Our Day in Dublin
We had met a girl who was living in Dublin but was from Canada. She offered to take us around Dublin that morning before she went to work. Sounded like a plan to me. We finally got out of our hostel and out onto the streets to call her. I had an awesome urge to go to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells (an ancient manuscript written and illustrated by monks. I had studied it in Islamic art and Arch when comparing it to images found in the Koran.) There was an entrance fee and Maggie and Lisa didn't share my enthusiasm. So they sat on the lawn outside the entrance and I went in to gawk.
You couldn't take any pictures, which is just as well; the pages I really wanted to see weren't on display that day anyway. This seems to be a continuing theme to my trip... "Ophelia" is on a break from the Tate as well... *grumble* Moving on. It was really cool and I was explaining the finer points of the calligraphy to a group of little old ladies when I realized I should really get moving. They exit you out into the Great Hall, which is FULL of mid-evil books. It was the best part I think. There were rows and rows and rows of ancient looking books and I wanted to break open a couple to read. But they wouldn't let me. So that was a bit of a bummer. :D
Went back out and met the others then walked to Terrace Green to meet our guide Kelly. She walked us around the park and took us to this neat crepe place called Lemon. We had crepes. Duh. Then we ate the crepes in the park and had this weird guy take out picture in front of the Oscar Wilde statue.
He moved. Oh well.
We also went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Christ Church. My favorite part was the crypts. Not very scary because they have displays set up in them, but whatever. There were dead bodies there once they could make it into a fluffy bunny farm and it would still be creepy.
St. Pats. Pretty isn't it?
Sigh, I love stained glass.
So we then got Ice cream in a store and said our good byes to Kelly.
We walked down by the Liffy, or the Sniffy Liffy as the locals call it. It is stinky. Whew.
We had a little bit of time left, so we did the traditional Dublin tourist thing.
We went to the Guinness factory. As Adien often said, it is the Irish Mecca. They wake up each morning and raise their glasses in its direction. It was a decent little tour thingy. You look at how it's made, how it was advertised, then you go up to the top floor and get a free pint. At this point I had run out of clean clothes and was dehydrated and my feet were protesting loudly. That pint made my walk back to the hostel so much more enjoyable.
We made it back, got our bags, hopped a bus, hopped a plane, hopped a train, hopped another train, hopped a bus, and walked a little more then we were home! Whew, it was toatlly worth it. Ireland was a blast and I miss it already. Maybe I'll go study there next...