If you were to take my family’s movie collection and line them up according to the amount of times they’ve been watched, Music and Lyrics would definitely be in the top five. The movie is the hilarious tale of and 80s pop has-been’s journey through writing a new song. Hugh Grant’s character Alex Fletcher, formerly of the 80s band POP, is asked to write a song entitled “A Way Back Into Love” for the rising pop star Cora Corman. The only problem is that he struggles with writing lyrics of his own. Therefore, he asks the aspiring writer Sophie Fisher, played by Drew Barrymore, to be his lyricist.
In one scene, the pair is trying to catch a taxi to take the newly finished song to a helipad where Cora is waiting for the track. They rush out of Alex’s apartment building, waving their arms frantically to catch the attention of a passing taxi. Alex shouts out, “She’s going to have a baby!” When the car doesn’t stop, Sophie steps out into the street and shouts, “Hey! What if it were true?” Luckily, another cab is coming up the road, and Alex is able to get the driver’s attention.
I thought of this scene when Cait, Brittany and I were trying to catch a cab to take us to a medical center in Dublin. We were walking up a hill, wondering if hailing a cab worked the same in Ireland as we’ve seen in the movies that take place in America. After her second failed attempt to hail a taxi, Cait even commented, “If this were ‘Sex and the City,’ I’d have five cabs by now.” Even though I wanted to, I did not yell out that one of the three of us was having a baby. Eventually, we found a group of taxis parked along the road and were able to hire one of them to take us where we needed to go. Apparently, hailing cabs doesn’t work the same in Ireland as it does in the movies.
Apart from the taxi to the medical center, a lot of my time in Dublin was spent walking to things I wanted to see. The first night in Dublin, a group of us went to a comedy club at one of the pubs in town. After finding the wrong pub about a half hour’s walk from our hostel, we were directed to a pub only ten to fifteen minutes from our hostel (who knew there were so many pubs named O’Donoghue’s in Dublin?). What I noticed most about the comedy at the club was that it was very politically charged and controversial. There were jokes I was almost afraid to laugh at, which diminished the fun a bit.
The next day, we toured Ireland’s parliament building, which was very interesting. We got to sit in for a portion of a debate in the Senate, which got very heated due to the subject. To be honest, I still don’t understand Ireland’s government very well, but that visit helped me learn a bit more. After that we toured Dublin Castle which, surprisingly, is less like a castle and more like a manor house. I was somewhat disappointed that it wasn’t more castle-like, though maybe that’s another thing Disney has given me false expectations for (castles and hair, two things that will never be perfect in real life).
(These pictures are all of Dublin Castle. Unfortunately, my pictures of the parliament building are all blurry.)
In one scene, the pair is trying to catch a taxi to take the newly finished song to a helipad where Cora is waiting for the track. They rush out of Alex’s apartment building, waving their arms frantically to catch the attention of a passing taxi. Alex shouts out, “She’s going to have a baby!” When the car doesn’t stop, Sophie steps out into the street and shouts, “Hey! What if it were true?” Luckily, another cab is coming up the road, and Alex is able to get the driver’s attention.
I thought of this scene when Cait, Brittany and I were trying to catch a cab to take us to a medical center in Dublin. We were walking up a hill, wondering if hailing a cab worked the same in Ireland as we’ve seen in the movies that take place in America. After her second failed attempt to hail a taxi, Cait even commented, “If this were ‘Sex and the City,’ I’d have five cabs by now.” Even though I wanted to, I did not yell out that one of the three of us was having a baby. Eventually, we found a group of taxis parked along the road and were able to hire one of them to take us where we needed to go. Apparently, hailing cabs doesn’t work the same in Ireland as it does in the movies.
Apart from the taxi to the medical center, a lot of my time in Dublin was spent walking to things I wanted to see. The first night in Dublin, a group of us went to a comedy club at one of the pubs in town. After finding the wrong pub about a half hour’s walk from our hostel, we were directed to a pub only ten to fifteen minutes from our hostel (who knew there were so many pubs named O’Donoghue’s in Dublin?). What I noticed most about the comedy at the club was that it was very politically charged and controversial. There were jokes I was almost afraid to laugh at, which diminished the fun a bit.
The next day, we toured Ireland’s parliament building, which was very interesting. We got to sit in for a portion of a debate in the Senate, which got very heated due to the subject. To be honest, I still don’t understand Ireland’s government very well, but that visit helped me learn a bit more. After that we toured Dublin Castle which, surprisingly, is less like a castle and more like a manor house. I was somewhat disappointed that it wasn’t more castle-like, though maybe that’s another thing Disney has given me false expectations for (castles and hair, two things that will never be perfect in real life).
(These pictures are all of Dublin Castle. Unfortunately, my pictures of the parliament building are all blurry.)
My favorite part of the weekend was the Kilmainham Gaol. The jail was built in 1796, and was in operation until 1924, which means it survived various political uprisings, the famine, the revolution of Easter 1916 and Ireland’s civil war (those history classes are paying off, huh?). The prison is famous for executions that took place there after the Easter uprising, but I found the unknown memories of the jail to be even more intriguing. I loved the eerie, mysterious feeling I got in the jail, and I would love to go back and explore the jail more in depth.
Farmleigh House, the home of the descendants of the original maker of Guinness, was beautiful, and the surrounding grounds are gorgeous as well. The gardens at Farmleigh, though, have nothing on the Botanic Gardens we visited on our last day in Dublin. While the outdoors plants weren’t in bloom yet, the greenhouse flowers and plants were beautiful to see. I don’t remember the names of all the flowers I took pictures of, but that doesn’t make them any less beautiful. The final place we visited (though it was actually the first place we stopped…) was the Clonmacnoise Monastery. The ruins of the monastery were neat to see, and the history was interesting. The stonework found at the Monastery is some of the oldest in Ireland, and yet they were still some of the cleverest stone masons I’ve heard of. Below is a picture of a doorway called the Whispering Arch. If you whisper into a certain groove on one side, a person listening on the other side can hear you perfectly (I know. I tried.). This was apparently used for giving confession during times of sickness so the priests didn’t get infected. Pretty genius if you ask me.
Overall, my stay in Dublin was pretty fun. The only downside was the hostel we stayed in. It felt dirty and old, and I wasn’t terribly comfortable staying there for four days. My first night back at the cottage was heavenly. I’m hoping that the hostel Kelli and I booked for our upcoming trip to Scotland will be much better than the one we stayed at in Dublin (it won’t be hard to beat). I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Until next time!
Until next time!