In September 2009 I moved out of my apartment, packed my bags, and hopped on a plane to England. I hadn’t been there in four years, which may not seem like long to some people, but considering I used to go every year, it was shocking to me. My British friend SP was getting married in Spain, and I was a maid of honour. So I had to go. The timing worked out well enough, since I had been downsized in June and hadn’t found a replacement job yet. I decided I might as well take advantage of the freedom, and booked my return ticket three months later. Due to my being a bridesmaid in another wedding the following January, I had to come back anyway.
While I was abroad I had a small list of things to accomplish before I came back. A couple that pop up top of mind include: go shooting, take the Tate-to-Tate shuttle ferry down the Thames, run the Frieth Hilly 10k, ride the Eye, and have Guinness and oysters in Dublin.
After I came back to London from Spain (and Gibraltar) to stay at SP’s house in Streatham Hill, I had to find a job to support myself for the next three months. I am a dual citizen, so I am allowed to work anywhere in the U.K. (or Europe for that matter). I ended up getting a part-time cafe job in the affluent area of Belgravia. The shop was called Ottolenghi, and it was très chic. So many hilarious adventures came out of that place – for those of you who followed my Facebook status updates you will most likely eagerly recall the epic drama of Italian Jogging Pants Guy (who wasn’t Italian afterall). The only problem with this cute job was the hours – quelle anti-social! Weekends, 7:00am starts, 10:00pm closings. Not good for a girl’s social life. Especially when the girl is desperate to fly over to Ireland for the weekend and sip the sweet black nectar of the gods in its native Olympus.
Another problem was that I only earned £6 an hour.
And I didn’t have more than one day off in a row.
Alas! One Thursday I checked my work schedule for the following week, and saw that I had Mon-Tue-Wed off! THREE DAYS! In a row!
My flight back to Toronto was in two weeks. I doubted I would have this kind of luck again. So I said F it, I’m going! Except that the flight sales weren’t on at that time, and would have cost something like £300-400. Which I def couldn’t afford on my min wage salary. Therefore, I would go via land. Nothing would stop me from getting to that Guinness.
I found a great deal on Virgin Rail that included my train and ferry tickets for £30 (prices may have changed since then). Sure it was going to take longer than flying, but I would get there eventually. And my travel philosophy has always been life’s a journey not a destination. (Thank you, Aerosmith, for that one.)
My impromptu itinerary:
– Walk to Balham Station (20mins)
– Tube to Euston Station (40mins)
– Train to Chester Station (2hrs 10mins)
– Switch trains
– Train to Holyhead, Wales (2hrs 10mins)
– Ferry to Dublin
Change o’ plans:
– Supposed to be on noon ferry, but was cancelled
– Had to wait for next ferry, and it’s the one that takes an hour longer to cross Irish Sea, which means I would arrive in Dublin too late to visit Guinness Factory
– Had to kill 2hrs and 40mins
– Asked ferry lady what’s to do in happenin’ Holyhead and she said “Not much.”
– Bought can of Boddingtons from an off-licence called The Booze Buster that had a sign on its front door reading “We now sell milk!”
– Mailed myself a postcard and drank my beer on a bench by the port (hobo-stylez), but saw cop approaching before I was finished and had to quickly discard remainder :o(
– Then was beer sleepy, so had a nap in ferry waiting room (hobo-stylez part deux)
– Yay! On the ship! Crossing the sea! (3hrs)
– Arrived at Dublin Ferryport
– Took bus into Dublin City
– Tried to find my hotel, which ended up being quite easily found, even in the dark (total travelling time = 13 hours)
NOW, TO FIND GUINNESS!
I booked my hotel on lastminute.com through their Top Secret Hotel listings. You are told the general area in which it is situated, and the star rating (mine was 3-star), but not the actual hotel name nor street address. I did a bit of research beforehand and knew which area I wanted to stay in, so I strategically selected my hotel to fit these parameters. I also only wanted to spend £40 per night. After you pay, you receive an email with the hotel details. My booking ended up being at The North Star Hotel.
