Wild Weekend in Dublin
My gift to John for his 60th
birthday was to celebrate this memorable occasion with an Irish flair and to
take in St Patrick’s Day with its entire splendor. In other words…a three-day
party!
The signs were there on the
aircraft flying over to the Emerald Isle; lots of green and everyone pumped up
with the air of anticipation. It was a bit like going to a final of Crusaders
rugby game.
We were booked into a great
hotel ‘The Shelbourne’ in a perfect location with grand bars and close to the
action. It’s a pity the bed was over-plumped and the pillows only fit for Irish
giants.
Now, as for the next 72
hours, it was just a blur.
The Highlights:
Day One. Dinner at that well
know Lebanese restaurant ‘The Cedar Tree’ where John made the mother of all
faux-pas. When asking the owner if the shaky, doddery waiter who had served us
a couple of years back, when dining with our friends the Cockcrofts, was still
above ground, only to be served thirty seconds later by this same doddery old
fart! Oh dear. It has to be said that John was very good at disaster recovery.
Impressive!
Post dinner drinks at The
Foggy Dew.
Day Two. John’s BIG DAY of
the big SIX O!
We started with a huge Irish
brekkie including monstrous wedges of the famous black and white puddings.
We followed this near death
experience with a feeble attempt to explore the sights but were constantly
distracted by the green throng being sucked into the local pubs. It was
raining, so that was our excuse. The queue to see The Book of Kells would have
left us drenched so we abandoned that to head off down to The Brazen Head,
where by 11.30am the Guinness was flowing like it was the last day on earth.
Hoards of small green persons (not leprechauns) poured through the door and
mingled with the increasingly intoxicated patrons. The mood was buoyant and
getting higher all the time as the German group near us descended into drinking
songs and we all joined in. Yah. It was overwhelming.
We left there and crawled
around the other Dublin pubs like O’Neil’s and Donoghues that were swelling
with partygoers.
To finish off this special
day we dined at an enormous French Bistro ‘Café en Seine’ which is packed to
the rafters with French décor and we sipped our French Champagne into the wee
hours.
Day Three. The day arrived in
a riot of green and orange. It took me a wee while to realize that the little
green grassy masses tucked or pinned on to the staff at the hotel were fresh
shamrocks. Cute.
After another Irish breakfast,
five hundred thousand others and we couldn’t wait to hit the streets to take in
the parade and general mayhem. We found our spot, enjoyed watching the antics
of Irish teenagers in some sort of mating ritual and harassing the Garda by
drinking banned alcohol and climbing up on to restricted fences. The parade was
grand but it did bring back memories of old street marches of the past with
pipe bands and garish floats.
Then into The Foggy Dew and we
quickly became drinking buddies with our new Irish friend Marcus and his German
friends. Lots of shenanigans then off to ‘Head for the Border’, another bar, to
view the Ireland vs. England, six nations rugby battle. When we said we were
New Zealanders the response for the Irish patrons around us was ‘ R E S P E C
T’. That makes you feel good being a Kiwi. Thanks All Blacks.
Well, as you can see it was a
fantastic three-day break and well worth repeating.
Now we are back in London to
a more normal and liver friendly existence.
