The GCW Tour, A Few Bits of the UK and Ireland: Important Final Lessons from Dublin

This morning we left Dublin for Belfast. Personally, I'm of an age that it's hard to associate Belfast to anything but bombings, but the boys are eager to see something called the Giants Causeway, so here we are. And, actually, they've got a few museums and tours here focused on the "troubles," so I'm hoping I might be able to learn a bit. 

But before we get to that, two things I was reminded of in Dublin. First, before visiting a foreign city, it is worth doing a bit of research on the state of their infrastructure. It may just be me, but I seem to always wind up someplace where everything's being torn up...

It'll be nice when it's finished, but in it's current state this expansion of Dublin's tram system was something of a hassle. If I'd known about it, I might've picked a hotel in a different location (not that there were many areas I saw unaffected by this project).

Second, I need to learn to remind myself that, at this point, they're all international cities. I don't know why it is, but some places I go I'm not at all surprised to see people from every corner of the globe; yet others I stupidly expect to be different. Dublin was one of those. I expected it to look and sound like The Commitments, but in reality it has a lot more in common with Babel. Sure, we heard Irish accents, but we also heard Italian, Spanish, German, unidentifiable (to me) Eastern European, Chinese -- you name it. And truthfully, we probably heard fewer Irish than all the rest. 

I'd like to hope that I'd soon stop being surprised by that.