Now that the important bit is out of the way, I can get to the boring stuff. Like the rest of my Dublin trip... It's not that I don't like you, I'm just at a party of school and socializing and busy busy. Xmas is coming up, so I've been busy with writing out my cards, getting a couple gifts together to send home, et cetera.
Day Two - Dublin
Kristy and I decided to take a day trip around the Irish countryside. We took a bus tour to Glendalough and Kilkenny. It was very cool. Most of the day was spent on a bus - the roads were insanely curvy! They reminded me of the road trips I took as a kid with my dad driving. He would always pick the craziest routes. I still haven't quite gotten over my motion sickness. Neither did the toddler sitting behind us on the bus. Poor dude! He felt better, though, after expressing his... ahem, feelings on the subject. I don't have too many stories from this day, but I do have quite a few photos. I'll put my favorites from the adventure on here, but you can see all of them at my website.
This is the view pilgrims would see as they traveled the route of St. Kevin to his monastic sanctuary of Glendalough.
This graveyard is very unique in Ireland - both Catholics and Protestants are buried here! Glendalough, Ireland.
This is the Black Abbey in Kilkenny. It's a Dominican building.
The River Nore. This is the view from Kilkenny Castle. <3
Day Three - Dublin
We didn't do much day three, as that was a travel day back to Belfast. We ended up walking in the rain for several hours. We joked that we went swimming in the streets of Dublin, but it was kinda a reality. As we were soaked to the bone, we went to a couple free museums. The Natural History museum was pretty cool. Lots of taxidermy animals. Birds, fish, mammals, reptiles and bugs! Tons of beetles and butterflies. They were incredibly pretty to look at - shame the lighting in the museum was absolutely poop. It was dim and yellow; it was hard to see the details. As we were looking around, a school group came in. Good god, they were so loud. The kids looked to be roughly 6-8 years old? Maybe. I remember being chatty and loud at that age. I don't fault them. But ugh! /complain.
Afterward, we moseyed around the block to the Archaeological museum. It wasn't that big, but it was still nice. They had some galleries on Egypt, Rome, and the Vikings (which I would have expected to be bigger, given the Irish/Celtic connection to the Vikings). But their medieval sections were impressive. Lots of jewels, tools, and even some clothes! Finding cloth that has lasted this long is pretty cool.
Even during all of this, it was still pouring outside. The rain did not let up at all. Ireland is also very, very windy. Imagine Chicago, IL on a bad day - that's Ireland basically all the time. It was cold, wet, and blah. A warm meal and a nice drink was all we needed. And we totally got it at the Brazen Head! The oldest pub in Dublin. It was established in 1198 CE. Gruh, it was the one thing I wanted us to for sure do while in Dublin. It was so neat! I just get so excited whenever I'm in a place with such a long-winded life. We had some of the best vegetable soup with a ham and cheese sandwich. I sipped on a pint of Smithwick's while eating. It was awesome! And it wasn't too expensive. Always a plus!
Also: there was tons of money on the walls. Mostly US dollars. Kristy: "And this is why we can't pay our deficit - we're too busy putting our money on pub walls."
We made it home a-okay later that night. And there was Dublin in a quick summary. I suppose I could have done this sooner, but if I had done it sooner, there would be a lot more to say - I would have remembered more. haha! Next post will be about the medieval field trip I went on with my fellow MA students. But other than that, I've been pretty boring. I have a class exam coming up this Wednesday - paleography. Oh boy. I gotta do a bit of reviewing for it, but I feel pretty good about it overall. At least it isn't a paper - gotta be happy for the little things.
Until next time! Stay shiny!
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