I'm in Dublin! The trip couldn't have gone smoother, everything was really easy. I got to my hostel around 9:30 am (after waking up at 5... ugh), and left right after dropping my stuff off. I wandered around the city, went in to Trinity College, and found a little cafe for breakfast. I was pretty well oriented by 11, which was when I took a free tour (like I did in London and Edinburgh). It was a great tour, as usual, and lasted for over 3 hours so I saw and learned a lot. Here are some pictures from around the city. Sorry they're kind of in random order, I'm having problems with this computer.
Part of Dublin Castle:
Dublin Castle Abbey:
Trinity College:
Christ Church Cathedral:
St. Stephen's Green
View from my hostel room window:
Grafton Street, a really cool pedestrain street:
St. Patrick's Cathedral:
After the tour I went back to my hostel and showered. I felt better after that, and headed over to the National Museum of Ireland. I spent about an hour and a half there, until it closed. It was pretty cool, it had a lot of viking stuff. I think my favorite part was the bodies that have been found in peat bogs. They're incredibly old, but the bogs preserved them so well that they have barely decayed.
After that I wandered around the city looking for a place to eat. Eventually I found a little cafe where I got carrot and coriander soup with bread. Delicious. There were two really scary ladies in there. I'm not sure what language they were speaking, maybe Spanish, but they sounded soooooo scary. They were really loud and intense, like maybe in an argument, and their voices were really raspy, like they've been smoking since they were born. Terrifying. When I went up to pay for my meal the waitress and I talked about how scary they were....
Eventually I ended up at St. Patrick's Cathedral (see above picture) for Evensong. Oh my gosh. What an experience. I've never seen anything like that, it was incredible. The cathedral itself is stunning, and when you add a choir (including 8 choir boys) and an organ, it's just jaw-dropping. You're not aloud to take pictures during it but I found this video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDndS88-5g
That video isn't quite like what I saw tonight (I thought it looked cooler than that video, and the choir was all male, 8 boys and 8 men), but you get the idea. It was so, so, so incredible. Words cannot explain.
So now I'm just hanging out until Emily gets here. Her flight gets in at 7:30 so after I finish this I'm going to go find a coffee shop and hang out til she gets here. Tomorrow we're going to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin Castle, more churches, famous parks, etc.
Oh also, the rest of Dillon's visit was good. We went to a pub last night where he tried haggis, and he liked it. Our planes left at the same time this morning so as far as I know he should be landing in Grand Rapids about now.
After that I wandered around the city looking for a place to eat. Eventually I found a little cafe where I got carrot and coriander soup with bread. Delicious. There were two really scary ladies in there. I'm not sure what language they were speaking, maybe Spanish, but they sounded soooooo scary. They were really loud and intense, like maybe in an argument, and their voices were really raspy, like they've been smoking since they were born. Terrifying. When I went up to pay for my meal the waitress and I talked about how scary they were....
Eventually I ended up at St. Patrick's Cathedral (see above picture) for Evensong. Oh my gosh. What an experience. I've never seen anything like that, it was incredible. The cathedral itself is stunning, and when you add a choir (including 8 choir boys) and an organ, it's just jaw-dropping. You're not aloud to take pictures during it but I found this video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDndS88-5g
That video isn't quite like what I saw tonight (I thought it looked cooler than that video, and the choir was all male, 8 boys and 8 men), but you get the idea. It was so, so, so incredible. Words cannot explain.
So now I'm just hanging out until Emily gets here. Her flight gets in at 7:30 so after I finish this I'm going to go find a coffee shop and hang out til she gets here. Tomorrow we're going to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin Castle, more churches, famous parks, etc.
Oh also, the rest of Dillon's visit was good. We went to a pub last night where he tried haggis, and he liked it. Our planes left at the same time this morning so as far as I know he should be landing in Grand Rapids about now.
Here's a video of some street performers on Grafton Street:
No comments:
Post a Comment