Ireland

So I just went on a long weekend to Dublin with one of my oldest family friends and a couple of her friends, who are also my sister's friends. I was a little worried beforehand since I didn't know them that well and I was outnumbered by them, but it turned out well. I had a much better time than I would have by myself, or even if my friend and I were by ourselves.

Due to cheap flight combinations, I had a long wait on Thursday at Luton airport in between an EzyJet and a RyanAir flight. Unfortunately my backpack was full of all my clothes and I couldn't fit in my knitting, or even a book. Luckily there were shops in the airport and I found myself some food and a newspaper with a couple of Sudokus in it and settled myself in an awfully uncomfortable chair to wait for my friend and her friends.

So we arrived in Dublin airport and got lovely big green passport stamps and a bus into the centre of town, where we were rudely surprised to be dropped off in a small side street and then walked off to our hostel, which was quite nice. As there were four of us we booked a private room with an ensuite, which didn't end up being that much more expensive, and we could all be assured that our belongings wouldn't be stolen by other guests. The hostel also included breakfast and free wireless and computers for guests. Which kind of part of up for our first impressions of the city, which was very grey with uninspiring architecture. It was such a contrast to the gorgeous view that I just left that morning, which I was lucky enough to catch on camera from the window on the plane.



Friday was our 'explore all the sights in Dublin' day, and we did that quite thoroughly. We started at St Patrick's Cathedral and moved on to Christ Church Cathedral. They were quite pretty buildings, though kind of grey and dark, with little colour. I think the strangest thing I saw in my time in Dublin was this display in the crypt of Christ Church. Supposedly they were found like this somewhere in the church and people decided to show them off.



After the religious buildings, we decided to go and see Dublin Castle, which was quite interesting, just look at that mixed architecture. The round tower is the oldest part of the building and is all that is left over after a fire. The owner at the time did not want the fire to reach ammunition tower and blew up parts of the building, but they accidentally blew it up anyway. There were a couple of stories like that about the castle. Supposedly they also somehow lost some of their crown jewels from the hold. The Irish don't get their reputation from nothing. *smiles*

There was a small excavated area under the castle, which was pretty cool, where you could see the remains of one of the other towers, and part of the old city walls, which used to be surrounded by a moat. In the part of the wall which was visible, there were two arches in the same spot, one lower than the other, supposedly this was done to restrict the people of people entering the city during the plague. There were also some very narrow passageways in some area, and this was a defense against any attackers, they had to enter one by one, where they could be easily attacked on the other side.



We then went to Chester Beatty's Library. It wasn't really a planned stop on our tour, but it was an amazing private collection. We couldn't believe that one person could have collected so much in their life, and he wasn't bias in what he bought either. There were books and manuscripts from everywhere and of everything. From Asia to Arabic to European and of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, it was all there. It's kind of interesting that the earliest writings we have are stories of gods and beliefs, as they believed that that was the most important things that needed to be passed on, the skills necessary for life could be taught person to person.

Anyway, where in Dublin was I? So after the library, we continued on an academic theme and went to Trinity College, which was quite pretty and where we saw the Book of Kells. It was a little underwhelming after the whole exhibition they had before viewing it, though the videos they had of the techniques they would have used to prepare the pages, write, illustrate and bind the book were pretty. It was also kind of interesting to see some of the illustrations enlarged and explained, but then they only had two of the books on display and we couldn't see the pages which were described previously. We then were able to see their old library, which is exactly what you would imagine a medieval library to be like, all wood, with busts of famous writers at the end of bookcase, with ladders in each of the aisles and all the books were bound in a similar fashion, so everything matched, which looked great, but meant that the history of the books contained in the original bindings were lost.

After all of that, we were tired of cultural tourism and went to the Guinness Storehouse, which is kind of cool. First there was an exhibition about how they made it *smiles* then some historical stuff about how they transport it and made the barrels *yawns* then advertising history (the photo below is of different beer bottles) *grins* and some drink safely message *rolls eyes* and then it was up to the top for a beers in a lounge with a 360 degree view of the city, which is grey in the center, then red, then green towards the countryside.


So that was the end of our very busy first full day in Dublin. I also want to add here that Dublin is a very expensive city to go out in due to the Celtic Tiger economy. Eating out and drinks are quite dear, not just compared to Australia, but even compared to what my friends were used to now in London and me, in Geneva.

