Many Reasons to Love

I'd like to start out tonight by apologizing for my sour mood in my previous post. It, indeed, has been a rough week, and I'm coming off my "high" since I arrived here, and was in a stage where I just hate everything about this country. Apparently, it's all part of culture shock, according to my Study Abroad advisor back home. 
But as I spent the next day meandering around the city, searching high and low for good wifi to Skype my parents, I thought of many reasons to love Dublin, and indeed Ireland. So I want to counter my hateful grudges against my life here by sharing some things that I really love about living here.

First of all, I absolutely LOVE going into the City Centre. There is so much to do, and it is so easy to get to from anywhere, it's just impossible not to love. Allow me to paint you a mental picture. Let's begin on Grafton Street, which is one of several pedestrian-only roads, lined with shops, street performers, and restaurants. From there, you go straight, crossing over Nassau Street, which has a delightful book shop and a sweater shop with an abundance of cozy, authentic-Irish-wool sweaters and scarves. As you continue on Grafton Street, you will eventually come to the entrance to Trinity College, which is a huge, beautiful, strong-standing historic building. If you were to turn right here, you would be headed down a street with more shops and restaurants, on your way to Temple Bar, which I'll talk about later. However, if you continue straight, and cross the River Liffey, you would end up on a huge, wide, long street, O'Connell Street, which is undoubtedly the heart and soul of Downtown Dublin. It begins with the O'Connell Monument, built in 1882, continues with bus stops every ten meters, more shops and restaurants and casinos and arcades than anyone can count, and more street performers and pedestrians everywhere. In the center intersection of this road, there is a giant pole called the Spire, built in 2003. If you stand on the sidewalk below, and look up at the top of the Spire, it is so tall that it appears to be arching over you. It looks like an obnoxiously tall flagpole with no flag. But it's a wonderful land mark and it does draw attention to Dublin's center. Near to the Spire is the main Post Office, a huge historic building of stone with dark wood interior work, set up like you might see a post office set up in the 1910s, complete with a Post Museum. O'Connell Street then ends with the Parnell Monument, 1911. 
I absolutely love walking through this part of the city. Not only is there every store imaginable to walk into, or any kind of food you could want to eat (including grocery stores), but it has a sort of enchanting vibe to it. It definitely has a big city feel with it's multiple story buildings and crowded streets, but nothing is more than three or four floors high. There are no skyscrapers or big apartment buildings, and many buildings have kept their older architectural design. Nothing really looks commercialized, and many businesses, even though I know they are major chains, look independently owned. There are employees standing outside many establishments, inviting you to come inside. No one tries to sell you anything you don't ask for (a refreshing change from the States), and workers tend to be very helpful and patient. I love going downtown and just wandering, not even having a goal, and not wishing for one. 
Earlier I mentioned Temple Bar. I have only been through the Temple Bar area once on the Pub Crawl (see previous posts), but I really like this area. The Temple Bar district is a series of streets, many of them foot-traffic-only, paved with bricks, lined up and down with, you guessed it, bars and pubs. Sure, there's a cafe or restaurant here and there, and of course there's a McDonald's on the corner, but mostly you come here to go to the pub. It's fun and cozy in a back-alley, hold-on-to-your-purse sort of way, but I don't feel unsafe. There are lots of people around, and the pubs aren't sketchy or shady. It's just an older part of town, and since there are no cars driving by, the streets are narrower, so it feels more "enclosed" in a way. Not to mention it is a very short walk from the Ha'Penny Bridge, a cute old pedestrian bridge that crosses the River Liffey. Apparently, couples come and lock a padlock onto the Ha'Penny Bridge and then throw the key into the river, as a sign of their everlasting love. I think it's a very romantic notion.
This whole time, I've talked about the City Centre, but that's not the only part of Ireland that I love. I love the landscape, the country, the way people model their towns. I love the anti-commercialization of things, and the way people drive. I love the accent, and the way people speak, and the quirks to their language. I love where I live, far enough away from campus that I get my quiet time, but close enough to campus that it is easy to get to, with grocery stores and coffee shops  ten-minute walk away.

There are many, many reasons to love Dublin and Ireland, and I have only begun to explore a small portion of them. But I am sure, as my time here rolls on, I will continue to fall in love with the country, the way I have already fallen in love with the city.