After I checked into the hotel, around 6:30pm, I walked down a random street that was all lit up with Christmas decorations (this being early December). I passed a used bookstore, so went in and picked up “The Portrait of a Lady” by Henry James. With my book wrapped in brown paper, I set off looking for the perfect pub for oysters ‘n’ Guinness. I had a vague notion of what I was looking for – but of course, I did not plan anything in advance. I wanted a cute, upscale gastropub, with no dresscode, that was old-fashioned but not dingy. Busy enough to hide my dining alone, but not too busy to highlight it. I would know it when I found it. And I did! I saw it across the River Liffey: three storeys, every window lit up with fairy lights. It was called Messrs Maguire, and it was perfect.
Inside the floors were separated by enclaves of stairs, so that they were almost like half-floors. With fireplaces everywhere. Lots of nooks and crannies. SO. MUCH. CHARACTER. It is now my favourite bar of all time.
I found myself a small table beside one of the windows overlooking the Liffey, in front of a small crackling fireplace. I ordered a Guinness and fish-n-chips (decided to save oysters for lunch the following day), and read my book.
My Guinness… I never dreamt it could be that good. It was a delicate version of the Guinness at home. So beautiful in flavour. The head was creamier; the body lighter. The bouquet more layered. And having it there by the Liffey, the fairy lights, the fire, the fish-n-chips, the book… mon dieu it was a lovely day for a Guinness.
The fish-n-chips cost €13.50 and the Guiness was €4.50 for the pint. Considering the exchange rate – that’s pretty much the cost of a pub meal at home, but Guinness here is usually $8 or $9 a pint. In London it would have cost at least half that. Well, maybe the same for the beer, but definitely cheaper for the food. FYI: in case you weren’t yet aware, Ireland uses the Euro, not the Pound Sterling.
After dinner, I wandered back to my hotel. It was pretty cold out – much colder than London – and I was only wearing a leather jacket for warmth. I passed a small Tesco (grocery/off-licence store) on the way, and picked up a £4.20 bottle of “Buck’s Fizz,” some form of Champagne cocktail made with orange juice, to take back to my room. Got back around 9:30pm, and attempted to consume Fizz whilst watching movie, but ended up having a couple sips and falling asleep in happiness coma.
My tentative plans for the following day included using the hotel sauna, grabbing a takeaway tea somewhere, and hitting the town. I wanted to visit the Writer’s Museum and/or Guinness Factory, depending on the time. And have oysters somewhere on Temple Bar. I had to be on the Ferryport bus around 1pm to head back to London.
What actually happened was that I overslept, had to race to pack up and check out on time, and then it was sporadically raining, so wandering around the city avec thé was not likely to be as enjoyable as I intended. I decided to take a City bus tour instead.
It was hop-on/hop-off style, and green, and took me to see some churches, parliament, gardens, statues, et cetera, as well as the Guinness Storehouse!
Those massive vats you can see in the above photo have been causing quite the stir in Ontario right now. Molson Coors is having them delivered from the Hamilton port to their facility in Toronto – but due to their size, they’ve had to take a backroads approach which is costing something like $24 Million!!! The convoy is travelling along at a snail’s pace, removing streetlights and telephone cables so the trucks can fit underneath. What would normally be an hour or so drive is taking them about a week. The vats were parked in Milton (my hometown) last night, and my Momsies tells me there were more people on the street corner checking out the vats than turned up for Gord Krantz’ ringing of the New Year’s bell. Okay, so maybe that’s not a good analogy! If anyone doubts how much we love beer in this country, read this.
Anyway – back to Dublin! I finished the bus tour across the Liffey from Temple Bar, so I walked over the Ha’Penny Bridge and looked for an old-timey pub.
Again, I found exactly what I was looking for, and devoured a plate of the biggest oysters I’ve ever seen (from Galway). But they didn’t have Guinness! So I had a Murphy’s Irish Stout instead.
