I have to say I was pretty excited when I woke up without hearing rain pouring outside my window. It was classic Ireland weather…a little misty, but fortunately no rain today.
So random story I left out from the day before: We didn’t think we had a bathroom on our bottom floor of the building I am staying in. We have a shower which looks like a cave when you’re inside; we have sinks in our room, but no toilets. We had been trudging up the stairs just to go pee. Well turns out this closet under the stairs that looked straight out of Harry Potter was our bathroom. It is the funniest thing ever! But at least we don’t have to walk upstairs in the middle of the night now!
Went through my typical morning routine: woke up, packed up my book and reader, and went off to breakfast. I ate and read the article for class. It was very relaxing to just sit and eat a leisurely breakfast, sip on coffee and read. I went and bought some stamps before class started at 10am. Today in class we actually started to discuss the authors that we are going to read. Professor McElroy gave us some background information on Irish history and how it relates to writing. Class was fairly short and we got out around 11:15. We had 10 minutes to go to our rooms before meeting up for a little Dublin outing as a class.
On our way to our building, I overheard the Trinity walking tour. They were talking about famous individuals living at Trinity and I heard that Samuel Beckett lived in my building (#38)! We are reading his play for our class. He is such an influential Irish writer and I am staying in the building where he once lived! So cool!
We met up for our outing and headed over to St. Stephens Green, a local park to look at some of the native wildlife. Our professor really loves nature, birds, etc. He is an endless wealth of information.
You can ask just about any question relating to Ireland or birds and he will have an answer, and probably an anecdote to go with it. We learned all about Irish wildlife and walked around the park. It was very picturesque; a kind of retreat in the middle of the city.
Next we went to the National Museum. It had artifacts from Irish history dating back to 2500 B.C. My favorite exhibits were on the bog lands. There are bogs out in the fields of Ireland. Because of their acidity and lack of oxygen they preserve what is trapped in them. There were bodies, clothes, shoes, and artifacts almost perfectly preserved. It was really interesting to see! I also loved seeing some of the religious Irish artifacts from the 15th and 16th centuries. There was an amazing statue of Madonna and Child and also a cross that was absolutely breathtaking.
Since we didn’t get a chance to look around all of St. Stephens Green, Lindsay, Megan and I went back to walk around and take some pictures. We found some cute fountains and a gazebo with jazz musicians in the center. Then I really wanted to go take a picture in front of the arch leading out to the top of Grafton Street. This arch was in a scene in one of my favorite movies, “Once.” Great movie with great music- I recommend you see it if you haven’t! So I got my picture and then we headed out into Dublin to roam around some more…
We got a food recommendation from an Irish guy in the tourist center (he had pretty eyes and Lindsay and Megan wanted to keep asking him questions just to keep looking at his eyes!) Got fish and chips (well I didn’t, but they did). I am having to do this wonderful thing were I don’t get to eat much because it is so expensive! I eat breakfast, but it is impossible to find food for less than 10 Euro (aka $20). I cannot afford to eat lunch at $20 and dinner at $50 every day. So I am trying to live off PB&J and dried fruit…it’s interesting.
After lunch we saw the Ha’Penny bridge and walked around O’Connell Street in Dublin. We saw the Dublin Spire which is this huge pointy spire. It is really tall and at night they light the top of it. It is a great reference point when coming back from Temple Bar late at night…haha. We also saw the Post Office on O’Connell which was in a battle from 1916 and it still has bullet marks. Amazing to see these buildings with so much history! We saw Parnell Square, some shops in the Temple Bar area, and then walked back along Grafton to get coffee. We had to gear up for the night! Found yummy coffee at Butlers Chocolate Café and also got Irish Coffee truffles…sooo good! There are some amazing performers on Grafton street. We saw a string ensemble that was really good. I could have stood there for an hour listening to them.
Oh and on a sidenote- I am a master J-walker now. Here we have one word when J-walking: “Commit!”
So we decided to head out to Temple Bar. The way there was an adventure in itself. I got my nickname for the trip: “K-star.” Not really sure how it came about to be honest…but it has stuck. On the way over we kept noticing how many bagel shops there were and Lindsay exclaimed, “The Jews are taking over the world.” Funny thing is she is Jewish. We found a nice bar called
O’Daughertys to grab a pint. They had some great trad music going. I got a pint of Guinness and we just listened to wonderful Irish music. When that was over they put on songs from the US and the song “Are you going to San Francisco?” came on! We got so excited and it was proclaimed our theme song for the night!
So random story I left out from the day before: We didn’t think we had a bathroom on our bottom floor of the building I am staying in. We have a shower which looks like a cave when you’re inside; we have sinks in our room, but no toilets. We had been trudging up the stairs just to go pee. Well turns out this closet under the stairs that looked straight out of Harry Potter was our bathroom. It is the funniest thing ever! But at least we don’t have to walk upstairs in the middle of the night now!
