Dublin + Clapham + Vegetables + Camden

I’ve loved Ireland ever since Brad Pitt played Mickey the One Punch Pikey in the movie Snatch and actually visiting the place didn’t falter that love. That’s right, we did make it back alive from Ireland and to make up from my extensive absence I promise that this post will be extra long and if you don’t yawn at least twice while reading it then you are either my mum or my dad.

I didn’t want to leave Ireland. We had a ball, lots of laughs, Guinness and irish stew. It didn’t start off well though, we were delayed in the airport for about 6 hours, thats what you get for flying on the cheap. Nonetheless we found a cosy Irish pub in the airport lounge and enjoyed our last English Guinness before trying the real stuff. The flight lasted for about 10 minutes before we made our way to my first ever stay at a hostel. I didn’t mind the dirty bathrooms, the soiled linen, or the crap muffin for breakfast, but I was forced into a room with 3 females (fi, kris, cassie). They wanted to straighten my hair and talk about girls stuff, not since the days when my sister would try to give me a facial was I so scared. Although we’d been up since 5 we hit the town, more specifically Temple Bar which is the central, touristy, take all your money nighspot in Dublin. Suffice to say it was in the centre of Dublin, full of tourists and all our money was taken. Fi kept walking around the pub asking people she presumed to be Irish to say “turn right at the third street number thirty three”. The fact that no sane Irish person would visit this tourist destination seemed to elude us, but one English bloke named Terry obliged before we found out he was actually a cop from Essex. I’ve never seen such a young and short cop but he was a good bloke and joined us for a dance, drink and a laugh. I’m doing way too much of that dancing thing, it’s killing my image.

The next day we tried to recount the events of the night before and on realising what we had done we tried to forget them again. We went to O’connell St, the main street of Dublin, and had a look around. I had this whole itinerary mapped out to see the sights of Dublin, but we skipped all that and headed straight for the Guiness Brewery. Thankfully Fi was in charge of directions and led us the wrong way so we saw most of the sights anyway before we wafted on the scent of Guinness toward the distillery. The brewhouse has been converted into 6 floors of educational information on Guiness, how it was made, shipped, advertised, drank and stored. By about the 2nd floor I became bored and rapidly ascended to the 7th floor bar for my free pint of Guinness and 360 degree view over Dublin city. Given that Dublin has few highrise buildings it was a sensational view. Irish Guinness is most definetly better than anywhere else in the world. We were exhausted after a long day of walking so we decided to stay out until 4am drinking heavily and dancing to crap pop songs. Sort’ve like going to Finbars.

On Sunday we took a tour out of Dublin headed towards the seaside town of Dalkey and the Wicklow mountains. If you ever go to Dublin, get the hell out of the city and drive or tour around the surrounding areas. The scenery was amazing, helped by a relatively calm sunny day. We went past Bono’s and Van Morrison’s houses in Dalkey and looked across the bay towards Howth. Dalkey houses a lot of the embassies in Dublin and has a Rose Bay feel to it (i.e. bloody expensive). Heading towards Wicklow we visited some ancient ruins (bloody Vikings) and some amazing lakes. We stopped off at a cute little pub (who calls a pub cute?) and had a Guinness and a big bowl of Irish Stew, what a meal! We then went to the mountains, the wind was incredible, the windiest country in the world apparently. The people in these towns seem so welcoming and funny, they must hate us invading their lands deep down. We had a brilliant tour guide who made the trip all the more special for me, he was constantly talking, was very witty and raised lots of interesting political and economic questions. His only downside was that he constantly played Enya. The tour was definetly one of the highlights of our couple of months away so far. Monday was a rainy day and we made up for the lack of sleep over the last 4 days by skipping most of our planned Dublin activities. We went to the Irish National Gallery of Art which was interesting and then headed to the Jamiesons distillery for a tour and tasting. It was an interesting tour and Fi volunteered me for a special whisky taste test, comparing Irish whiskies to Scotch and Bourbon. I hate all of these spirits especially without anything to mix them with and hesistantly drank my way through the tasting. For my troubles I got a certificate in whisky tasting, this may be the item that will get me a bar job in London. It was sad leaving Dublin, but I’m sure we will see Ireland again as I would like to explore more of it, especially given that in a bizzare twist of fate I found that they sold my favourite sweet (forbidden fruits) all over the place. I bought 10 packs, we have but a few left.

