Ireland: 1st impressions

Here are my 1st impressions of Ireland, just thoughts, which don't reflect the whole country and true facts.

Let's talk about my arrival in Dublin. The weather was sunny until the plane reached the English coast. Leaving behind me the blue Channel, Cornwall and Wales, the Irish sea vanished under a white cloud. How's the green Eire from the sky? I can't say, all around it was just deeply white. Just before landing, I saw some snow plate, remains from the "Beast from the East" 2 weeks before. Encouraging! Let's get out of the plane: rain and strong winds. Worst than expected.

While I was waiting outside the airport for the bus to the city centre, a woman from Netherland asked me if the weather was always like that here. I hope no. She's visiting a friend for the 1st time in Ireland, and seems to wonder why she was here?

Later in the afternoon, after having tea in Jervis shopping centre (because I needed to get warm and dry), as I was leaving, a local man advised me there was still bad weather out there. All right, so if it's also bad weather for the Irish people, it means it's not the traditional weather. Comforting.

My 2nd day was much better: dry, and from time to time sunny. It changes deeply the city I saw on the 1st day, which was almost empty. Now people are getting out. Let's forget the umbrella corpses strewing cobblestones. As I'm staying in a hostel in Smithfield, it's the occasion to go to Phoenix Park which is very close. Why did I want to go there while there are still no leaves on the trees? Because of the deers. I heard there are some of them living freely in this 712ha park, the 2nd largest of Europe. I saw a very cute video of them when there was snow in Dublin. So I looked for them, walking in mud, and wet grass (shoes and pants are already dirty, and the walk hasn't even started yet) and finally, I found them, on the rugby field. Bambis (well adults ones), several dozens, seating in the grass, eating, calm. I came closed enough to take pictures, but I didn't want to disturb them, just in case one of them would decide to charge me. Deers put aside, the park must be very lovely in summer, but even now, there were people, walking their dogs, running, cycling, and even a policeman riding a horse (the presidential house is in the park too).

On my way back to the city centre, I walked across St James, which part of the city seems to belong to Guinness. I made a little stop at St John & St Augustin's Church, in order to get some rest and discover what an Irish church looks like. Heating in the church (and very well performing), my god, if it was the same in France (some have but not so efficient), when I was a little girl, I would have spent more time there. A warm, dry and well-decorated place, apart from the pub, it's a good place to spend time. And the hobo snoring at the entrance won't disagree. It's a neogothic church, very colourful (not only the stained glass), and not overloaded like the Baroque style. A woman warns me to be very careful with my bag and valuables. Really, a thief in God's house?

Let's talk about people. This woman was not the 1st one to warn me or advise me. Irish people seem not only to be very friendly and welcoming, they are also very thoughtful and considerate. A guy made me laugh, he stopped me in the street cause he liked my braids so he shook them. That never happened to me in Paris. Here I have to forget my Parisian reflex such as "why do you talk to me? how dare you?". Here I can be less "on my guard" and just enjoy.

One true thing about the Irish people, yes there are more ginger people here. More than in any other country I visited (which includes Scotland and all the Viking countries). Kids, with their school uniforms, have freckles. Men are taller here, taller than french people (which makes me feel smaller).

About the city, I would say it's not that big for the capital. In comparison, I think it's almost the same size as big cities in France such as Bordeaux, Strasbourg or Lille. It's easy to visit it by walk (I've almost done 15kms today, from Smithfield to Phoenix Park, to St James, Temple Bar, Trinity College, Grafton Street, to Samuel Becket Bridge and then back to Smithfield along the Liffey), and even if there are cars, tramway and buses, a lot of people seems to prefer walking, especially when they leave work at 5 pm. There's also a lot of bikes (even in the rain, I saw a man with his yellow jacket and red flashlight). Dublin has a kind of Velib (self-service bicycle). So, for me, the city is not very noisy, calm enough to hear seagulls. It is crossed by the Liffey river, which is really brown, a kind of Guinness river. It's not as large as the Thames or Seine river, it's more like the Tiber in Roma.

I have only one difficulty at the moment, and it's not the Irish accent which is not so hard to understand. It's about crossing the street because I get completely confused about which side I have to look at first. It's not left as in France, right? Most of the time it's written on the road, but there's no pedestrian crossing everywhere so ...

As for the rest, I'm really enjoying the place and feeling good here.