La Vida Laura

I visited Dublin back in November, on the weekend the terrorist attacks occurred in Paris. Unsurprisingly, my mind was preoccupied and my heart heavy with thoughts of Paris throughout the weekend. I had a lot of plans for sightseeing in Dublin, but I wound up scrapping most of them, not feeling up to doing much. Instead, I found myself wandering around the city, content just to walk and think.

Luckily for me, Dublin appears to get itself into the holiday spirit early, and so I found my gloomy mood boosted by sights of Christmas popping up all around the city. The first thing I noticed were lights everywhere, strung up across streets and containing Gaelic Christmas greetings.

Restaurants got into the spirit, too, and I was particularly taken with The Green Hen, which wrapped itself up in a Christmas bow. The Green Hen also happens to serve great food, which I will write more about later.

Dublin’s shopping malls were as decked out as one would expect malls to be. The decorations at the Powerscourt Centre were just lovely:

As were those at the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre:

But the best of all had to be Brown Thomas, Dublin’s fancy schmancy department store. The inside was nice, but the window displays here were awesome: colorful, whimsical, and a bit odd.

Overall, it was a weird weekend for me in Dublin. The city is one of my favorites, but it was tough to say I had a great time there when my thoughts were clearly elsewhere. In uncertain times, though, I’m glad to have been in a place with such a happy spirit.