Guest Post // My Husband, the World Traveler!

Note from Caiti // Today I'm excited to have my husband Mark here with his first official guest post! Since he's getting settled in Ireland and I'm still in the States {*sigh*}, he kindly agreed to share a few stories and photos with us, so we can all live vicariously through him! Hearing about his adventures is getting me more and more excited to join him in a few weeks {fingers crossed!}. Take it away Mark!

Greetings to all of Caiti’s readers! She’s asked me to do a guest blog regarding this current grand adventure to Ireland, and I couldn’t possibly say no! Here’s hoping she gets to join me soon, as she is much more skilled at writing and photography than I am. In the meantime, you’ll have to settle for me.

I have been to Ireland one time previously, down in Cork, Cobh, and Killarney, in the southern half of the country. I was only able to spend 3 days here, but enjoyed the country immensely from what I saw. So naturally when this RIDICULOUS opportunity presented itself, I didn’t even think twice (and didn’t even ask Caiti!) about volunteering. We share the same interest in travel and experiencing culture, and I knew she would be on board.

That said, I’ve made my way across the pond, and have (finally) beaten the jet lag, and settled into the hotel living arrangement for now. Getting here was interesting, to say the least. I was given an unexpected opportunity on my first (sleep-deprived) day as my car-mate and I got pretty hopelessly lost driving around Dublin trying to find the highway. While it was incredibly frustrating,it gave me some time to adjust to the "backwards" driving, and provided a good lesson: never drive through Dublin on a weekday!

So after the first few (somewhat grueling) days of meetings, work, and time adjusting, I was able to get my first proper taste of Dublin this weekend. Typically, I don’t like to subscribe to the “conventional tourist” plan, so my first day on the town consisted of a lot of wandering, getting lost (likely intentionally), and quiet observation.

These first few pictures show “home base,” so to speak. We’ll be living and working in a tiny town called Leixlip (locals pronounce it LEEKS-lup). My hotel is a very nicely run and beautiful hotel called The Courtyard Hotel, which drops me right onto the main drag running through the city. These pictures show the local scenery, which is mainly suburban Dublin. Having lived in the Chicago suburbs all my life, I noticed a very distinct difference, which is hard to describe. It’s almost like the pace of living is almost slower; a bit less rat-racey. Houses are closely packed in, but there is still an open feeling while walking around.

Eventually I found myself at the city limits, walking along the main in-road. From here I caught the 66 bus into Dublin. I brought no map, and had no guidance, but exited the bus when everyone else did. From that point, my “tour” consisted of blind turns, following (or decisively NOT following) the crowds, and various other bits of randomness. I noticed right away that portions of the US followed me here: McDonalds, Subway, and a Papa John’s (!) were all on the first street I walked down! I noticed large crowds, and quickly found as many road-less-traveled streets as I could find.

Now I was fortunate enough to have my cell phone with me, which did have a GPS. After about 2-3 hours of wandering, I had NO idea where I was. So I cheated, flipped on the GPS, which told me I was somewhere in the NE part of Dublin. Not to say that I meant to get lost, but I certainly didn’t mind. Had I not gone that way, I would not have walked through Dublin’s version of Chinatown!

So after a quick let’s-get-back-on-track moment, I meandered back into central Dublin. I stopped for lunch at Kennedy’s pub, and caught half of the Manchester United football game. Walking further near Merrion Square (which happens to be a good place to catch the 66) I happened to see the Irish Natural History Museum, and took a quick stroll. Ever hear of the Giant Irish Deer? That thing was scary huge. After that I found my way towards St. Stephen’s Green, which is one of the main public parks, where I took most of these pictures.

I didn’t do any tours or anything, but I did make my way into Trinity College. One memory I do want to file away is that right as I entered the campus, there was a band inside one of the buildings playing Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”. They were quite good, and the music was filling the air everywhere. Right as I got to the middle of the giant courtyard, the guitarist started playing the iconic solo, which literally gave me the chills all the way up and down my back.

From there, I meandered some more and ran across the Occupy Ireland protesters. Now I know we don’t do politics in creative blog-land, but I did find this picture quite funny.

To finish out my walk (now running at about 6-7 hours), I strolled through the Temple Bar area, and then along the River Liffey for a while. Temple Bar is a very neat little area which has a ton of pubs, galleries, and cute little shops. It’ll likely be a great place to enjoy the nightlife when we decide to go out late.

So far, so good, I really can’t wait to get Caiti over here so we can explore a bit more of the country!

Thanks for reading!

- Mark

Caiti says // Thank you for the guest post, Marcus! You're the best :)