Went through my typical morning routine: woke up, packed up my book and reader, and went off to breakfast. I ate and read the article for class. It was very relaxing to just sit and eat a leisurely breakfast, sip on coffee and read. I went and bought some stamps before class started at 10am. Today in class we actually started to discuss the authors that we are going to read. Professor McElroy gave us some background information on Irish history and how it relates to writing. Class was fairly short and we got out around 11:15. We had 10 minutes to go to our rooms before meeting up for a little Dublin outing as a class.
On our way to our building, I overheard the Trinity walking tour. They were talking about famous individuals living at Trinity and I heard that Samuel Beckett lived in my building (#38)! We are reading his play for our class. He is such an influential Irish writer and I am staying in the building where he once lived! So cool!
We met up for our outing and headed over to St. Stephens Green, a local park to look at some of the native wildlife. Our professor really loves nature, birds, etc. He is an endless wealth of information.
You can ask just about any question relating to Ireland or birds and he will have an answer, and probably an anecdote to go with it. We learned all about Irish wildlife and walked around the park. It was very picturesque; a kind of retreat in the middle of the city.Next we went to the National Museum. It had artifacts from Irish history dating back to 2500 B.C. My favorite exhibits were on the bog lands. There are bogs out in the fields of Ireland. Because of their acidity and lack of oxygen they preserve what is trapped in them. There were bodies, clothes, shoes, and artifacts almost perfectly preserved. It was really interesting to see! I also loved seeing some of the religious Irish artifacts from the 15th and 16th centuries. There was an amazing statue of Madonna and Child and also a cross that was absolutely breathtaking.
Since we didn’t get a chance to look around all of St. Stephens Green, Lindsay, Megan and I went back to walk around and take some pictures. We found some cute fountains and a gazebo with jazz musicians in the center. Then I really wanted to go take a picture in front of the arch leading out to the top of Grafton Street. This arch was in a scene in one of my favorite movies, “Once.” Great movie with great music- I recommend you see it if you haven’t! So I got my picture and then we headed out into Dublin to roam around some more…
We got a food recommendation from an Irish guy in the tourist center (he had pretty eyes and Lindsay and Megan wanted to keep asking him questions just to keep looking at his eyes!) Got fish and chips (well I didn’t, but they did). I am having to do this wonderful thing were I don’t get to eat much because it is so expensive! I eat breakfast, but it is impossible to find food for less than 10 Euro (aka $20). I cannot afford to eat lunch at $20 and dinner at $50 every day. So I am trying to live off PB&J and dried fruit…it’s interesting.
After lunch we saw the Ha’Penny bridge and walked around O’Connell Street in Dublin. We saw the Dublin Spire which is this huge pointy spire. It is really tall and at night they light the top of it. It is a great reference point when coming back from Temple Bar late at night…haha. We also saw the Post Office on O’Connell which was in a battle from 1916 and it still has bullet marks. Amazing to see these buildings with so much history! We saw Parnell Square, some shops in the Temple Bar area, and then walked back along Grafton to get coffee. We had to gear up for the night! Found yummy coffee at Butlers Chocolate Café and also got Irish Coffee truffles…sooo good! There are some amazing performers on Grafton street. We saw a string ensemble that was really good. I could have stood there for an hour listening to them.
Oh and on a sidenote- I am a master J-walker now. Here we have one word when J-walking: “Commit!”
So we decided to head out to Temple Bar. The way there was an adventure in itself. I got my nickname for the trip: “K-star.” Not really sure how it came about to be honest…but it has stuck. On the way over we kept noticing how many bagel shops there were and Lindsay exclaimed, “The Jews are taking over the world.” Funny thing is she is Jewish. We found a nice bar called
O’Daughertys to grab a pint. They had some great trad music going. I got a pint of Guinness and we just listened to wonderful Irish music. When that was over they put on songs from the US and the song “Are you going to San Francisco?” came on! We got so excited and it was proclaimed our theme song for the night!In true Dublin form, we went down to Temple Bar (one of the most popular pubs around). It was packed but it was a lot of fun! We tried to speak French with a group of people- that was interesting! Then we got really excited when we saw a couple open seats, so we swooped in on them only to find out they were taken. It was this group of nice Irish guys, Mark, Con, and Donny who had the table and instead of kicking us out, they adopted us into their group and we hung out the rest of the night.
We tried to teach them how to use the words “baller” and “balling.” It was really funny! They kept trying to use it the rest of the night. We stayed at Temple Bar for a little while longer and then they invited us to go over to Fitzsimmons with them. There was a local band covering songs and playing music. It was a fun night with music, pints, random Irish people, great conversation, and even a little dancing thrown in!It was a great day! Saw a lot and had a lot of fun! Tomorrow we get to go on a field trip, so that should be an awesome day too…really there are no bad days in Ireland…
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