I was a little unsure of whether I should have been eating oysters (especially ones that size) before getting on a ferry across the Irish Sea – notorious for its rough weather. Until this trip, I hadn’t been to Ireland since I was eight years old. And all I remember from the ferry back then was many people throwing up in the bathrooms. Many times. Everywhere. And my sister threw up on me. I think the ferry design has improved since then, as I didn’t see anything of the sort on the way over. In spite of the rough ride, it was worth the trip then as now. I have always loved Ireland, and for some reason, it always feels like home when I’m there. Which is a good thing, considering that the Irish ferry gods decided I was not going to be leaving any time soon.
My 2:30pm ferry was cancelled due to bad weather. The next one – IF it was allowed to cross – wasn’t until 8:30pm and would include a four-hour layover in Holyhead – something which, now that I was familiar with the excitement (or lack thereof) in that lovely town, I was not interested in. The train back to London wouldn’t depart until 4am, so I’d be hobo-ing it up, asleep in the ferryport waiting room AGAIN. And this time, not due to beer! Sacrelig!
And so, because I just love impromptu travel, I decided to hop on the next bus to Galway, and visit a friend from university who lived along the way. I hadn’t seen her in five years, but thanks to Facebook, we got in touch, and €19 later I was aboard a coach – without bathrooms – and with a stomach full of oysters – to Loughrea, three hours west of Dublin.
The upside to this Change o’ Plans was that I got to see the lush green countryside that I love so much. Irish countryside is like English, all verdant and sheepy, but it’s full of rocks. Such a magical countryside. I remember going on walks in the woods when I was there as a child, and seeing sign posts directing me to where fairies lived. LE SIGH! This was my first time to Dublin though. I had only ever been to the more historic, castley sights like Blarney (and yes, I kissed the stone). It felt, to me, more comfortable in Dublin than in London. I don’t believe anyone could feel like they conquered London. It’s too much. It has a personality all its own, and it’s more than you or I or anyone could ever match. But Dublin is like Toronto: tameable. Medium-sized. Somewhat dreary, but a comfortable dreariness that you tolerate like the rain. You could own that town. You could get to know it, the way you know your best friend or your brother. Very little would surprise you, but you’d love that about it. Its familiarity.
Sometimes you don’t want to always be overwhelmed.
Another thing Toronto and Dublin have in common: the streetcars. The future of the TTC will (by 2013) look like present-day Dublin.
I wish that I had backpacked through Ireland when I was in university. My uni friend M that I visited in Loughrea told me that bus tours always come through her area because of its local pub. Quintessentially Irish. Only Guinness on tap. The village has a little strip of “activity,” and M said her husband who grew up there had to use the phone at the general store because it was the only phone in town. Across from the shop and pub there is a church and a schoolhouse. After that, nothing but farmland.
The next morning, M drove me to the Loughrea busstop, and I took the Eireann back to Dublin. Had another Guinness at a small shady Irish pub that had a Canadian flag hanging over the bar (one of the staff was Canadian). The Guinness wasn’t as good as it was at Messrs Maguire. I had time to buy a book of contemporary Irish poetry, and then was back on the ferry by 2:30pm, headed home to London. Luckily this ship was a massive catamaran and only took two hours to cross the Irish Sea.
Itinerary on the way home:
– 9:15am bus from Loughrea to Dublin (3hrs)
– Ferry to Wales (2hrs)
– Train from Holyhead to Chester delayed (until 5:45pm)
– Train to Chester (2hrs)
– Change trains
– Train to Euston (2hrs)
– Tube to Balham (40mins)
– Walk home (20mins)
So that’s basically 30 hours of travel for a 2-night/3-day sojourn. All for beer. I guess I understand what Molson Coors is going through with their vats right now. Except that my trip cost waaaaay less money. But then again, that’s the nature of the ‘bo.
Sláinte!
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