Wednesday was, like I said, cold and rainy. We went to Tailor's Guild, which was an old building that housed the tailor's guild - the group of men in the area that had been granted permission to work as tailors. It wasn't very interesting, unfortunately.
After that, Sara and Steve walked with me to find St. Patrick's Cathedral and then we headed onto St. Stephen's Green. We walked around a little bit, and while we were trying to find the statue of W.B. Yeats, we stumbled upon a comedy troupe performing Hamlet in the park. It was hilarious. I wish that I had recorded it on my camera. There were only three actors - two guys and a girl - and for some strange reason the girl was playing the parts of neither the Queen nor Ophelia. Well, it made for a funny retelling. They were advertising for the Dublin Shakespeare Festival being held at Trinity this weekend. It's fun stumbling onto things like that in Dublin's parks.
We moved on to the Hairy Lemon - yes, that is the name of the pub. I got cottage pie, and it was fairly yummy. I then headed back to St. Patrick's for the organ concert that was to be at 6:30 that evening. I got there way ahead of time and actually got to sit in on the choral evensong service in the cathedral. It was beautiful. I didn't understand any of the Latin songs, but when they sang the Magnificat in glorious imitation... well, let's say that the NAWM (Norton's Anthology of Western Music) doesn't do any of those chants,etc justice.
The organ concert was pretty sweet, too. David Leigh, the organist for St. Patrick's Cathedral, is playing Louis Vierne's Six Symphonies this summer. I heard No.2 and No. 3. They were fascinating. When the organ was playing loudly, the whole cathedral was filled with the sound; I could FEEL the low notes almost more than I could hear them. Gorgeous.
Thursday, June 10
Class as usual in the morning, then off to meet Don for our 1916 Walking Tour. We'd just finished talking about the Easter Rising in class a few days before, so Don showed us a lot of the places in the city that were involved in that day or the events afterward. We walked down O'Connell Street past the General Post Office, where Padraig (Patrick) Pearse read the proclamation. We passed Jim Larkin's statue and Daniel O'Connell's monument on our way to Trinity College. Then we headed up to a side-trip to see the outline of the Viking Village next to St. Audoen's, back across the river Liffey to see Four Courts, and were done.
I went shopping at Penney's, this really inexpensive store all over the city (and country, I'm sure). Definitely just needed a new purse since mine had broked - got a scarf and summer jacket, too :)
Thursday night we went out to McGowan's to celebrate Ariel's 20th birthday. She'd been sick on Tuesday so we delayed the celebration, and it was even better since we didn't have class the next day! It could have been a night of disasters: we took the wrong bus, got off at the wrong stop, and almost couldn't find the pub in time (we were trying to beat the cover charge). Thankfully, we asked some nice Dubliners, showed the guards our IDs, and walked through as the lady was opening her money bag. She let us in for free (it's 7 euros! I don't want to pay that!). We were there for a looonnngggg time. It's a good place. They play good American music and gets crowded enough for it to be a good time without being uncomfortable.
Friday, June 11, 2010
We didn't have class today, but we had to meet Martin at Trinity at 10 am to get to Kilmainham Gaol (jail) for our field trip of the day. Oh my, it was depressing. They told us the story of one man, Joseph Plunkett, who was in jail for being involved in the Easter Rising. He married his sweetheart in the jail's chapel the night before he was executed. She, Grace Gifford, then ended up spending time there herself some years later for basically having taken up her husband's cause. Another man, Patrick Pearse, told his mother that she'd be find because she'd still have her other son, William. What Patrick didn't know was that his brother was in the cell next to him and was executed days after he was. Ugh. There are more stories, but I think I've depressed us all enough for one night.
I'm trying to remember what we did Friday afternoon and night... OH MY GOSH! How could I have forgotten?!
Steve, Sara, and I went to the Dublin zoo :) I love the zoo. I don't know why - we would go on family trips and now Seth likes to go to the one in Columbia, so I guess it's a good thing. I just think they're fun. Anyway, it was great. I saw penguins and tigers and monkeys and peacocks and a bunch of others.
Then we hopped on the bus and stopped at the Milkshake Bar. That is not a joke, people. This restaurant of all things wonderful (milkshakes) exists. And oh the options! Except, I don't know what is in most European candy bars, so I stuck with what I knew and yet was still not typical - an After Eight milkshake. YUM.
That night, Seth and I had a skype date and watched the Glee finale. What?! I have to live a normal life here! And it was the finale!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
I slept in till noon. :) Sara and I had plans to go to the Dublin Writer's Museum, but I figured I'd missed her knock. Turns out she slept in till noon, too! So we went to the museum. I was more tagging along because I didn't have anything else to do; she was going because she's an English major and it's what she does. Little did I know that one of the coolest pieces of history, in my opinion, would be waiting for me there.
Ok, so it's a chair, you say. Wait for it....
Oh gosh... then this crazy lady comes in while we're still in the room, and throws her bag into the chair so she can fix her sweater! I almost freaked out. I still can't believe she did that.
Anyway, the rest of the museum was quite interesting. It made me want to read most of the stories from the writers in there. Some of the more notable: Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, George Bernard Shaw, author of Pygmalion (adapted into My Fair Lady), and of course James Joyce, author of Ulysses.
Sara grabbed another milkshake, we shopped at Avoca for awhile (that store kills me; I want it all, but have absolutely no use for a wool blanket in the south!), and headed to get me something cold to drink. I had been craving a Starbuck's passionfruit iced tea (blame Seth), couldn't find anything similar elsewhere, but I'd been trying to avoid going to Starbuck's. It's too American for Ireland. We went anyway, but DUH - the reason that no other place had a nice fruity iced tea is because they don't drink iced teas here. Starbuck's didn't have it. I got elderflower water instead, which was actually just as delicious. Then we met Steve and headed to watch the World Cup England v. USA at.... the Hairy Lemon. I know. The other boys picked it.
We all crammed into the biggest booth right in front of one of the TVs, sang the national anthem, and were quickly stunned with that score in the fourth minute. But everyone knows about Green's mishap, so we tied! We'll be in the west of Ireland for the second match, but I'm sure we'll find somewhere to watch it!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Today we went to Dun Laoghaire, another seaside "fishing village" as I call them - more like a coastal suburb of Dublin. These towns are so cute. They had a market, like Howth, but this one was better. I got falafel and shopped around a bit, but I can't tell you what I bought. ;)
We just did a lot of walking today, saw the James Joyce museum and two more castles. The clouds were looking more and more ominous as the afternoon passed, though, so we decided to head back to the DART station a little early. It's a good thing we decided to nix the pier walk or we would have been just as drenched as we were last week in Howth!
We grabbed dinner back in Dublin, and I've been resting up for this next week. On the schedule: class tomorrow, the Cliffs of Moher on Tuesday, and then the whole class is going on a 4 day field trip to the west of Ireland. We'll be back Saturday afternoon!
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