Dublin

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Ok guys, dirty Dublin is the city in which I lived for more than one year, and that's still to be continued. I know it's full of difects, maybe it's got more faults than virtues, but it's Dublin, and there's a lot to know about it.

The most common thing that you can hear about this city is that Dublin is NOT Ireland. That's true. Most of you may ask why. Well, think that 15% of the people leaving here are not Irish (though Ireland has a pretty high foreigners percentage, 11%) even if when you walk in the street this may not be the sensation you perceive (you have more the sensation of being in a real melting pot). But that's only statistics. The lifestyle of Dublin is now a mix of Irish and Western tradition. Or better, Dublin is the degeneration of Irish tradition due to the encounter with the most spread Western lifestyle. Which means: if Irish people traditionally drink a lot only to forget in the evening how harsh has been the day, Dubliners drink alcohol only to trasgress, only for drunkness' sake, only because nowadays you can have fun only if you are drunk. Whatever is your point of view on this topic, Dublin city center is today the right place to be if you want to wander from pub to pub, from disco to disco, if you want to have the time of your life.

This does not mean that all of Dublin limits to this. There's a lot of places in Dublin I've liked to visit, much quieter and more interesting places than discopubs or Temple Bar Square. There's edges of tranquility in Dublin that, I think, most people don't know. Not as famous as the Guinness Storehouse, places like the Grand Canal, St. Anne's Park, Christ Church Cathedral remain hidden from the visitor's eyes, who does not know that he's missing to see the best part of the city. But maybe these are just places that we, inhabitants, know. I remember a scene in “L'auberge espagnol”: the protagonist, a parisian, says something like “I discovered myself wandering in the streets that no parisian would ever walk along”. It's the same: there's places no Dubliner would ever go to, as there's places no tourist will ever know about.