Sunday, June 2 (Dublin) (no pictures yet)

I like the idea of blogging about the trips I take but the problem is that by the end of the day I’m usually pretty worn out from a full day of activity and it is easy to not do too much more but get ready for bed and get some sleep.  So I’m trying t get caught up now on Monday as we ride the bus up to northern Ireland.  The scenery is still nice but you can only take so many pictures of sheep in a field.  Also the bus has a wifi connection so once I type this out I may be able to get it posted.  I really do need to find another blog site for the next trip though because the one I use makes it hard to get the pictures to load where I want them and it really does not work well if I try to load more than one at a time – and I like to load a lot. 

Anyway… We where not leaving the hotel for the day’s activities (a day in Dublin) until 10 AM so I had time to get to mass at the Catholic church across the road.  I had visions of attending mass at one of the great old churches we have been seeing.  Unfortunately St. Michaels burned down in 1965 and while they rebuilt it, it is a modern style church without the atmosphere of the old cathedrals that abound.  It was also the fastest Sunday service I ever attended – getting done in a little over 30 minutes.  For the benefit of those of you who are also Catholic there were no alter servers, no singing, and the priest started the presentation of the gifts while they did the collection.  So with some multitasking it can be done.

At 10 we headed out for central Dublin.  Before we left the hotel I met up with a distinguished old gentleman sitting in the lobby.  I had not really been checking the weather on the trip so when he greeted me by saying that the weather forecast for the week was for good weather thanks to a high pressure zone above the Irish Sea he immediately had my interest.  We chatted for a while and then I headed out to the buss.  I was thinking he had it wrong as clouds started to gather, but sure enough the weather cleared as the day went on. 

The bus took us around to point out the main points of interest as well as the pickup point if we wanted to take the bus back to the hotel.  Jenny and I decided to skip the night’s side trip to the Guiness brewery – not being beer drinkers – and so planned to spend the rest of the day in Dublin.  Jenny had been on the internet the night before and found about 6 thrift stores around central Dublin which we incorporated into our planned stops.

The first stop was our tour visit to Trinity College to see the book of Kells.  I had heard of it before but did not really know what it was exactly or the significance.  It is an illustrated book of the 4 gospels in Latin.  The illustrations and even the calligraphy text is exquisite!  We were some of the first people there in the morning so we did not have to wait too long to see it.  It was of course in a display case but you could get right up to it and they did not rush you along so you could take some time to admire the craftsmanship.  From there you are allowed to go up to the room called the Long Room.  It is a long tall room housing the libraries oldest books, many of which are on display in cases also.  The nice thing about the room is that you are allowed to take pictures as long as you do not use a flash.  At the end of each row of books is a bust of a famous philosopher, writer, etc. 

After our visit to the library we were free to explore the city on our own.  Jenny and I headed to one of the national museums there but since it was a Sunday we found that it had not opened yet.  Missing the open times for things would become the theme for the day.  We started down the main shopping street ducking into shops that caught our interest but most were far too pricy for what we wanted so we hunted up a couple of Jenny’s thrift stores.  Only about ½ of them were open but they proved to be a great find!  Jenny found several items she liked and I even found a vintage beaded necklace which may become ornament hooks for friends and family this year.

Recharged by our bargains we headed over to St Patrick’s cathedral.  It used to be a catholic cathedral but during the 1500’s it was converted to an Anglican church which it still is.  Supposedly it marks the place where St. Patrick would baptize converts.  Unfortunately, unlike Catholic services which are usually done by 1 on Sundays, they obviously hold services also in the afternoon.  The church was closed to the public until 4:30.  So we headed up the street a few blocks to Christ Church, another former Catholic cathedral converted to the Anglican church… and also holding services at that time. 

So back toward the center of Dublin for more shopping (always an option).  We found another thrift store and then stopped into a department store with the name Penneys.  I am pretty sure it is not related to JC Penneys but we had seen quite a few of them around Ireland and decided to check it out.  We were pleasantly surprised to find lots of nice items for the equivalent of $20 or less!  Jenny says it is like Forever 21 (which despite the name, is not a place I shop).  We easily spent over an hour there and Jenny now has purchased more clothes than I think she brought on the trip!  Luckily she had left lots of empty space in her suitcase.

We decided to try St Patrick’s once more even though it was clear across the central city area from our location.  We got there to find that it (and Christ Church) had closed for the day.  So while I got lots of outside pictures, the wikipedia site will have to provide views of the inside.

By now it was after 6 and we had been exploring and shopping for over 7 hours.  Of course the train station for the connection back to our hotel was again clear on the other side of the city center.  It was wonderful to sit on the train and move without walking.  We figured we walked 8-10 miles over the course of the day.  We had picked up something for dinner on the walk to the train station and then crashed for the night once we were back in the room.