We’ve settled into Clapham comfortably, photos of all of you cover the walls and we’re getting on really well with the housemates (Big Brother ruined that word). A couple of nights ago we saw a fox trotting down the street, but we’ve resisted the urge to buy guns, horses and a pack of hounds so far. We are sending out lots of resumes, Fi seems to have interviews lined up daily. I’ve got one reply from about 20 applications and have an interview on Wednesday, i just need to buy that trivial item called a suit. I had a phone interview this morning which I was a bit scared about, my first interview for about 5 years and my last one was with Greg, which if you know him you would understand that we talked footy for about an hour, had a beer and then I was gainfully employed. The nerves calmed after I made my first joke and the employer strained a consolotary laugh in my direction.

Oh I forgot to mention i’ve become vegetarian. I didn’t think I could just stop eating meat, but I bought this book at the airport which has some unbelievable stories on the manufacture of certain meat products, salad, bread and other everyday foods that completely turned me off meat in particular. We are buying all organic foods, one step closer to my dream of one day becoming a hippy. Needless to say I have passed the books around to destroy other peoples lives as well, they all hate me for it but it’s good for a laugh.

We were at Camden Markets on Saturday which is a real alternative lifestyle market. Lots of punks, goths, naturalists and tourists. If you ever want to start your own market I can give you the unfailing recipe. (20x shop with funny worded tshirts, 18x shop of thailand jewellery, 30x marijuana paraphenalia shop, add 1000 tourists and you will successfully kill your suburb. Once you’ve seen 1 shop in this place, you’ve seen the contents of half the market. Nonetheless it was a fun Saturday stroll.

I’ve exhausted my negativity now so I will leave you with some incredible photography (up tommorow) and all my love. Thanks everyone for the comments, Fiona is a slack bastard and will send you emails shortly. Maybe going to Liverpool shortly to catch up with Fi’s pregnant cousin and Scotland maybe at Easter. x

Comments:

Jenny (January 24th, 2005 at 10:16 pm)
Sounds like fun. I was thinking Cam that it had been a while since you put a entry in. But that one made up for it. It was nice and long. Mum and dad are coming back from PI so i am sure you will hear from me and the rest of us soon. Keep having fun. Jen xox

Sarah (January 25th, 2005 at 4:33 am)
Point A - you loved to get facials from me. Couldn’t get enough of it. Point B - this vegetarian propoganda is a load of crap. You will not feel any better as a result. The cows won’t love you any more. That vegetarian cheese you used to buy….well I think you were the only one because they discontinued it this week. And as for soy products, they are an absolute joke. Read an article about them and soy kills you. It also ruins the environment. If you don’t eat Lamb you are Un-Australian….a current ad featuring Sam Kekovich says so. And if you don’t believe Sam, who can you trust!?

Greg (January 25th, 2005 at 6:30 am)
Hey Campbell, what does vegetarian Irish stew tatse like!!!!! Sad state of affairs I reckon.

Chris (January 27th, 2005 at 4:33 am)
Hey Cam, Good on you for your vegetarian exploits. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Apparently just living kills us these days, so you may as well try everything once. Chau left for UK midnight on Tuesday (AUS time) and is there now. I’m enjoying relaxing at home and am looking to travel sooner rather than later. Good luck with the Job hunting. If all else fails, Fi can just get a better job and you can live off her

Zoe (January 28th, 2005 at 5:00 am)
When are we going to get a guest writing spot from you FIONA? God luck with the whole vegetarion thing as well, it can’t last!