The Black Lung Tries Again, Part 1: I know how this works now, Dublin, you can't scare me!

As you will recall if you are a regular reader of the Black Lung (as regular as you can be when I update every couple of years. Like a great novelist, perhaps. I'm not lazy, I'm busy working on my next brilliant work), you will know that 6 years ago, I went on a trip to the UK and Ireland with my wonderful friend Niki. You may also recall that the one place we didn't have a great time was Dublin. It was stressful and no fun. Driving was a nightmare, even though we had gotten pretty OK at driving on the left, someone full on pushed me when we tried to see the Book of Kells (someone should have reminded her that we were all trying to see a BIBLE, so maybe she should be nicer. That person wasn't going to be me though, because I pushed her back. Sorry, Bible!), and we missed our ferry. Basically very stressful.

But I liked the rest of Ireland pretty well, so when my friend Leah asked if I wanted to meet her there for a vacation, I was like, "Yes, please! I shall get time off work!" Background-Leah is my friend who lives in New Zealand, which is very far away from Ireland! Like more than 24 hours on a plane plus layovers long. So she obviously didn't want to take just a short trip. Before I got there, she spent about a week with another friend, and then I planned to meet her in Dublin so we could spend almost two weeks touring the country together.

The start of my journey was pretty stressful, not because anything went wrong, but because things have gone really wrong pretty much every time I've flown internationally before. I left Baltimore on Sunday evening, with the agenda being fly to JFK and then after a 3 hour layover, be on my way to Dublin. I was already pretty nervous about such a short layover because of the last time I went to Europe via JFK (I hope to see you someday, Venice! Unless you sink into the sea first!), but then a flight change meant that the layover would only be 1.5 hours! I did not want to miss my first day in Dublin! Only partially because we had prepaid for an activity. I was also feeling nervous because my back was doing that thing it does sometimes, where it could go out with one wrong move. Not the best way to feel when you're going to have to sleep sitting up.

On the advice of my mom, I got a blessing at church on Sunday morning, and I also prayed so much that my flight wouldn't be late and that my back would not start spasming. And you know what? It went great! My flight was totally fine (the only bummer was that my niece Abby and her husband Forrest were also in JFK that night, waiting to go through customs on their way back from Norway. We were so close, but we didn't get to see each other. 😭 Thankfully, they came out to Baltimore about 3 weeks after this, so I got to see them then). My back hurt, but in the normal way that my back always hurts, not in the terrible way that it sometimes does. And I actually kind of slept on the plane, while also watching the movie Isn't It Romantic? which was a perfect plane movie.

My plane got to Dublin at about 10 in the morning. Leah had been in the city for a couple of days already and had figured out how to get around on the bus. It is very handy to travel with someone who does mobility for a living! So she met me at the airport with my giant suitcase. That's my first bit of advice for Irish travel. If you're going to be in Dublin, don't drive! The public transportation is great (I think every bus we saw was double-decker, which is amazing), and the roads are terrible and confusing. Immediately the stress level in Dublin was lower because we didn't have a car. The one stress that it added was that we needed a place to keep our bags until we could check into our Airbnb, but luckily, we discover Bagbnb! Basically, you book online, then go to a specific store (ours seemed to be some kind of internet cafe?), and they'll hold your bag for the day for like 5 euros. It's a great idea, and whoever thought of it deserves all the money. I would have had zero fun while wheeling around my giant, slightly broken but still OK enough to not buy a new one, suitcase all day.

After that, we walked around Dublin for a bit. We saw the statue of Molly Malone, who is the subject of the song Molly Malone, and almost certainly not a real person. In the song, she's a fishmonger, but in local lore, she may have also been a prostitute? Which is probably why her statue is so busty. Her bosom is also pretty shiny from people rubbing it. We overheard a tour guide saying that some people say it's good luck to rub her chest, but he thinks those people are just pervs. Seems legit. We also stopped and got some lunch at the greatest place, called Queen of Tarts. Seriously, if you go to Dublin, you must eat there.We went twice in one day! There are many good vegetarian options, which is not always the case on vacation.

 

This seems like an impractical outfit for a fishmonger. One wrong move, Molly Malone!

Then it was time to do some more sightseeing! We went to Christ Church Cathedral, hoping to get on the tour, but it was already full, so we got tickets for the next tour and went across the street to Dublinia, which is a Viking museum. I know that it sounds cool, but it actually was probably the least fun thing we saw. I wouldn't really recommend it. But then we went across the bridge between Dublinia and the Cathedral (the two buildings are actually connected. I feel like Dublinia used to be part of the church, but now it's not). Anywho, Christ Church Cathedral is really neat. It's actually the oldest cathedral in Dublin (more than a century older than St. Patrick's Cathedral). The cathedral was originally built around 1028, although the building has obviously changed a lot since then. Things that we learned about on our tour-the tomb of Strongbow is there! He's one of the main leaders of/reasons for the Norman invasion of Ireland, which as we all know led to centuries of Irish oppression by the English. So thanks a lot, Strongbow. It also contains the heart of St. Laurence O'Toole, who is the patron saint of Dublin and was the archbishop of Dublin at the time of the Norman invasion. Fun fact-the heart was stolen in 2012 but was recovered six years later in Phoenix Park, which is a ginormous park in the city. Apparently, it wasn't super secure before, but now that they have it back, they have it on lock-down. Also, in the 1500s, part of the ceiling collapsed, and you  can see that the columns still lean noticeably. It would make me pretty uneasy if I hung out there for extended periods of time.

