(Belfast), they use sterling pounds and consider themselves part of the UK. In the South (Dublin), they are considered a Republic and trade in euros.
3) Green is the unmistakable National Colour! Almost everything is coloured spinach green - from mailboxes, interior of shopping malls, to street signs... even the people seem to prefer donning in green compared to other colours!
4) Irish use 'wee' to mean 'little'. Eg 'Does your wee girl want a plate of her own?'
5) Irish do NOT pronounce the 'H' in words like 'Thanks', 'Three', 'Thirty'. They say 'Tanks', 'Tree', 'Teerty'.
6) A person with a surname 'Mc-something' is likely to be Irish. A 'Mac-something', on the other hand, could be Scottish.
7) Other widely used symbols in Ireland, besides the shamrock, are the 'harp' (on Guinness bottles) and 'castles'. Even bus-stops symbols are represented by 'castles'.
8) Ireland is sparsely populated. Esp in rural areas, you see more livestock than you do people. (Similar to New Zealand, perhaps?)
9) Polish and Chinese immigrants are as rampant in Ireland as Indians and Afro-blacks are in England.
10) In the South, Gaelic is widely used and recognised. Signages bear both Gaelic and English translations. In the North, it's strictly English.