Tourist Information, taptaptap and the woman on fire

In Dublin’s fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone

Today was spent organizing the rest of the week and soaking up the local atmosphere of Dublin. We got off to a bit of a late start, but rather than feeling stressed we enjoyed the great weather and strolled down O’Connell street in search of a good breakfast and (according to my mother) the most important thing one can get on a trip like this: postcards and stamps.

The river Liffey

I also wanted to stop by the nearest Tourist Information Centre to book a day trip, get tickets for the Hop On – Hop Off buses and enquire about a Riverdance show. If you are in a city like Dublin and you’re looking to actually take the beaten track (not always a bad thing, even if it isn’t as “hip” as OFF the beaten track), the Tourist Info will help you with whatever you need.
When in Ireland, look for these signs:

We encountered a lovely lady named Kathleen who booked us a trip to Connemara on Friday, got us bus tickets and gave us every map from here to eternity, complete with her markings of where to go. The only thing they couldn’t book was the Riverdance show, but she told us where to go to get that too, so..

After that we had a lovely breakfast (full Irish) at a busy place called Kylemore. I can certainly recommend it, it’s on O’Connell street, pretty cheap and the food was great. It’s run kind of like a cafeteria, you have a tray and tell them what you’d like with your toast, get your coffee/tea (free with food) and pay at the register.

Walking down to the Old Church St. Andrews (to find the place the bus will pick us up on Friday) was quite a stretch for my mum, but we hopped on one of the green HopOn-buses there and took nearly a whole tour without getting off – consider it research for tomorrow 😉 The bus stops are plenty and not too hard to find if you’re in the general area. Our first driver, Phil, was one of the funniest people I’ve ever heard. These buses have live comnentary and in addition to being very knowledgeable, Phil’s standup routine could rival a fair few of the great comedians out there. He made the bus ride really enjoyable, allthough this is only the case for those of us who an keep up with the Irish accent at such a pace. Sadly, my mother missed a lot of the really good bits in his commentary.

I decided to hop us off at St. Stephen’s Green to see if we could find the Ticketmaster Office for tickets to the Riverdance Show, but we happened right upon a red neon sign saying “Gaiety Theatre”, where the shows are held. Lucky for us, we quickly got tickets for the best seats in the house 🙂

After wandering the streets around St. Stephen’s, which are filled with street musicians, pubs and funny shops (as well as the odd Monsoon, Clark’s and a Disney Store) we dove in to Sheenan’s for dinner.

I don’t know if we’re incredibly lucky or if all the pubs in Dublin are just extremely good, but this one was another fabulous place with great service and awesome food.

Riverdance is currently being played at The Gaiety Theatre right by St. Stephen’s Green (King Street) and will continue on until 1 september. A special bonus if you (like myself) are a fan of Celtic Woman and/or Anuna, Lynn Hilary is back as lead soloist. I didn’t know this before we took our seats and started sifting through the program and I must admit I gave a little squeal of delight 😉
Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures or video of the show, but it was amazing and the theatre itself was just big enough to be taken seriously, but just small enough to be charming. Our tickets cost us 50 euros each and gave us seats in the upper grand circle, dead center. Very, very good view of the stage.
One of my favourites from the show was the Spanish Lady dancing on her own. She wore a lovely Flamenco-type dress coloured red with an orange underskirt, and when she danced and twirled it looked like fire across the stage. Fabulous!