Potato Famine Hilarity.

What a lovely place is Ireland. If I listen to Jeremy talk about it, it's an island made of turds and swarf, populated by arseholes, and a weather system that actively hates humans. I know he must secretly love it, because it's beautiful.

Very akin to Scotland, naturally, it has hues of green that I didn't know existed. The view as the plane came into land showed lovely, organised rows of houses and belts of luscious greenery, and I couldn't wait to get out and see it.

I stayed with a lovely family the first night, and with whom I should have stayed the whole time as their place was closer to Dublin than the place I'm at now, but never mind. The city centre itself is rather circuitous and rambling, as opposed to the straight streets of Melbourne, but Google maps is a fantastic tool. I wandered through Temple Bar and observed the buildings and the people, skirted around Dublin Castle, and watched a man high on something swim haphazardly across the River Liffey.

The next day saw me arrive bright and early at Dun Laoghaire for my bus out to the countryside, as part of the 'Wild Wicklow Tour'. Our first stop was the tourist trap hellhole of Eniskerry, a little village whose only reason for existence was to sell tat to bus loads of tourists, and I began to think I'd made an awful mistake.

But then we hit the real country part of the tour, and all was forgiven. The bus came to a stop overlooking Lough Tay, and I had an impressive view from a cliff side of some mostly untouched natural beauty that took my breath away. (It is here that I'd link a picture, but this fucking blog program makes it so hard to do so I can't even figure it out.)

Then, we moved on to Glendalough, where the bus driver herded us around an ancient, crumbling monastery and its accompanying graveyard, then advised us to walk to the Upper Lake, which I did. Standing on the shore, looking towards the far side, was a view that was so amazing and humbling it made me want to shit. Seriously, this vista made my anus relax. The photo I took is so fit for a metal band that I'm just going to make an album because of it.

Back in Dublin I wandered round and looked for a restaurant, and settled on a nice Indian place that provided me with a tasty vegetable vindaloo, and I ate slowly, watching people out the window as they headed for a night out. One alarming trend I've noticed is that the younger women have taken makeup application to a new level, where the only real comparison is Homer Simpson's shotgun that he modded to apply beauty products. 'Homer, you've got it set to whore!' says Marge. I'm of an opinion that makeup can play a supporting role to natural beauty by enhancing it in reasonably subtle ways, not looking like you've just smashed your face into a child's multi-coloured birthday cake.

Today I was hit with a mild migraine and so slept the morning away and opted not to go out, but tomorrow I shall return and view some more Dublin before heading for Belfast.