We decided to take our second day a little easier than the first, taking a bus tour to a couple of site of historical significance north of the city. The passengers on the tour were a mixed bunch, ranging from us to people older than my parents. Our first stop was Monasterboice, which was a graveyard containing some historical ruins. The first was a round tower, which was a old defense against Norse raids and then were were a couple of crosses which are carved crosses which may have been used to tell stories from the Bible to a congregation. Our second stop was Mellifont Abbey, which is a ruin of an old Cistercian abbey, dissolved by Henry VIII, and sold to off to nobility, the first family who used it as a family home, and so left it fairly intact, however the second family didn't use it and allowed the stone to be used in other buildings, gradually allowing the abbey to go to ruin. Here we are, standing in front of what is the best surviving section, the lavabo, where the monks would have washed their hands before meals.



Our last stop of the day, and the one that we were all waiting for was Newgrange, the entrance of which you can see below. It is a passage tomb, which is built so that at dawn for five days around the winter solstice, sunlight can enter the passage through a roof box and illuminate the chamber. It was much larger than Maes Howe which I saw last year in Orkney and much more impressive on the outside, with its reconstructed wall. It was kind of eery standing in there when they turned off the lights and to imagine that this is what it would have been like most of the year, since the stones don't show any smoke damage, the Neolithic people who built the structure did not light fires or carry torches inside it. The carvings on the stones were also very cool, though the graffiti wasn't. It is kind of amazing that the people back then decided to build such large structures, which would have taken lifetimes to build and then were just abandoned.



After we returned, we decided to go and watch Dark Knight, as it was too expensive for my friends in London and not out yet for me in Switzerland. It was long, but very good. And that is all I'm going to say about it, since I know there are people reading this who haven't seen it yet. So we saw a 6pm viewing of the movie, and bought our tickets half an hour before and walked into the cinema 10 minutes before and found some fairly decent seats. But when we came out, there was a line for the next showing around around the block! We were lucky we decided to watch the earlier one, none of us realised how popular it would be later. They really should just have allocated seats so it doesn't happen.

On the way back, we walked through the Temple Bar district and noticed that it was jumping, so decided to drop our bags and jackets off in the apartment and go out. There are quite a few pubs and bars around that district, and on that particular Saturday night, they were filled with people, mostly tourists by the sound of all the accents, and quite a hens and stags nights. These groups made for some very fun people watching, with their costumes and drunkenness, but in the end, we headed to somewhere we could dance. *grins*

Our third and last full day in Dublin was our least well planned. We started off by going to Malahide Castle, which is a cute little castle, a little north of Dublin. We caught the bus as early that we got there before it opened, but not before the first tour group had arrived, you can see them all heading up in the photo below. We stood behind them, waiting for the castle to open and couldn't help but overhear the verging on racist comments of the tour guide about the recent immigration. We weren't too impressed to say the least, she also said also strange comments to the French girl behind the counter and asked us if we were doing tai chi, when a couple of us were posing for a 'climb the castle' photo. peh. I don't know why a tour guide with an American accent was showing people around Ireland anyway. Anyway, the castle was quite cosy, having still been a family home until the 1970s, when neither heirs had children and so sold it to the government.



We then headed back to Dublin, wandered the shopping district and napped in their version of Hyde Park, before one of us had the idea of taking advantage of the gorgeous blue sky and heading out to the coast. So we took a bus north to Howth to ramble the cliffs and eat fish and chips. After getting stuck in traffic on the way there since it seemed that the everybody in Dublin had the same idea, the bus dropped us off at the summit and we rambled, took photos and took in the gorgeous scenery. It was the perfect weather for a walk, sunny with sea breezes, the sea and sky were blue, while the hills were green and dotted with rocks and wildflowers. We roamed, then we went down to the town and had chips and fish or chicken for dinner before catching the bus back to Dublin to pack.



And that was the end of the our trip. It was nice to get away and be a tourist. I really need to go see some new places. Maybe after I get back from the States in September, when hopefully I won't be so busy and there won't be as many tourists around...

Dublin was... not a great city to visit and I wish we had gone somewhere less industrial and greener, but the what we saw of the countryside was very beautiful, and I guess if I was in the UK again, I wouldn't be adverse to visiting again.