Weird Fish and Greyhound Races

It is the final stretch of our trip. Most of the fun is done and we are just getting ready to leave. Currently, we are taking a train from Cork back to Dublin, although, there will probably not be much sight seeing there. It is Easter weekend, which is apparently a big deal here. Especially this year.

This year is the Irish Easter Rising Centennial Celebration, marking 100 years since hundreds of Irish men, women, and children lost their lives in the rebellion for independence. All the bookstores are filled with novels on the 1916 rebellion and it is all over the news.

We are scheduled to leave Easter morning. There are going to be no cars allowed into Dublin that day because of the celebration so we decided to book our final night in an overpriced hotel above the airport. We will be out of the center of the celebration and hopefully transportation to the airport will be smoother because of it.

Yesterday was our last day of activities. We started our day at the English Market. The market is a place where they sell all sorts of meats, vegetables, cheeses, and pastries. And I mean all sorts.

At the meat booths they had every part of an animal available for purchase: liver, hearts, feet, intestine....it was gross yet fascinating. They even had unique types of meat that aren't readily available to us at home, such as lamb, duck, and even kangaroo meat. And the butchers prepared it all with their cleavers right there in front of you.

In the fish section, they had a huge selection of fish. More than just the usual salmon or tilapia. There were types of fish and

other seafood that I could never identify without a sign posted in front of it. They even had some big, scary whole fish with teeth lined mouths that could fit a basketball. One vendor found it humorous to put a tiny fish inside of the toothy fish's mouth.

Then there were the cheese and pastry vendors. Oh yum. There were so many cheeses that I didn't even know existed. Even some that looked like they should never be eaten by anything living. And the pastries--so many chocolates and custards and breads to choose amongst. These were items that we could actually purchase and take with us. We bought a chocolate eclair, a custard pastry, and a lightly glazed hot cross bun. Delicious.

From here we still had some time to kill before the evening activities. But we are so tired of city centres and shopping centers that we just went back to The Box Noodle for lunch again (two entrees, sodas, and ice cream for only €7.50 each!).

And we then proceeded to kill an extra hour at the Butter Museum.

I have no idea how we ended up there. We paid €6 for both of us to

get in and watch a 15 minute documentary on Irish butter that looked like it was made in the 70's. Not to mention, we were watching it on one of those bulky "big" screen televisions from the 90's that weigh a ton. It had about one room full of butter making artifacts. Plus another old video to watch an extensive demonstration on the making of butter. It was one of those places where you can't decide if you were glad you went for the humor of it, or if it was truly a waste of euros. At least we got the student rate.

It was back to the streets to catch our hour long bus ride to Curraheen Park Greyhound Stadium. Problem is that that one hour bus ride turned out to take only half an hour because the bus drivers here are absolutely insane.

So there we were outside of the stadium. Over an hour early till the doors open. It was cloudy and it was windy. We huddled like penguins on a curb near some trees that blocked the brunt of the wind. Luckily, we had decided to bring the Nintendo DS to pass the time. And luckily it did not start raining.

Finally, the doors opened and just an hour more until the races. We pre-gamed with a Guinness and started going through the program. Our bets for the night were solely based on names: Kilmoney Katie, Bijoux, Boola Legend, or Cotton Rambler were some of our selections.

We bet €1 each on nearly each race, and lost every single one. Of course, the ONE race where we both picked the same Greyhound to win, but didn't actually place a bet, was the

greyhound that won. Cotton Rambler. Why didn't we place a bet?!? We would be a whole €10 richer (aka our drinks would have been paid for).

We left two races early to beat the crowd. The beer in our stomachs got a good shaking as we saw our bus in the distance waiting at our stop. We ran all uphill waving our semi-drunk arms, hoping the bus driver would wait. Preston made it on the bus and it started driving off without me as I dragged myself up the hill.

"Her, too! Her, too," Preston told the bus driver frantically. Good thing he stopped because I had the bus fare for both of us.

We got off the bus at St. Patrick Street and ate at one of the only two restaurant open at 22:00: Abra Kebabra and McDonalds. Abra Kebrabra is a great place to eat when you want to hate your body. We both got loaded fries (Pulled Pork Fries and Taco Fries) and it was a guilty pleasure, kind of like eating at Del Taco.

We were happy to be at the Greyhound Races on Good Friday. We didn't realize what day it was, and Ireland is predominantly Catholic. It was the one day of the year (other than Christmas) that all of the pubs close. The Greyhound Races were probably one of the only places that was selling alcohol that night. We still got our planned final night of drinking in, even if it wasn't at a pub.

It's our last full day in Ireland and it finally decides to rain. I wanted it to rain more while we were here, but maybe it's a good thing that it didn't. Though, I didn't get much use out of my rain boots or rain jacket.

I am just thankful for the fact that we don't have a drunken bachelorette party on our train playing dildo ring toss again. Ah, I can watch the green and rainy countryside go by in peace today.