As I sat on the way home from yet another day in town attacking my Christmas shopping on an increasingly small budget, pardon the contradiction in terms, I began to realise that there were a set of tourists sitting across from me on the top deck of a Dublin Bus. For me, a short, red-haired, freckled Irish girl with an extremely strong Irish accent, I'm the stuff most Americans dream of and considering the other members of the bus were either internationals talking on their phones, business people hidden deep in coats or else students like myself but were lucky enough to be taller and have blonde/brown/black hair, I was perfect for them to talk about.
They were of course Americans who got cheap flights in the off-season, they were talking among themselves but being Americans, they couldn't help but be a little louder than most. I didn't really hold it against them though, they were used to riding a Subway where you had to shout to be heard. I listened in as they described their day; they had done the ultimate in a tourist trip, Irish Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery yesterday, visited the Dail and now today they went shopping near Trinity? They meant Stephen's Green but I didn't hold it against them, they also described this pub they visited on the Quays that plays Irish music all day, "I mean wow, what a country to do that all day." One man looked at the teenager listening to his headphones in a plea to ask him did he hear it, then to another woman on her phone until finally he met my eyeline where we both nodded and cringed as we shared the "wow, they really do reel the yanks in."
I continued to listen and learned that they had visited a cute little street on the opposite side of the bridge, (Dublin is divided into the North and South side by the River Liffey which is crossed by a number of bridges most famously, the Ha' Penny bridge) only to discover this 'cute' street was Mary Street! A pretty big player in the overall scheme of things.
I wondered if any tourist would ever see the real Dublin. In my opinion what I'd show them for a day wouldn't be this old "cute" image but the new, thriving, best economy in Europe. Take Grafton Street for example which hosts Brown Thomas home of Fendi, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton etc., Warehouse, Miss Selfridge, Bewleys for a great cup of coffee whe you get tired plus it's pedestrianised so you needn't worry about traffic. Then you can go to the UCI cinema, one of the biggest in the country and have an amazing cinema experience unlike what you'd have in London.
Or else cross the bridge, and visit Debenhams, Arnotts, Easons for a good read or some great antique stores if that suits your fancy. If you want nightlife, go to Temple Bar but if you want a real pub, you're better off going a bit out of Dublin. Visit the Clarence, Bono's Hotel and see luxury or go half an hour away to Straffan and visit Michael Smurfits hotel the K Club where the European Open is held and in 2006 the Ryder Cup will be held for afternoon tea, and if you want to see a bit of real culture, take a train or even a flight to Galway for a few days. It's a fantastic city, much safer than Dublin and much different to Dublin.
Ireland has changed but not everybody knows that. I don't want to advertise us but we are building million euro houses, hotels, spending a fortune on designer clothes and putting ourselves on waiting lists for memberships to gyms. We have cures for every ailment, we have shops for every need, we have a drink for every drinker from the orange juice expert to the stout entrepreneur, we're still us but look beyond the Collins memorial because believe me, there's a lot more there.