Nice people in Dublin

The trip to Dublin was interesting. One of the rules I have for any new city I visit is to use the city's public transportation. Using the public transportation gives you a true feel for the city and its people. You get to see “real” people and get a feel for the city by travelling through neighbourhoods that you would not see in a city tour bus.

I arrived in Dublin last Thursday and rather than jumping in a cab that would take me straight to my hotel, I followed my rule of taking public transportation. I asked the lady from the tourist counter what bus to take and I waited patiently. I waited and waited and even got to a point where I was going to just take a cab anyway. But after 45 min or so, the bus I was waiting for arrived.

The thing with arriving in a new city or country is that you really don’t know how long a journey is going to take, unless you ask. I really didn’t know how far my hotel was from the airport so I really didn’t know when to look out for it, or when to request a stop. Fortunately, there were other tourists in the bus, so I figured I can at least wait as long as them to get off the bus!

In any case, I sat in a seat that had a sign next to it. It said something like: “Give this seat up to the elderly.” It was a two-seater so I had enough room for myself and my carry-on luggage. As I continued riding this bus, an elderly woman entered and looked straight at me. Being the good citizen I am, I kindly moved over to make room for her. As the bus continued on, I kept wondering where I was and when I should get off. Right before I got on the bus I bought a pop-up map that actually didn’t help too much.

Anyway, as I secretly looked at my map, trying not to make it obvious that I had no idea where I was going, the elderly lady started talking to me. I removed my headphones and she started talking about what street we are on. Then she asked me where I was going. I thought to myself, wow, this elderly lady is really nice! So she told me what stop I should get off of. Unfortunately, she had to get off before I did, so she couldn’t help me any longer. So I waited a couple stops.

Then all of a sudden, this other lady behind me tells me that I should get off soon. I was like: “What duh?” I guess she overheard the fact that I wanted to get off at a certain street, so she was advising me that this was the stop I should get off of. What nice people!! So I get off the stop, and guess what? Another Irish woman was trying to help. She was trying to point me in the right direction to go. Man, I tell ya, these Irish are very nice! Unsolicited help from very friendly Irish people was brilliant! I even told the last lady that helped me: “Oh my god, you are so nice!” I was overwhelmed with how nice these people were.

With all of them trying to help, the ironic thing was that I didn’t find my hotel until 45 min or so after I got off the bus! I finally found the hotel by running into Lesley because she was smoking outside the bar of my hotel! (You can't smoke in bars in Dublin) If I didn't see her, I would have never found the hotel since the main entrance was on the other side of the street.

Overall, the trip was fun. It was nice to see Lesley and Zac. I enjoyed being “myself” and having fun. We visited the Guinness Storehouse and the Jameson Factory as well as other sites. The best part of the Jameson factory was that Zac got to be a taste tester! He got to taste test 5 different shots!

The weird thing about some of the Irish pubs we went too was that they would play Hip Hop in most of them. It was so strange! I expected some old Irish folk songs or something, but instead we got to listen to 50 cent while drinking a pint of Guinness. So weird! Oh another thing was that most of the bar backs, bartenders, waiters, waitresses were all Asian. There were more Asian people that I expected that’s for sure! There were even Asians with Irish accents! Can you imagine that? I bet you can't until you hear it!

Broadband
Finally!! If you have a webcam, hit me up. I want to test out my iSight. I’ll try to jump on AIM/MSN/Yahoo too.

Pictures
I’ll be uploading my Prague and Dublin pics soon. If you know my Fotki site, just visit that. It should be up by the end of the week. If you don’t know it, shoot me a mail.