Anyone would be satisfied with the buffet, it was insane! They had scones, rolls, prepackaged breads, hashbrowns, black and white pudding, beans, fruit, parfait cups, porridge and all the fixings, Irish bacon and sausages, eggs several ways, three different kinds of smoothies, juice, a make-your-own Bloody Mary station and bottles of Prosecco. All included! Unbelievable! We helped ourselves to what we wanted, particularly the fruit and smoothies as we aren’t good about spending money on that but definitely need it in our body, and had a fabulous meal! Nothing I love more than getting to feel rich and sophisticated when I am, in reality, a poor minimum-wage slob. But vacations are about having experiences you don’t get at home! So, we ate our fancy breakfast and then filled out the little card they left asking for room number and name and there was this section for a ‘discrete gratuity’ but we have all these Euro’s we have to spend so we just left a cash tip which might be tacky but cash is king as far as I recall. Then we went back upstairs to basically zip up our suitcases and had out as we had everything packed and ready to go last night.
We had made light plans about possibly taking public transport to the Dublin Zoo, our first stop of the day, but decided we didn’t want to have to be working on a timetable and also didn’t want to have to go all the way back into the city just to get our car, so we decided to drive instead. There were pros and cons to this decision. We realized when our GPS told us we’d arrive at our destination that there was, in fact, no parking for the zoo. Buses and cabs had a drop-off zone but there was nowhere connected to the zoo to park. We were going to have to fend for ourselves, for the first time, with Dublin street parking. Hideous business. We drove through a few places and found a spot that wasn’t street parking at one point, but it was just too small a spot for the car to fit. According to Jessica that isn’t true, it’s that I wasn’t fearless enough with my parking attempts. There’s a reason I’m the only one driving here in Ireland, by the way. We did manage to find a very nice, free spot we didn’t even have to really parallel park into because there was this leaning tree right beside it so no one had parked there because the left-side doors would be trapped and unable to be opened. That didn’t bother us though as Jess just crawled out the drivers side and we cheerfully headed back the way we’d come on foot to head into the zoo!
The zoo was 24 euro per person, which is pretty steep I imagine but I don’t mind paying extra for something that contributes to the care of living creatures. I have to assume they need the money, though I guess it could just be all about profit. Anyay, we paid and went in and begun our journey to the right towards the Zoorassic World exhibit to see the lizards! We got lost for a second, as there aren’t many signs pointing to the building with the Zoorassic World exhibits, but when we saw a giant mural of a dinosaur on the side of a building we knew we had to be on the right track. And we were! The entrance door was right across from that! We saw the dinosaur bone replicas and iguanas and chameleons and crocodiles and got very hot as that building is kept super warm, obviously!
That was very fun to see, for us and the school kids who were present at the same time. There must have been some kind of field trip going on that day as there were dozens of children in blue school jackets all wandering about trying to do some kind of photo challenge with certain animals. As far as we worked out there was an assignment to get pictures of a number of animals while they were there, but also a contest to get the best picture of you holding some sign that said ‘Leadership’ in front of any of the animals. We aren’t totally certain about either of those ideas, but that’s what we worked out as we ran into and overheard the school kids throughout the day.
From there we found our way into the African Plains section. The Dublin Zoo, like most zoos, is designed to be basically a giant loop with little offshoots you can take along the way, but all roads lead back to the start. Except, this zoo has a second loop attached to the primary loop, this African Plains, that closes early for some reason. We ended up right next to it after the elephants so we went there next to see the giraffes, rhinos, zebras, and lions, among others. It was a beautiful day out so all the animals were out and about, enjoying the sun and we got a great look at all of them just having fun. From the African Plains circle we rejoined the main loop and followed the signs to the penguins and sea lions! The penguins were the South American kind that don’t live in the cold and the sea lions had an underwater viewing room and above water section so we got a good look at all of them swimming around and, in some cases, doing some kind of tricks. One of them in particular kept doing this thing where it would splash water with their fin into the air and then catch the water in their mouth. I don’t know if they do shows with the sea lions or if this one comes to this zoo from a performance background, but that one seemed to really enjoy doing their little tricks for their own amusement and that was fun to see.
We ended up missing the flamingo section somehow and would later have to backtrack to find them, even though we see them all the time in Florida, but we went on to see the several monkeys and birds, a snow leopard, some kind of fox-like animal I can’t recall the name of, a bunch of playful wolves, and the okapi, one of my favourite animals! The okapi actually got real up close to us as it stuck it’s tongue through the gate to steal leaves off the trees around it’s enclosure because we were all really quiet as it approached! So cool! They’re such majestic animals, so tall and elegant. We found a Nocturnal Room after that which was this almost totally dark room with red light that housed an aye-aye. Possibly it housed more but we only caught a glimpse of the one when our eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. It was a lot of tripping over people and walking into each other in that room though, and most people left well before their eyes adjusted because you really can’t see anything for the first few minutes you’re in there.
