When I awoke this Sunday morning, rain was falling. I've long since ceased being surprised at the precipitation, or even really noticing it, for the most part. Yesterday, it foiled our plans to go to Glendalough, and today it thwarted my plans to go to Howth (for the third consecutive weekend in a row). I lazed around the flat for awhile, and made a nutella sandwich. That done, I became bored. I was going to do laundry, but the thought so fatigued me that I decided to put it off and do something else. It was already into the afternoon, and the rain clouds were still menacing, so I didn't have time to range too far afield, nor did I want to be stuck too far from home when the rain inevitably began to fall.
Several days ago, aware that my time here is passing with great rapidity, I made a list of things that I had done and still wanted to do here in Ireland so I could not lose track of time and places. Consulting the list, I settled on a destination that seemed interesting and that I knew to be relatively close: The National Botanical Gardens, in Glasnevin (a village in between Santry, where I am, and City Centre.
I made a peanut butter sandwich to take, and out I went. The sky had assumed a rather menacing, gloomy grayblack, more ominous than its normal pall. It seemed to suck all color out of the surrounds and that, combined with the powerful gusts of wind, combined to make me feel somewhat as if I were in the beginning of 'The Wizard of Oz'. I met Jessica (one of my 'flatmates') on the corner, returning from the pool. When I told her my plans to visit the Botanical Gardens, she looked at the sky, and then down at me, skeptically, questioning the validity of my plan given the prevailing weather conditions. I can't say I blame her - the weather hardly seemed fit for a promenade through the gardens. In fact, the wind was gusting so mightily that it seemed ready to blow over everything planted in the ground. I derive a strange enjoyment, however, from walking around in terrible and challenging weather, perhaps from my Boy Scout days, and today's climate fit the bill, so I pressed on. Besides, having observed the mercurial nature of the weather in Dublin, I thought it quite likely that the storm might change to something much more pleasant. That optimistic thought in mind, I boarded the bus.
That is to say, I boarded the wrong bus. I thought I knew which bus went by the Gardens, but I ended up in the City Centre without having ever passed the gardens at all, dagnabbit. (There are 5 or 6 slightly different bus routes that swing by my bus stop and all eventually get to the City Centre, but only one goes by the gardens). I turned around and boarded a different bus headed back in the direction of home, this time successfully alighting at the wrought iron gates of the Botanical Gardens.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn't really prepared for anything on the order of the scale or beauty that I found. I suppose I was expecting something like Stephen's Green, Merrion Sqaure, or the Iveagh Gardens: beautiful parks planted with beautiful flowers. The Botanical Gardens, for one, are much bigger than any of these mid-city preserves. Also, the Botanic is designed not only as a recreational area, but as horticultural and educational resource / preserve. So there are not just flowers planted....there is every type of flower, tree, shrub, and moss that occurs naturally in Ireland. There are also a huge number of trees and flowers that are native to Europe, Asia, and the Americas and occur naturally in those places only, transplanted to Ireland as a "hey, look what we can do if we try" sort of thing.
The Gardens were founded in 1795 by the Royal Dublin Society at the behest of the Irish Parliament. They're located on the banks of the Tolka River in the then-village of Glasnevin, which has since been incorporated into the broader Dublin Sprawl. The 50 verdant acres of the Botanic Gardens, however, remain protected and apart. Walking through them, one is quite unable to tell that he is, in fact, quite close to more than a million people. It feels much more wild than the other parks that I've visited: partly because it's so much bigger, but also because it's got so much growth and is comparatively empty.
I was surprised to find from a bulletin board just inside the entrance that there are over 20,000 species growing in the Botanic Gardens, laid out in a number of different themed areas. I was quite taken aback by the complexity and diversity of the arrangements and quite unsure of my ability to see it all in a few hours. So I ignored the map and walked off in a random direction. I walked through a grass field patched with many squares of little mini-gardens. I looked up the hill to see a very impressive series of Glass House Arboretums, covered by a perhaps even more impressively stormy looking sky. I walked down the path some more, passing a painfully picturesque bench and spotting, for the first time, a minaret or tower of some sort that would continue to reappear 12 or 13 more times. I admired hedgerows and vines growing up metal supports before continuing into a stone-walled garden that had a diversity of flowers. Walking down, I found myself in what appeared to be, for all the world, a wild meadow. Turning around, I exited the walls as it began to rain and found myself in the midst of a forest of trees of numerous varieties. I walked quietly among them until I came to another walled enclosure, apparently open to the public for the first time since 1830. It turned out to be a fruit and vegetable garden that featured, most impressively, a patch of 60 or 70 varieties of lettuce, with which I imagine I could make a pretty serious salad.
I exited the vegetable patch into a grove of cedars, which effectively blocked the sun and the rain. Leaving the grove, I followed an Ivy-covered stone wall for a while into a glen of poplars. There was a gently curving path that ran around the outside wall of the garden. I followed it for a while, eventually stopping at a hole in the wall covered by an Iron Grate. Through it, I could see a meadow sloping gently down to a stream. Were it not for the (undoubtedly expensive, given the view) town homes poking through the tops of the trees in the distance, I would not have been able to tell that I was in the middle of a city.
