Dublin & La Coruna

Dublin – 2007 'first impressions', October 26-29th

Allowing that the harbour area of any city will likely be less attractive than the city proper (although Copenhagen and Stockholm are both beautiful from the water up), Dublin is very much a mixed bag. If one were to use 'number of high-rise construction cranes' as a proxy for economic robustness, the city is booming. Trinity College, a ten-minute walk from our berth, has its beautiful grounds looking grand. The streets are dirtier than London but better than St Petersburg. A lot of mostly passive 'panhandling' is going on. (An immigrant mother with her infant child, an Irishman with two black eyes, a couple of errant teeth and a sailor's tongue, and a couple of bedraggled teens and a dog, were among those in evidence on the 'High Street'. I have yet to figure out the best manner in which to deal with this 'have-have not' conundrum in cases where I am just passing through – Spring Garden Road, Halifax versus 'downtown' Wolfville. For the record, in this specific instance, I gave the mother a little money, the young people and dog some food, and the other chap a nod; he was the least impressed, and the most expressive. I had a brochure outlining upcoming lectures at the university which I chose not to offer.)The people have what might be described as character faces; many look as though everyday life is a struggle. The prices are similar to London: expensive – a cup of coffee and a 'little something' 5-7 euros. Tesco, a British grocery chain (think Atlantic Superstore), is here, selling Tim Horton donuts ( 1.49 euros for a chocolate glazed: about $2.10 Canadian) as one of its items! The price of a litre of unleaded regular is 1.38 euros, $1.96 Canadian.

As part of our in-port activities an excursion was organized to Causey farm, an hour plus by bus from Dublin. Now I wouldn't have thought of such an activity myself, but we all had a great time. Activities included learning a Ceili dance, watching a sheepdog demonstration, milking a cow, taking part in an Irish drum class, learning the basic idea of the Irish national game hurling, a tractor and wagon trip to a peat bog and a forest, and making (and later eating) brown bread. The people at the farm were also getting ready for Halloween, so we were treated to their haunted house experience, and we brought two pumpkins back to the ship which were made into jack-o-lanterns for the 31 st.

I did a lot of walking (as per usual) about the city. On Sunday several of us went to Christ Church Cathedral. On a tour of Trinity College library I viewed the Book of Kells, a lavishly decorated copy, in Latin, of the four gospels, probably produced early in the 9 th century by the monks of Iona.

Miscellaneous: One exciting aspect of coming to each port is the opportunity to use the internet to communicate with family and friends and catch up on some of the Canadian news stories. No two ports are the same with regard to internet access. In Dublin, for instance, we could pick up a wireless network signal from the ship at certain times of the day. By filling out a form at the city library I was issued a library card which allowed free internet access as one of the services. Franchises like McDonalds and Subway have their own wireless networks for customers who have brought their laptops along (a number of local coffee shops have wireless as well). And there are the 'Internet/International Calls' type places which provide the computer access for an hourly fee.

Dublin – La Coruna, October 29 – November 3.

This journey was relatively uneventful. The winds were generally favourable and we made good time. At some points we were truly in the Atlantic, with water depths in the 4,000 metre range!

Halloween was celebrated on the 31st, including costumes and trick or treating. I have now managed to get all the face paints removed – it took a while! (The students are not to have food items stored in their cabins which would attract bugs and mould as starters. Once in a while there are cabin inspections to check on their 'state of affairs'. An inspection the evening we left Dublin yielded vast quantities of contraband, including lots of Halloween treat type goodies. These items were confiscated then 'returned' as treats a couple of evenings later!)