Some more pictures from our daily tours in Dublin (6)- a full week ended on the beach!

Preparing myself to make a short revieuw in our magazine for Englishteachers,  I have to write in English about those few things I haven´t mentioned earlier- our daily excursions into Dublin.

As I earlier  told, the programme was quite fullbooked, and some excursions could have been combined- for instance a visit to the Writers museum could have been together with James Joyces.
Haven´t yet succeed in reading "Dubliners" to the end, but of course had to buy another book also- "Finnegans wake" is waiting in my bookshelf...
I had forgotten how cheap Englisg books are- of course with bigger prints when a lot more people reads English than Finnish... This fantastic little receip book costs only 5€ so I got one for my youngest son also! Here´s one receipt:

Potato and leek soup                                                 

3 tbsp butter
450g leeks cut into 2cm pieces
450g peeled and chopped potatoes
1,2 l chicken stock
salt, freshly ground black pepper
to serve with fresh crusty bread

Melt butter in a saucepan and add the leeks.Cover with a greaseproof paper and a tight lid. Sweat until the leeks are soft and add then potatoes.Cook for appr. 10minutes careful to not burn.Add  the chickenstock and simmer 30 minutes until the potatoes are cooked. Season well and liquidise (use the Bamix!) and serve with bread.

o´Connelly street is the main place to go, and there you also find a big postoffice - there was a story about the building  during the breaking up from UK.  Since my last visit for over 20 years ago, they had built a "needle" just to have some tourists around...

Nearby, James Joye is still watching people on his platform as he dis 20 years ago! Something doesn´t change!

We went also to the area with all pubs, and even visited the oldest called.

Molly Malone who had been selling fish in daytime and her "favours" in nighttime, had been put in a new place, but still in the same part of town-, near St Stephens Green.

We visited also the Castle of Dublin and had a nice guide to take us around there- heard also stories about the vikings who had lived there in year 1000- all Irishmen we spoke to were absolutely fantastic storytellers and jokers!

james Joyce still watching...

Dublin castle

Molly Malone

oh Dear- I`ve forgot John - our city guide who also guided us in Riverdance the last day -it was so nice! John is studying -if I remember correctly- history and English to be a teacher  -he makessome kind of training at Emeralds. At last on Friday he confessed that he has been dancing Riverdance on hoghest possible level (with a trainingproram twice a day for ours...) until he started at university. We had a brief introduction and also got some performance by John -just  lovely!

river Liffey

We had to take the tram - I think personally it was a cross-breed between trams and trains-
from our hotel in Leopardstown to school, and then from there further to city centre. It worked fine and the whole journey took less than half-on-hour. In the morning rush the tram was crowded, but in the evenings we could even afford us a seat!  Same rushing hours all over!

The only bad thing with our location a bit out of city, was all the stuff we had to remembr take with us already n the morning because it was no idea to return to the hotel before "going out".
And "out" we went -every single evening people came back to the hotel later than 9pm- I didnt knew that language´teachers are so keen to use  their coursedays fully!

-some matarial Paul sent us by Ari- interesting :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J25d9aC1GZA

Then I have to mention a few museums- perhaps the best of them was E.P.I.C. -the Irish emmigrant museum,opened last year and easy to find along the river nearby a busstation. It gave us a good historic wieuv of the whole country and there were different modern methods to show things - very interactive -and I mean - in a good way!

Dublin university= Trinity college  and the library inholding the "book of Kells"- is "a must", and there by the corner we also found the archeological museum - quite nice and lovely as a building also.
we moved in smaller groups around when the official program was finished, and I succeeded to find myself everyday with different companions- made a lot new acquaintances during this week!
Our whole group went to the Whiskey-museum- we had a lovelyguidance there also- and quite many of us payed a visit to Guiness- the famous beerfactory which has been for hundreds of years in Dublin and there it still works!

Then I`ll put here also a few gardenpictures- the route from the tram to our school was a quite typical Irish/English residence with small gardens in front of the houses. It was funny to see what kind of people lived in the house- many thoughts about inhabitants rised only because of different gardens...

 In the picture above you see Päivi, our groupleader, explaining something about our program in front of the Whiskey-museum.
And something I nearly forgot - when we arrived the international PRIDE -week was to end and the Irish way of celebrate was really nice - funny and glad without the protesting attitude we often see in Finland when people participate in parades like this!

We talked a lot of this Irish attitude to life - it seemed to begin at our school- "do what you can, but dont blame yourself if you dont succeed" Does it really matter?
Sometimes I really think that we Finns are too serious with everything in Finland, and does this trace to our lutherian religion - nothing but hard work is significant and important?
The Irish attitude to always keep humour in your mind was so refreshing!

 The oldest pub in town -CHEERS!

Whiskey & Guiness -the Irish way to relax...

 Here also a fantastic guide- even if he talked with a terrible accent and very fast- only by sight it looked good....

 There was a possibility-  if you are  interested enough- to get an idea of how to make some beer...

 My favourite - look at the text to the right!!

The last target - a pint of Guiness with a magnifigue view over the town!

and here some gardens:

All the good thing will end some day, and the best possible way to spend your last day in Dublin was - of course- the beach!

Just 5 minutes taxidrive from our hotel- appr. 5km- was the nearest beach- not big and luxury, but to walk slowly to the water on sand when the sun shines - a better goodbuy we couldn+t have had!

three ladies in the sun

the tide is out - so qute for us Finns!