Leprechauns lead the way to the Craic!

Top of the morning to you... For those that read Lonely Planet's guide to the world (their most recent publication which has a double page devoted to each and every one of the world's countries... dreamy stuff) you might notice that Ireland in a word (or phrase) is noted as "What's the Craic?!" An interesting ponderance indeed. (NZ's by the way was "sweet as, bro" - Fair enough i'd say, not too far off the mark).

So what's the Craic? and what on earth is the Craic anyway? Where exactly is the Craic to be found? these were only some of the many questions on our lips as we arrived into Dublin for the weekend and met a barrage of the cheerful, quick-witted and delightfully (and fast) spoken celts. Not to mention a familiar face or two and some new friends at K-teams Ballybrack base.

It needs to be stated that Ryan-Air are pretty damn cool. For a couple of reasons... Firstly, the name. Damn cool I reckon. Then there's the price (bugger-all). And then there were short lines, and prompt timing of flights. We'll be back with them for sure. In fact i'll likely be back with them to Dublin in another month or so, but that's a different story.

So what did we do in Dublin... Task number one was to discover the score of the England Vs Trinidad & Tobago game which started as we took off. Found a big screen in an arrivals lounge conveniently located beside some toilets, and much to the disgust of my non-football appreciating wife, sat down to have a watch, after it was 0-0 with only 15 minutes or so to go... Needless to say a compromise was reached after Peter Crouch got his towering noggin' behind a knock and evaded the keeper to bring the brits up 1-0. we set off to find a further 15 minute wait for our bus across town, which had me racing back only to find i had missed the second (and i'm told) more impressive goal by Steven Gerrard. Such is life. But the story illustrates the assimilation of this kiwi (at least a bit) into british culture.

So clearly Mez found something a little funny about this wee leprechaun...

We arrived to the welcome of Amanda and Dan of Kerygma Teams fame and spent thursday evening catching up with them and meeting a few of their housemates. Stayed at B's place, at Ros Na Ri, between the two 'sugarloafs' (irish have some funny words - the sugar loaf's were two hills) on the outskirts of southern Dublin.

Friday we woke to cold showers (we were later informed amidst much laughter that the cold is actually the hot and the hot, cold, so we needn't have had cold showers after all!!! Only in Ireland!). Anyway Friday we went on a wee bus tour of the city, saw the place where St Patrick baptised a few hundred irish, learnt that Arthur Guiness had 21 children (must have been Catholic - and a trooper mind you). The man also bought the site of the present brewery on a 9000 year lease for 100 pound. Bit of faith in his business me thinks. Also learnt that Dublin zoo is home to one of the most successful lion breeding programmes worldwide, and also the world famous lion of MGM cinemas. (You know the one with the cool roar). Other notable facts... Phoenix park in Dublin is bloody huge - you can fit 2 hyde park London's into it, or 4 central park New York's. Populated by a few deer and game birds, a gigantic white cross where Pope JP II said mass for a million or so irish... oh and a few Leprechauns.

Friday night was a great BBQ at K'teams pad, and met some cool people from the community. Average number of kids per family in the community is 5.2! and they were absolutely delightful - did a couple of short skits for the adults over the course of the evening, one a christian related teaching that was done in a number of musical styles and with dancing from hip-hop and rap to country, quite humorous... then another one taking the mickey out of older community members. Great and safe environment for those kids though, and they're certainly well travelled... hmm things to ponder there. Some great benefits to community living...

Saturday caught up with a great mate from Silverstream (James Kelleher) who regrettably i've not seen much of since school, and ducked into Dublin to a local pub to watch the AB's narrowly beat ireland in an entertaining game despite poor conditions (which shows you can take the kiwis out of NZ, but you can't take NZ out of kiwi's). Great atmosphere, and the irish were great losers too, good humour there. And great food for a late breakfast. Then more chats at another pub outside in the sun with Fi and James, then into town to meet up with miss Molly Malone (see left) and then Amanda and Dan - who looked much like this when we found them. They make a great couple hey?

Saturday afternoon was wandering about Dublin seeing the crazy street performers and muscians, the slightly creepy silver winged wizard and slightly vacant and ditzy looking white angel. Hope they're more impressive in heaven when I get there...

Then there was the Guiness tour, of which probably the most impressive part was (other than learning all the workings of a brewery) learning about the dudes that made the barrell's back in the day - apparrently there were up to 400 men employed at barrell makers at the peak, and they took up to seven years to get an apprenticship at it. Once qualified they had an initiation which involved them making a barrell, climbing into it, getting it filled with beer (i assume their heads poked out the top) and then rolled around the brewery in their barrel (and it's a very big place!) but such initiation rites produce such a cool sense of belonging and cameraderie i think, it's a shame you'd get sued for such behaviour nowadays - i think its to the detriment of us all that such rites are lost. Though i shudder to think what rites there may have been for physio's back in the day...

Great tour though and i'd highly recommend it to anyone planning on going to Dublin for a bit. Bar at the top (cheesy name, wait for it... Gravity) is very cool with a bar in the centre and 360 degree views of the city and surrounding areas (we could even see the far off sugar loaf!) and it's easy to be struck by just what a booming city Dublin is, supposedly ireland is one of the best performing EEC economies and from the amount of construction going on around the city you can see that such comments can't be too far wrong cos the cranes are literally everywhere you look, and in every direction. Any Kiwi construction workers care to brave the irish cold? Great setting though in which to enjoy your 'free' pint of Guiness (note the €14 entry fee) Which Mez (note moustache) took to like a duck to water (note smile). Ok so that is a slight exaggeration. Ok so maybe I got two 'free' pints then. Ok so she hated it. You happy? huh. Gahh you people so can't take a joke!

Guiness was followed by dinner at Temple bar which is most famous in Dublin for stag and hens parties (people come there from all over the the UK!!) Ok food. Crap service. Nuff said. But temple bar is also home to the Mezz bar. And we found a Ryan & Guiness bar too, though unfortunately i think that is only on the DV camera. I think we'll head back to Ireland. Definately a cool place. Such style with their names...

Sunday was Mrs Mez Monastra's 24th birthday. We celebrated her birthday by getting up viciously early (for the third morning in a row) and heading to Mass. Nice service. Then Amanda and Dan made us (especially Mez) breakfast, and we headed, despite the rain, for Glendalough. Great place out in the Wicklow mountains where St Kevin tried to retreat. Evidently he was a bit of a charismatic fella and lots of people followed him out there and communed with him, back in about 1200. There are the ruins of a few houses, a chapel (see right), a great bell tower, a heap of gravestones, and about ten billion 'midges' which is the british equivalent of those almost iconic, bloodsucking NZ mosquito's. Grrr. We then headed to a place called powerscourt, once a private residence, now private gardens and tea rooms, boutique shops etc. We pigged out on cake etc, me on pavalova such as to almost induce vomitus. In my defense it was only one slice... What was that thing you taught me about gluttony on my stag Caleb? A quick drive by the gates to Bono's house and Enya's castle and another BBQ dinner and our Dublin experience was almost over. But not before a superb 3.30am wake up call and a fight through a crowded airport. It was a weird experience for me to arrive, haggard back into Nottingham, turn to my wife and say "at last, we're home..."

Take care out there, mo