wandering

Today was the last real day we'd be able to spend in Dublin, and we decided the night before that it would be really nice to get out of the city and see some of the surrounding areas. Of course, deciding the night before was totally not the right thing to do - the tours were all booked up and we didn't learn until this morning that the public trains don't run on the weekends. M, S and I found an amazing coffee shop - Insomnia - where we fueled up, then hit a few shops M and I had spotted and S wanted to check out, and then we headed towards the public buses to see how far outside the city we could actually get. By that time it was after 2PM, and it struck me suddenly that I'd be sitting and traveling for almost the entire day tomorrow and I decided to opt out at the last minute and wander the streets alone. There were parts of the city I hadn't ventured to, and I really wanted to ease my feeling of being 'peopled out' and I figured the best way to do it would be alone. Turned out to be an excellent decision - I wandered through St. Stephen's Green (a totally romantic park with lovers splattered all over the grass, ducks in the water and people with kids picnicking) for a good long while and found myself in the mega-shopping district on Grafton street where I not only found a replacement pair of jeans (for only 18 euro!) but also a couple of sweaters and a blouse. Nice!

I also want to plug this amazing, amazing little map I picked up while I was there. It looks like a card about 2.5" by 4" at first, but it opens up - pop-up book style - into a full map of the city. This was hands-down the best 2 euros I spent on anything the entire time - closed, it's small enough to fit into a back pocket, open it's still small enough to avoid looking like the dumbass tourist you really are. Plus it has all of the major landmarks noted for the compass-directionally challenged like me. It sounds like a stupid thing, but this little paper thing made my life so so much easier, and it made a fine companion to the Lonely Planet guide. I'm going to try to secure one of these suckers for every trip I go on from here on in...

The list of already popup'd cities - still sparse, but growing - is available here. All the yellow (above) is of my own doing - I highlighted all the parts of the city I walked...