Yesterday morning, Eli asked if I wanted to go to St. Stephen's Green, which is a park in City Centre. I asked if we could also go to Hodges Figgis as it's right down the block from the park.
I had bought a Trivial Pursuit game at a charity shop a couple weeks ago, and I brought a stack of cards along for the tram ride. We passed the time going through the questions and giving our best guesses. It's the general (non-themed) version of the game, but being sold in Ireland, there were a lot of Ireland-based questions that we had no clue about.
On weekends, the trams into City Centre get very full with people standing in every open space, and yesterday was no exception. I become claustrophobic when I think my escape route is inaccessible so it was nice to have a distraction. Especially when at one point, a young woman was standing in the aisle right next to my seat and slightly bumping me with her leg or purse. If we had had to disembark quickly, she would've learned the folly of being in my personal space.
So after months of saying "I want to go to there," I finally went to there. "There" being Hodges Figgis, a huge bookstore on Dawson Street in Dublin.
I walked through that door and just stopped, sucking in a deep breath and trying to take it all in. Bookstores fill me with an incredible sense of home and of life and of awe...and of overwhelm, if I'm being completely honest. This store is huge - four floors - and there are books in every nook and cranny. I was like an excited puppy who's surrounded by toys and unsure which one to grab first.
I felt like I were walking on air as I moved from shelf to shelf, from topic to topic. There's a scene in the TV show "Two and a Half Men" where one of the characters is in a bookstore and he has a nervous breakdown because there are so many books that he'll never get a chance to read. I have that thought when I'm in a bookstore. It hasn't caused me to have a breakdown (yet) but it's always present in the back of my mind.
Eli browsed for a few minutes before escaping next door to Pret a Manger (that's French for "ready to eat" - it's a coffee shop much like Starbucks).
The lowest floor housed books that were "remainders" which is basically clearance books. I was non-aggressively cornered by a clerk who had the Irish gift of gab along with a very, very heavy Irish accent. I understood maybe three words out of ten and hoped the responses I made actually had anything to do with what he was saying.
On the fourth floor, a pleasant clerk asked if she could help me find anything. I said, "Could you please help me NOT find anything?" I told her if I worked there, I would be working for free because my salary would go toward buying a ton of books. As I was checking out, I told the cashier that I loved the store but it was good I didn't work there because I'd be working for books, basically. She said that's usually what happens during someone's first year there, and I can imagine that's true.
I typically get my books from the library, but I treated myself to these three beauties: Ireland's Animals, Irish Customs and Rituals, and The Mammoth Book of Irish Humour (which I bought for Eli but I'll also read at some point).
I could've spent a lot more time there - and a lot more money - but I was getting overstimulated so it was time to go.
I walked over to Pret to collect Eli. There was a young child there dressed in a nubbly brown coat/jumper that made him/her look like a bear cub. This tot was completely invested in sleep, entire body stretched out in his/her stroller with both arms flung to the side. It would be nice to be able to sleep like that.
We could have taken the tram to St. Stephen's Green but since it was a short walk and a fairly decent day, we decided to walk.
Upon entrance to the park, we were greeted by a pigeon welcoming committee. There were three sitting on a fence by the trees, and I heard cooing coming from above so I looked up to see these bobbins all along a branch. A lady came along with her dog, who lunged at the fence-sitters and scattered them. The birds in the tree seemed fairly unperturbed.
We walked around the large water feature, encountering ducks, seagulls, some swans, and a grey heron. What struck me most is that there is no barrier or fencing around the water. I'm sure there have been instances of people going into the water, either accidentally or on purpose, but Dublin seems to trust its citizens not to be idiots.
There was a seagull shrieking at someone sitting on a bench. I would assume he was asking for food but maybe he was just ticked off that another creature was invading his turf (gulls seem to be quite territorial). The only description I could come up with for the way the gull was moving was that he was skulking. He seemed to have his shoulders pulled up as he stalked around on the path.
There was a rugby game yesterday afternoon in Dublin between Ireland and France, so we saw a good number of people walking around with the colors of the French flag painted on their faces or wearing a team scarf or shirt. One pub we passed had a balloon garland above its entrance where half of the balloons were green/white/orange (Ireland flag colors) and the other half were red/white/blue (French flag colors).
The tram ride home was thankfully less crowded. At one stop, I looked out to see a little girl sitting on a bench and she gave off Hollywood starlet vibes. She was dressed all in pink and wearing pink sunglasses. Her hair was golden flax and reminded me of Rita Hayworth-esque waves. At another stop, a mom and her little girl got aboard. Little one was in a stroller and she made it known that she wanted to go sit in a seat. So Mom got her out of the stroller and hiked up into a tram seat. The kid sat there all of three minutes....and then wanted to be back in her stroller, so Mom had to reverse the process.
Back home, we had lunch and watched the rugby game. Ireland got pummeled by France 42-27 so I imagine all of those French fans I saw were très content.
