Sorry. I kind of had to get that out of my system.
Let's start over. Hi everyone. I'm in Dublin. And I'm very excited about it.
Daniel and I left the flat in London at 6:15 this morning (oh jeez... that was a long time ago), and made our way to Gatwick airport, from which we took a one-hour flight (on Aer Lingus-- the Irish airline) to Dublin. I was asleep for most of it, but I woke up in time to see a beautiful aerial view of the city as we descended. From the airport, we hopped on a bus and then hopped off again where we were told to go... and didn't see the hotel. Granted, we knew that it would be a minute or so's walk, but we didn't know which direction, and didn't have an address. So, we wandered for a little while. We basically made a big ol' circle and eventually found our way to the hotel, which was in fact only a minute in the direction opposite the one we went. That's ok though-- we did find Dublin Castle during our meandering, so it wasn't a total loss.
We left our bags at the hotel and immediately set off on an adventure. Armed with a map this time, we headed out in search of lunch, only to discover that the vast majority of shops and pubs were closed. This was incredibly strange. We eventually realized that it's a bank holiday in Ireland-- go figure. Anyway, we wandered through Temple Bar-- a two-square-block or so area filled with pubs and clubs, eventually landing at a tiny, local-friendly place called "gruel". I had a super delicious corned beef hash (with potatoes, spinach, and poached eggs). I may have a new favorite food.
Then we set off in search of Trinity College-- sort of the Oxford of Ireland, if you will. It's not an enormous campus, but it has an awful lot of buildings, and some very pretty ones at that. The college itself was founded in 1550 something, and has produced all sorts of Irish greats-- Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Edmund Burke.... it's a very long list. We took a quick tour of the college (lead by a very attractive young man with an old-fashioned academic gown over his North Face jacket), and then headed into the old library, which houses the Book of Kells--one of the most famous illuminated manuscripts in the world.
If you don't know what the Book of Kells looks like, go look up some pictures on the internet-- because I don't have any. We couldn't take pictures inside. However, I will tell you that it is one impressive book (well, ok, it's actually four books; the first four gospels, I believe)-- it is about 1200 years old (maybe older-- I can't remember), and still lavishly decorated and richly colored as ever. The library also houses two other illuminated bibles from a similar time, which are also in impressively good condition, but neither are as beautiful as the Book of Kells. We also saw the Long Room (which sadly did not contain a Longcat), which is the world's largest continuous library room, filled with two stories of beautiful old books as well as marble busts of famous graduates and historical/literary figures. It was fantastic.
After Trinity College, we followed (and had to cross!) the Dublin Marathon for a bit, then made our way to St. Stephan's Green, which is a very lovely park. It was a beautiful day, so we walked around and sat for a little while...
Then we found the James Joyce monument (and then headed out again):
We stopped by St. Patrick's Cathedral on our way back to the hotel-- it's a nice cathedral, but its history and artifacts were more impressive than the building itself. It is the National Church of the Church of Ireland, so it contains all sorts of cool old flags and things.
Also, Johnathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, was buried there.
Oh yeah, and it is named after St. Stephen because it is built on the site where, legend has it, the well that St. Stephen used to baptize the first Irish Christians was.
By this point, my feet felt like they were going to fall off, so we went back to the hotel to relax for a bit. We had an adventure trying to get the internet working (and it's ridiculously expensive, so don't be surprised if you don't see an update tomorrow), and then we set off in search of dinner. After ambling about much of the somewhat tourist-friendly pub area (by the way, there are 700 pubs in Dublin. Just thought I'd put that out there), we settled on Davy Byrnes'-- the pub in which Leopold Bloom eats his lunch of a gorgonzola sandwhich and glass of burgundy in Ulysses. I had Irish stew, but that was good enough for me-- I ATE IN THE SAME PUB AS LEOPOLD BLOOM. *Ah-hem*-- sorry.
We then headed two pubs over to the Duke, where we gathered for the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl, which is possibly the greatest thing ever conceived. Two actors took us around four pubs (as well as Trinity College and a few random stops on the street), telling us about the famous Irish writers who drank there and performing bits of their work. The highlight was definitely the performance of the beginning of Waiting for Godot (which they pronounce 'GAH-doe', instead of "Guh-DOH"), and I had a major nerd moment when they talked about Joyce and his connection to a particular Irish Jew (and by nerd moment, I mean I actually died of excitement inside). Also, at the end of the tour, there was a quiz-- and I knew all of the answers, but I wasn't loud enough to be heard for most of them, so I didn't win a t-shirt at the end. I was, however, only one of two people to answer one of the questions, which was pretty cool. Also, while walking around (and drinking around), Daniel and I met a lovely couple from the Isle of Man, and we had some absolutely fascinating conversations with them. It was pretty wonderful. Oh! And I had my very first Guinness! It was infinitely better than all of the other beers I've ever had-- I've been converted.
Well, it's rather late, and I best be getting to bed... need to rest up so that I can go to THE JOYCE CENTER tomorrow! Not that I'm excited about it or anything....
Goodnight, dear readers, from Dublin!
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