Continuing my walk, I began to go down a hill. At its bottom, I discovered that the stream I had previously seen through the meadow had wended its way into the Gardens. Pleased, I followed the path along the stream for awhile before being distracted by more water on my right, this time in the form of a curvaceous lily pond. I walked along its banks for awhile. The whole experience so far had been rather an overload of beautiful scenery, but this was easily the most picturesque part. Over the pond I could see a long, upward sloping hill dotted with gracefully waving trees. Closer to me, a number of tall trees leaned over, dipping their fronds in the water, which was full of ducks and fish. Lovers lay on the banks, holding hands or eating picnics, and I missed Maria greatly. I continued along the bank of the pond, and the trail began to following a curving, low stone wall, literally right through a willow tree, whose branches canopied over the path before ending in the water. I walked through the willow and onto a nice little bridge, where I managed to get a self-timer picture of myself. The sun had, obligingly, emerged from behind the clouds to give everything the appearance of a painting by J.M.W. Turner. I was quite pleased.
It was 6 PM, the hour of closing, so I attempted to find the exit. I rejoined the stream and began to wind back up towards the exit. I had to stop briefly, to detour towards a bit of gleaming white that I saw poking through the trees. It was a statue, the one and only in the entirety of the Botanic Gardens (which seemed unusual, considering the multitude of statues in the other gardens and parks that I have visited). The statue was of, inexplicably...Socrates. I searched the flower beds around him to see if some enterprising genius with a flair for the ironic had planted a bit of hemlock in the proximity but, alas, it was not so. Walking over to view Socrates, I saw the entrance to a rose garden but, sadly, did not have time to view it. I continued back towards the exit, making my way via a flight of stone steps that had been cut into the side of a hill, winding up through a garden of ferns. At the top of the hill was a lane flanked by boxwoods, leading to a "Rockery" through which bounced a pleasantly bubbling brook. The brook, amusingly, had a sign that said "do not dunk children".
I made my way back along the lanes of glass houses, peering in at various exotic tropical plants that I decided to return later to view. I exited through the iron gates and, hungry, sought a place that would feed me. I settled on "The Tolka House", a large Tudor looking structure straddling the Tolka river and overlooking the gardens. The front had a swinging sign of a fat dancing man holding a frothy beer stein and saying "Good Food! with his thumb up. This, I happily decided, was the place for me.
The inside reminded me much of the Yellow House pub in Rathfarnham Village, in John's Constituency. Walls and Low ceilings cut of dark paneled wood, several levels, and a generally dark and comfortable atmosphere. The only thing which brought the room out of the 18th century was a projector screen TV, around which a crowd of fans sporting Italian futbol jerseys were huddled, absorbed in the Italy/Spain semifinal match of the Eurocup. I collapsed into a pleasant leather couch for a few minutes, and then got up to seek food. The Tolka House, like most Pubs, does not have a menu. Instead, they have a "carvery" a sort of hot buffet from which one chooses items of his pleasing. I had a few slabs of Turkey with Gravy, stuffing (well, really it was breadcrumbs), Mashed Potatoes, Lasagna, and a Pint. Happily, I carried my bounty back to my couch and table by the fireplace and sat down, busying myself with the important work of food consumption. After dinner I lingered in the pub for a few hours, reading more of "The Count of Monte Cristo", in which I have become quite absorbed.
A "pub" is quite different from a "bar". People were doing some serious drinking, all right...but the inside was filled not just with disgruntled grad students and saucy couples, that traditional clientele of Charlottesville watering holes, but also...families. I was joined in my alcove by a rather loud little troupe of children, who ran around on the floor playing with cars while their mother and grandmother sat at the table doing some serious damage to a pitcher of beer. Everyone appeared to be quite happy, it was just strange to see such young children there. You would /never/ see that in the United States, and not just because of the cultural difference: most bars in the United States don't even let you in after 5 PM if you're under 21.
When I left the Tolka House, I decided to take the few miles home on foot instead of by bus, hoping to walk off some of the extensive turkey dinner. The walk up Ballymun was pleasant and uneventful, the sun feeling not at all strange for shining at 9:30.
You may recall my earlier description of Albert College Park, a pleasant area close to my flat in Santry. Part of the road that I had to take to get home runs parallel to the Park, so I decided to cut into the park to cover the distance there instead of on the road. I became distracted, however, by the park, which is essentially a border of trees surrounding (and subdividing) a massive, perfectly flat, and perfectly trimmed lawn. I went to the middle of the green and stood for several minutes, admiring the blowing trees and the now-blue skies (my early afternoon predictions about the later improvement of the weather were, happily, verified). The sun began to set rather strikingly, casting shadows 350 yards in length across the green. I decided to lie down and watch the clouds. It's a special feeling, to be lying on your back and looking up at a great vaulted blue. From the edges of my vision, I could actually see the movement of the blades of wind by their progress through the grass. It was a rather tremendous feeling of open, uncrowdedness, nearly 270 degrees of unobstructed vision and open sky, much like in the American West. Again, I thought how strange it was to be experiencing such a sensation in the biggest city in the country. I lay there for about 20 minutes before walking home. Hungry again, I stopped at the market for milk and a banana. When I got back to the flat, I made a cup of tea and uploaded some 250 pictures from the day's adventures, the best of which may be seen on my facebook page, and composed this entry.
Now, as it has suddenly and surprisingly become after midnight, I believe I shall retire. Work tomorrow.
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