More Dublin!

Our first real day in Dublin started pretty early. I started my day out with a nice Irish complimentary breakfast at the hotel, eggs, rashers, and a danish, yet I told them to hold the black and white pudding. Then, as a group we went to Christ Church which was right across the street from our hotel. It was a beautiful church, really nice detail and intricate statues and stain glass. I think it is actually one of the oldest churches in Dublin, next to St. Patrick's Cathedral.
You could actually go down into the basement of the cathedral, where there were tons of displays telling about the church's history as well as other historical artifacts like golden dishes, holy garments, and the costumes of those in the TV series The Tudors, which is filmed in the church. Next we walk down the street to Trinity College, where we saw The Book of Kells. The campus was beautiful and there were people everywhere. I couldn't imagine going to school at a tourist attraction. The Book of Kells was actually pretty neat. Everyday a page would be flipped to show a different passage and detailed illustrations. I was actually able to recognize a lot of the symbols since at the time I was taking the cross-cultural symbolism class. Next, we went to the Old Library in the long room. It was full of very old books stacked as high as the ceiling and statues of scholarly people.

After a while everyone started out on their own excursions around the city. A small group of us then proceeded to go to the writers museum. I wasn't particularly interested in this at first but decided to check it out and broaden my horizons of Irish writers. The museum was pretty small but had a lot of displays for the major Irish writers. I didn't recognize hardly any of them until I got to James Joyce. The display told about his life and the books he wrote. This actually helped me to get to know and understand Dubliners a little bit better now that I had more insight in to his life. After going through the museum, I felt like I saw James Joyce things everywhere. There were statues, plaques, and buildings dedicated to him all over the place, which makes me think he must have been quite a honorable man in Dublin.

The day soon ended and our night was just beginning. Melissa, Lindsay, Taylor and I were getting ready for our first night out in Dublin on our own. We dressed ourselves all up and first headed our for dinner. I was craving Mexican the entire trip so we tried to get into this one place,Acapulco, but the wait was way too long for us so we settles for Cuban across the street. The place was packed as well but we managed to get a table right in front. After having two pitchers of Sangria, an authentic dinner, and some major goofing off, we headed out to Temple Bar.
Now although everyone told us not to go there, we went anyway. The first place we tired was The Quay Bar. We walked in and the place was packed from front to back, you had to literally suck in to get through the crowd and to the bar. Once we bought our six euro drinks, we headed closer to the front where two guys were playing guitar, mostly covers. After we finished those drink we decided to head out and look for a new location. In the mean time, one of our friends from Dungarvan contacted us because he was staying in Dublin that weekend as well. We met him and his friend, and continued searching for the perfect place to go. While walking around, these girls on the street stopped us and said that if they stamped our hands that we could get in to this night club called Madonna for free and get a free shot at the door. What a could be better? So we headed for the club, got in and had our free drink. As soon as we got down the stare, I felt like I was in a bad music video. The bar had an 80s theme so there were disco balls everywhere, colorful lights, and bad music. Lets just say we moved on from that place pretty fast. The next place we went was the best of the night. The one guy we were with was really in to reggae music and knew of a place where this ragga DJ would be playing. Once we found the place, we had the best time. The vibe was really laid back as we jammed along to the reggae beats. We spent the rest of the night there just dancing and having a good time. Unfortunately our night had to end early since the clocks sprung forward that night and we had to be up the next morning at 8. Damn, day light savings! We headed ourselves back to the hotel just before grabbing a Cadbury egg as our midnight snack.

The rest of my time in Dublin was spent doing a little shopping, walking around the city, and going to the Guinness factory, where I learned to pull the perfect pint. Over all, I really enjoyed the city and it was nice to see another side to Ireland that you don't get in Dungarvan.