A wedding in Dublin was the first of two scheduled events which spurred this trip. It resulted in having to pack not only clothes for cold weather as well as warm, but clothes one could wear to a wedding, as well as the casual clothes we wear almost all the time.
Thursday, March 23
We got off the ferry and boarded a bus that goes from the dock to another bus stop closer to the center of town, and after about five minutes it stopped moving. It was stopped for at least fifteen minutes. During that time Dave had made a dinner reservation, even taking the traffic jam slightly into account. But it seemed like we wouldn’t make it anyway. So we got off the bus and started walking. We walked past the 3 Arena, which seemed to be causing the problem; tons of people were arriving to watch three sports commentators talk about football or something. We kept walking until we found a free-flowing road towards the restaurant and our hotel. First we waited for a bus, which kept not arriving. Several passers-by offered help or sympathy. Then Dave went on Uber and ordered … a taxi. Their compromise between taxi vs. Uber is that you can use Uber to order and pay for the taxi — all the convenience, none of the exploitation. The taxi not only approached the restaurant in time, it was able to let us drop off the luggage at the hotel so we didn’t have to drag it into the restaurant, which would have been pretty awkward as it turned out.
The restaurant was Dang Hai, in the Portobello neighborhood, a modern Chinese place. We ate upstairs at the “Gold Bar” and had, again, a reasonably-priced tasting menu. It seemed cocktails were more appropriate than wine, so we had a couple.
Friday, March 24
First order of the day was laundry. We were staying at the same hotel as the last two times we were in Dublin, so we went back to the same laundry place, Laundry Online, and the same breakfast place, Brother Hubbard, while we waited for it. This time we didn’t leave any socks behind. We were excited to learn that Samuel, the groom, was attending a conference in the very same hotel, and we arranged to have lunch with him nearby at Canal Bank Cafe. You never get to talk much to the bride or groom at a wedding, so it was nice to have an entire lunch to catch up with him. We skipped dinner that night, spending the afternoon catching up with things on the Internet.
Saturday, March 25 — Wedding Day
We had breakfast at Coffee 2 Go, a place with great scones we’d discovered previously, and then walked to a church across the street from St. Stephen’s Green for the ceremony. It was quite well-attended. Dave used to play the organ in weddings, and would select a bunch of music to play while people are arriving. He’d continue to play until the bridal party was actually ready to walk down the aisle. This wedding was a bit different. While people were arriving, the musicians were rehearsing. At 1:00, the official before-music selection was played. Then, fifteen minutes of silence. Apparently there was some holdup with a bridesmaid or something. Finally, the bridal march began, and things got going. The first part was pretty much a normal wedding, with readings, rings, vows, and a pronouncement. Then it continued into the mass section after a fairly lengthy signing of registers. They even had chairs for Samuel and Clare, the bride, so they wouldn’t have to stand for the entire ceremony. (The officiant was not so lucky.) It was about 3pm when it was all over. We boarded buses to go to the reception, which was about 40 minutes out of town in County Wicklow.
The reception was at a venue near Poulaphouca Falls, which figures into Ulysses as a place where Bloom masturbated when he was young. I think “Leopold Bloom Jerked Off Here” beats “George Washington Slept Here”, if it’s Ulysses tie-ins you’re after, but this was not mentioned in any of the handouts.
We had appetizers and some drinks — the Prosecco disappeared pretty quickly — while waiting for Samuel and Clare to arrive. They finally did, and we moved into the dining room where we were seated with several of Samuel’s childhood friends. Samuel is a lawyer, and Clare is a journalist. Dave asked his friend seated next to him if he was also a lawyer, and he said “worse — I’m in politics”. He’s an analyst and aide to a Green officeholder. We talked about many of the woes of the world. The speeches were given primarily by the couple’s fathers, and by the bride and groom themselves. The fathers had a few funny lines but overall it was very sweet. The food was all really good too, which is unusual for weddings. Instead of a wedding cake, they had a stack of different round cheeses.
Then the dance-a-thon began. We were a bit sleepy and had ideas of going back to town, but that didn’t seem possible. So we just hung out. It was heartwarming watching this large group of people who have been friends with each other forever all dancing with each other. A band played for awhile, then there was a playlist of meaningful pop songs, with much singing along.
Finally we were able to ride the bus back to downtown Dublin. The singing along continued. If you put a scene into a movie with a bunch of drunk Irishmen singing “Molly Malone” on a bus at three o’clock Sunday morning, an anti-defamation cabal would hit you for ethnic stereotyping.
There were many people staggering around on the street at 4am, and you had to be careful where you stepped.
Sunday, March 26
We slept in. Checkout time was at noon, so we donated our wedding clothes as a belated Daffodil Day contribution (they had been bought at a charity shop in Dublin to begin with) and left our packs thus lightened with the concierge. Went to the nearest coffee shop for coffee scone and tea. Then a walk to the tourist area of the square where we determined that H&M wouldn’t give Dave his money back for the zipper on his hoodie that broke not long after we had purchased it. The people said it was bought in Germany and it would have to be returned there. Globalization only goes so far. Orange juice also wasn’t possible.
In the afternoon, we retrieved our packs and got to the airport. Everything went smoothly, as our carry-on was under everybody’s weight limit.