Well I can't believe I'm doing this again. I don't know how and I don't know why but I am back on a whirlwind adventure outside of England. And so the posts begin again...
The trip started off with a short jaunt to the Emerald Isle, starting in Dublin. Our flight was scheduled at 1:30 so we left Brighton at 10:30, go to the airport at 11:30 and were probably in the waiting room by noon. But then we waiting. Because of crappy weather in both England and Ireland, our flight was delayed and we landed in Dublin a little over an hour late. Then it took a while to get from the airport to the city center so we didn't get into the city proper until much later than expected. But it was fine. We wandered around the city, found the Oscar Wilde statues, got some dinner and wandered a bit more before heading back to the hostel. Even though it was a crappy hostel bed, I had it to myself which was an improvement over the past two nights of sharing a bed with my sister, and I slept pretty soundly.
Dublin is an interesting city. It's very modern, much more so than I expected, and it lacks a certain charm that many European capitals seems to epitomize. But after 5 months of British accents or completely foreign words, the Irish people sound absolutely lovely. I could listen to them talk for ages. Understand them, though, that's a different story.
The second day started with an early morning. I set my alarm for 8 but was awake long before that. However, I kept myself in bed until that time was reached. Vicky and I were ready surprisingly quickly. Surprising especially for the sister considering her love of extra-long prep time. We were probably down to breakfast at 8:30 or so. Breakfast was decent- croissant, scone, jam, coffee and juice. Honestly, though, as long as it's not cornflakes, I consider it decent.
We got down to Trinity college around 9:10, but the Book of Kells exhibit didn't open until 9:30 so we spent some time blending in with students and sitting n the steps of some building. The weather was fabulous, sunny and warm, decidedly un-Irish, so sitting outside was a pleasure. We decided to get in line a wee bit early and ended up being squished between a large French-old-people tour group and a large German-old-people tour group. Got to love those old people. We eventually got in, spent some time in the exhibit leading up to the book and then saw the attraction itself. Indeed it was beautiful. And absolutely incredible considering that it was all hand done thousands of years ago. The intricacy and detail were so minute and exact it is hard to believe that some monks sitting in their rooms did it all. After the book, you went up through this impressive long hall full of really old books and the really old harp (the one on the back of all the Irish euro coins) and back out into the sunshine.
We continued on our way to the National Museum of Ireland because my sister wanted to see the bog bodies again. And she was right, they were really cool. All these bodies were preserved by bogs so much that their hair was still there and you could see their faces. I also learned that you couldn't be king of ancient Ireland if you had your nipples cut off because sucking on a king's nipple was a sign of submission. I'd like to see people do that to their rulers nowadays. We wandered around the museum for a little while longer but the bog bodies were definitely the high point. Although, Rick maintained that this Tara brooch thing, which we saw, was the high point but we weren't particularly impressed. After the museum, we got lunch, made reservations for dinner, got bus tickets to Galway, and went back to the hostel to eat (there were some very foreboding storm clouds) and nap.
We left for dinner about an hour early to wander around the Temple Bar district and then went for a fabulous meal at Gallagher's Boxty House. I had beef boxty and it was really good as Vicky said. And it was fabulous to walk out of the restaurant at 9 PM and have it still be sunny and light out. I love Europe in the (almost) summertime!
The next day dawned sunny and warm again. It was the first day in all of my travels that I had wondered if hostels have air conditioning. It wasn't so hot that I needed it, but it was warm enough to inspire the thought. Vicky and I were up and out of the hostel by 9:30. We had decided to go the Kilmainham Gaol and even though we knew it was out of town, it didn't look terribly far on the map so we decided to walk. Well it turned out that the map wasn't drawn exactly to scale and it was farther than expected. So after a lot of walking and a couple wrong turns, we finally made it, at about 10 minutes before the 11 o'clock tour. The tour was absolutely fascinating and despite the long walk, I was really gad to have gone. The gaol told the story of Irish politics and warfare and the ways in which Ireland developed from a part of Britain to it's own free republic. I'll admit my ignorance and say I didn't really know much about that aspect of Irish history, so all the stories we very new to me and quite interesting: definitely a highlight of Dublin. After the hour long tour, we wandered around the museum for a bit before heading out. We were going to catch the bus back to Aston Quay but we realized the next bus wasn't going to come for another 25 minutes so we decided to hoof it.
We wandered back to Christ Church Cathedral and the Dublin Castle, which took considerably less time to get to since that area of town was about halfway between the gaol and our hostel and we knew where we were going. We didn't go into either ot these sights because Vicky had already seen the cathedral and I had seen enough cathedrals and castles to have no desire to see another one. After this stroll/lunch combo, we headed back to siesta and rest our feet. We left for dinner later and then came back afterwards for an early night.
Reflection on Dublin: An interesting city. Enough sights to occupy ourselves but it wasn't a huge European city like Rome, Paris, etc. However, it was a little disappointing because I don't feel it is particularly Irish. There were tons of people and I felt most of them were tourists or other foreigners. But the weather was beautiful and I had a fine time. Sometimes I felt guilty about taking naps during the day or going to bed early but then I realized I hate being tired and I don't want to kill myself trying to see everything. I am happy with my choices. On to the next city!
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