 

In front of Christ Church Cathedral. It was a beautiful day. We actually had great weather pretty much our whole trip.

 

Our tour guide, who had a cool Irish name I couldn't begin to spell with the heart of St. Laurence O'Toole. It's in that heart-shaped iron box!

 

This is not a crooked picture. It's a crooked building! 

 

After touring the main floor of the cathedral, we got to go up to the bell tower! The first question our guide asked was, "Is anyone afraid of heights?" then "Is anyone claustrophobic?" And of course I raised my hand for both, so he was basically like, "Eh, do your best." And we were off! Climbing very small, cramped spiral staircases! And it was scary, but spoiler for later in vacation, it got way worse at a different cathedral, so I was fine. After the first spiral, we were basically out on the roof, which was scary but also what nice views. Then up another insanely skinny and short spiral to the bell tower! It's not like what you imagine from Robin Hood the animated movie with the little church mice. You can't actually see the bells at all. You can just see all of the ropes for the bells. And you can pull them! That was super fun. When you pull on the rope, it pulls you up and kind of bounces you around. It looks like you're jumping, but you're not! The bell is doing all the work.

 

Our view over to Dublinia right before we went into the bell tower. See how high we are?

 

Each rope is for a different bell. You can unhook the one you want and get to ringing!

 

Slightly blurry action shot!

 

After the bell tower, we went down to the crypt, which is a lot more touristy than the rest of the church which is still an actual church. I'm pretty sure they don't use the crypt as an actual crypt anymore though. There are costumes from shows that have filmed there (like The Tudors and Reign, which is the one I was excited about. I loved Reign  so much). Also a gift shop, and a bunch of actual museum type stuff, like jewels and such. And the best, the mummified remains of a cat and a rat that were found in the old church organ! James Joyce even talked about them in Finnegan's Wake, which is still not the James Joyce book I had to read in school. What a slog that was.

There's that cat and rat again. I think of this every time I play the organ now.

Then it was time to eat some more desserts at Queen of Tarts, grab our bags, and head to our Airbnb. We had a great location-right down the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral, and pretty central to almost everything we wanted to see in the city. It was up a couple of flights of stairs, which was a bummer (I had that giant suitcase, you'll recall), but nice. We had to leave again immediately, which was sad because I wanted a shower so bad! I was still in my airplane outfit, and I just hope I didn't smell as gross as I felt. But it was not sad, because we were heading to our evening activity, making a silver ring with the help of actual jewelers! It's in the basement of a shop in Dublin, and we found it through Airbnb experiences. To start, everyone had to measure their finger, then the ladies cut us each a small strip of silver. We used our tools to bend the silver into mostly circular shapes, which was difficult. I was sitting next to an actual child, and I was slightly better at it than her, but only slightly. Mine was a U for way too long. After they became mostly circular, the ladies soldered them together for us (that part was too dangerous and/or hard for us to do ourselves). Then we got back to stretching and shaping our rings. I don't know the names of any of the tools, I'm not gonna lie. But it was lots of fun! We definitely had a wooden mallet and a metal hammer thing. And a mandrel (I googled the name), which looks kind of like a long skinny cone that you put the ring on to make it totally round and bigger. We had to file down the sharp edges from the soldering, and use the metal hammer to put designs in the metal. Leah and I both lost our rings during this process, as they flew off the mandrels. I found mine right away, but Leah's took about 10 minutes and pretty much everyone helping to find. We even had to move furniture. Good times. I ended up doing the pattern that's supposed to look kind of like tree bark for my ring. I think it turned out pretty good! I do wish I had made it a little bit bigger, but I think once it's winter and my hands are freezing, it will fit great. Apparently I like my rings kind of loose. The ladies then polished our rings for us (you could choose shiny or matte, and I chose shiny, because I am a crow.

Concentration face!

 

 Look, it's totally kind of a little bit circular!

Begone, jaggedy edges! I file you away!

 

I did it? I mean, I know I did it, but my face seems unsure. 

 

Then, it was finally time to go back to our Airbnb and I got to take my shower! That was a relief, let me tell you. And then it was time for bed, which was also a relief. Jet lag, man. Jet lag.

Next time, on The Black Lung: The Black Lung meets her pen pal!