After that I wanted to get a coffee so I got a latte from the first open restaurant we found and it was, like all my coffee has been here in Ireland, so bad. I don’t know what’s wrong with coffee in this country, it’s just so weak yet also powerfully bad tasting. Some of the coffee I’ve had has been more palatable than the rest, like the cappuccino/hot chocolate mixes I made in Derry, but I still had to work on those drinks myself. Every coffee has really varied from ‘salvageable’ to ‘absolutely foul’, with the former being the coffee from the hotel in Derry, the latter being the coffee I was served with breakfast at the Conrad that I took one sip of and couldn’t take a single sip more, and the middle being the latte I recieved at the zoo. Not totally disgusting, just also not actually anywhere nead good. But it was caffeine so I drank it as we meandered back to find the flamingos we’d missed before and then hit the gift shop back at the front. I bought myself a Unicorn Surprise egg and got a little unicorn toy because I am, at heart, a silly little girl, and we decided we’d had our fill of zoo fun after a little over two hours and set off to the National Botanical Garden.
The trip back to the car was no trouble and we were on our way in no time to the garden. We ran into sort of a similar problem of passing our destination because the GPS led us to the destination but not the parking. The botanical garden did have parking of its own, which we’d checked this time before beginning the drive, we’d just missed it and had to circle back. The lot is limited and was full when we arrived but we saw several people headed towards their cars as we pulled in so we just circled about for a bit until on of them left and jacked their spot. The parking was not only convenient, being right next to the gardens, but also free as their pay machine was down, so double score!
From the parking lot you’re basically right at the gardens, with the first greenhouse right there to explore and enjoy. We saw two greenhouses before marveling at the enormous Great Palms house which is connected to the Succulent and Orchid houses on either side. We went through from the succulent side and really REALLY loved the Great Palms house! Very neat little place in there with rushing water going through underneath and so many enormous plants, it was a quaint mini tropical forest. After the Orchid House we hunted for a map and bathrooms and Jess decided she wanted to see the Rose Garden so we headed the direction we thought that would be, as there was some pathways blocked off for updates and construction. On the way we ran into a very friendly squirrel who kept trying to climb up people by their legs and some Irish lads told us about how squirrels, and invasive species in Ireland, ended up there and what species of squirrel ended up where as there’s a divide of what places have which.
We got a little turned around, but technically no as we really didn’t care too much where we ended up and were just enjoying wandering around, but we did manage to get ourselves on the right path to the Rose Garden and it was stunning! Even with most of the roses not quite in bloom yet the whole place felt like Wonderland! Roses have some weird names and we had fun reading them off as we passed them. Most flowers had weird names though, there’s just so many different kinds that I guess you have no choice but to get weird. From there we ended up in several sections, from the Rock Garden to the Herb Garden to the Native Irish section to the Yew Trees and more. There were less people picnicking than we expected and commented that if this was France the place there would be blankets spread everywhere with charcuterie boards and pain-au-chocolat as far as the eye could see. But maybe we just missed all the picnickers as it was just about 4:30pm when we decided we’d see enough gardens and it was time to head to our next hotel, the Wilton Hotel in Bray.
Our car's GPS wanted to take us to the M50, the toll road, but we didn’t want to do that so we followed the directions on our burner phone which led us back through Dublin to the M11. I really don’t like driving in Dublin as it’s a nightmare city with daymare roads, but to avoid paying tolls I was perfectly fine. There was a good deal of traffic but that was better for me as it meant everyone was forced to go real slow and I had time to figure out what I was doing while I drove. As we sat in traffic we polished off the Crunchie Bars we had gotten from Tesco but hadn’t opened as there’s no real pick-me up for slow driving like chocolate! Having gotten through the traffic and onto the M11 it wasn’t long before we were pulling into the hotel parking lot! Inside we discovered they do a dinner as well as a breakfast so that was dinner sorted! We got our stuff settled in the room and went back out for a meal.
I got the Carbonara while Jess got the Chicken Curry and both were phenomenal! Huge servings all so well seasoned! And they came with fries! We each ordered a drink as well, Jess taking the waiters recommendation for an Irish cider while I got a Smirnoff Ice and we relaxed and chatted and ate for about an hour. The hotel didn’t offer any boxes for food, which makes sense as there’s no fridges or microwaves in the rooms so they’re not gonna give people food that can’t be stored or reheated, so we finished what we could of the generous portions and then had to say farewell to what we couldn’t. Because we’re lousy Americans we tipped with our meal and the waiter seemed very surprised and grateful. While we know tipping isn’t the norm in Ireland, and nor should it be, we know Americans have a bad reputation so perhaps tipping when we don’t have to is our apology for being such problem people in every other regard! With that settled we moved our car to be closer to our room window so we could see it then headed back to the room to lay down, watch whatever we could find on TV as there was still really nothing on, and fall asleep.
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