There and Back Again: An Irish Tale, Part 2

I awoke Wednesday morning to the sound of a ferocious wind howling outside of our hotel room. Really, I thought the trees were just going to fall over any second! After getting a nice shower, Amanda and I went down to have breakfast, which consisted of cereal, rolls with jam, coffee or tea, and juice. I had been in great anticipation of a rather hearty Irish breakfast, so the cereal was a bit disappointing.

We then left our hotel to travel to downtown Dublin, where we met Sally, a local tour guide who took us on a "driving tour" of historic downtown Dublin. Some of the sights we saw included: lots of great Georgian architecture; the Ha'Penny Bridge that crosses the River Liffey (people used to pay a half penny to walk across it); a gigantic cross built for Pope John Paul II when he came to Dublin to say mass for over 1 million people in Phoenix Park in 1979 ; the location where Handel's Messiah was first performed in 1742; St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral; and the Guinness Brewery. My favorite place we visited Dublin was Trinity College. Trinity college was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. It is here that the famous Book of Kells kept in the Trinity College Library, which is the oldest research library in Ireland. The Book of Kells was written by Celtic monks around the year 800, and contains beautiful transcriptions of the Four Gospels. When I walked into the Library, it almost took my breath away! This library is lined floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves containing massive amounts of books. There are also ladders at each shelf that move back and forth on a track (just like "Beauty and the Beast!). It was the most spectacular library I have ever seen.

After Trinity, our large group of 39 split up into smaller groups to go explore the city. It was lunchtime, and so Amanda took our small group to Leo Burdock's, a little fish and chips take out place. To borrow Amanda's expression, "The fish and chips combo is the size of a small child!" And she was right! After finishing lunch, we took a tour of Christ Church Cathedral, and we were able to go down into the crypt, which was really cool! We also toured Dublin Castle, which was a really neat place, and we got to see the room where the President of Ireland is inaugurated.

After touring the city for a while, we got back on our coach to go eat dinner at a little Pub called Porto Bello, where the Irish were gearing up for a football (soccer) match between Manchester United and Barcelona. We had reserved seating for our group, and there were lots of Irish who were hovering over our tables, waiting for us to leave. I think we could have auctioned off our tables and made a lot of money!

After dinner, we went back to our hotel for the night. Amanda, Manda D., and I went downstairs to the pub in our hotel to have a drink and watch the football fans go crazy while watching the game on t.v. It was sooo loud in there, we could hardly hear each other talk. I talked to a really nice Irish girl who was giving me tips on fun things to do in the different places we were going to be that week. We also met an obnoxious and quite drunk Irish guy who kept trying to get us to go down the street to the karaoke bar...we said no, of course.