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Published: March 18th 2009
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I'm Irish!
From a beam in the Guinness Storehouse -- today is our day! I woke up today just in time for Lisa to arrive. She wasn’t supposed to be here until 11 or so, but everything was ahead of time and went smoothly, so she got here just as I was getting up at 9am. We hung out for a little while and got ready, then we were out the door to the parade route. St Patrick’s Day, by the way, is actually a Catholic holiday, made to celebrate St. Patrick. He was famous for introducing Christianity to the Celts in the 400s AD and converting a whole country in one of the only bloodless and peaceful conversions ever. He used the Shamrock as a symbol of the Holy Trinity (which is why it’s 3-leafed not 4-leafed). We’re going to St Patrick’s cathedral tomorrow, but I don’t think it’s Catholic, which is ironic. I’ll let you know tomorrow…
Even though St Paddy’s day was celebrated here from March 12-17, today was one of the only events I was interested in. The parade is supposed to be a big deal, so we put it on our itinerary. It started at noon and wended its way through the city, so a leisurely stroll around noon
Happy St Patty
Greened out. And yes, that's a temporary tattoo on my chest. down to the route left us with plenty of extra time to walk along the route and look at all the people dressed up. I was surprised to see how all-out everyone went. Some people were decked out in green, but the vast majority of people we saw were wearing some combination of green, orange, and white. There were a lot of tri-colored wigs, face-paintings, and neon spandex (yes, really). I think all the people dressed in just green were probably just Americans. We found out later that the theme of the parade was “The Sky’s The Limit” but while we were watching, all we could do was stare. It was the weirdest collection of odd costumes I’ve ever seen. There were a lot of very strange birds, some pigs, hot air balloons, spaceships, and just very weird costumes. Some bands too.
After the parade we popped back into the hotel just to “drop off some things” before going back out. An hour later (after a fabulous nap) we were back on our way to Trinity College. The college itself wasn’t much to look at. It was founded in the 1500s by Queen someone (Elizabeth?) as a Protestant haven
Leprechaun Lisa
I freakin love this picture. If that doesn't say "I'm Irish" I don't know what does. (she's not by the way, she's German) for men to be educated. I think it was that way until the 1900s that it stayed that way, then they allowed non-Protestants in. Later in the 1900s they allowed women. Now it’s like 80% Catholic (20% practicing) and half women. Some very prestigious people have gone (and still go) there, including Oscar Wilde and one of the other famous Dublin writers (James Joyce? Can’t remember and too lazy too look it up). Our main reason for going was to see the famous Book of Kells. It was free today for St Patty’s day so we saved ourselves 9 Euros (like $11).
The Book of Kells is a copy of the New Testament made by monks in the 800s. 4 monks to be exact: Scribe A, B, C, and D (and C and D might actually have been one person). There are a few old copies of the New Testament, including the Book of Armaugh, Book of Durrow and a couple others. The Trinity College houses 4 of them, one of which is the Book of Kells. It was made on vellum, which is calf skin. It’s known for the very intricate calligraphy, to include an Irish style (font)
Look at that punam
This kid cracked me up. He kept that face on the whole time his mom tried to take a picture. It's universal of Latin and extremely detailed artwork. Once inside the exhibit, there were no pictures allowed. We spent most of the time reading the info about it, then went into the next room where the famous books were laid out under glass. Our next stop was in the “Long Room”. It was basically just a really big library that was added onto after they ran out of room. Inside the library was the oldest harp in Ireland - the Brian Boru harp. It’s from the 15th century and is so famous it’s featured on the back of the Irish euro (each country that uses the Euro has their own picture on the back of the Euro coins).
From Trinity, we made our way over to the Guinness Storehouse - booked it actually. It usually closes at 5 so we were almost running by the time we made it there (all the way across town) at 4:57. Turns out that they’re open until 7 on St Patty’s Day. No need to run. Plus, they had a big party goin on for the 250th anniversary (founded in 1759) St Paddy’s Day. It was pretty busy. We missed the restaurant, though, which was
St Patty's pride
So much face paint, so little time... going to be dinner before our tour/tasting. We popped into their café and had some yummy sandwiches then started our self-guided tour. We learned about the 4 ingredients in Guinness: the barley, which is roasted and is what makes Guinness dark and reminiscent of coffee; the hops, which makes it bitter; the water, which is pure from the mountains above Dublin; and the yeast, which is descended from the original batch 250 yrs ago (in fact there’s a secure collection in a safe somewhere, so if the batch ever died, they could just pull out more). The rest of the museum wasn’t that exciting - a section on advertising, shipping (they built boats for it), and some special 250th anniversary section. By that time we were Guinnessed out. Our 11euro tickets (10% off because we prepaid online) got us a free pint of Guinness, which we had actually started out with (and it was cold, not warm like someone *coughKeelycough* tried to tell me). So by the time we had made our way through the rest of the exhibit, we were ready for dinner and ready to move on.
Our goal was to eat at a local pub (with
Butts!
I'm not really sure why this is a prominent feature in St Patty's garb, but we saw a lot of butts food) that has a lot of microbrews. But they stopped serving food early (at 8pm) and we had gotten there right around then. So off we went in search of somewhere else to eat. Instead of checking the Rick Steves bible for a recommendation, we just wandered into a burger joint. It looked promising - very busy with a lot of people our age - but turned out to be not the best bet. Not only did it take forever to get food (all we ordered were burgers! And it’s all they had! Not sure what takes so long…) but all the waitresses are foreign and didn’t really do English very well (not really sure where from - Germany? Sweden? Something like that). So I got the wrong order and had to ask the waitress three times about the sweet potatoes that were missing (apparently they don’t have sweet potatoes in Bavaria or wherever she came from). All in all it was a disappointing restaurant with a decent burger, but definitely not worth the wait (or price!) We were pretty exhausted after our full day (and mid-afternoon drinks) so, topping it off with a glass of wine at dinner, we
Pog Ma Thon
I can only guess that means "Kiss my butt" rounded out our St Patty’s day with a crappy burger restaurant. We were done for the night. We have a pub crawl tomorrow to look forward to, so I don’t feel bad about being sober on the famous day in Dublin. I finished the night with a nice chat on Skype with the rents. I can’t believe that program is free! It’s the first time I’ve ever used it, but there’s something very cool about feeling like you’re in the same room having a conversation with your family from across the world. I hope I can use it if/when I deploy… We have a big day tomorrow planned, to include St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Christchurch with the Viking exhibit, Dublin Castle, the 1916 walking tour, and maybe an art gallery or the national museum in there. And of course topped off with the Backpacker’s pub crawl. I may not be in the state of mind to write tomorrow night (I AM in Ireland!) but I’ll blog again as soon as I can!
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