Phoenix Park

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A day in Phoenix Park

Today, I woke up and walked the 4km to Phoenix Park. Phoenix Park is Europe's largest city park and is double the size of Central Park in NY. It took me about 50min to walk there and it was a nice day so it was a comfortable walk. On my way I passed the court houses and the Guiness Brewery.

Phoenix Park was absolutely beautiful. It is a huge park (709 hectares to be exact) with lots of green space to run around, relax, or play football. Within this gorgeous park is also The Dublin Zoo. This zoo was super cute with a lake in the centre of it. A lot of the monkey exhibits are built on islands on the lake with little bridges that they can use to walk back to their indoor inclosures. Apparently, about 10-15 years ago this zoo was really rundown and more like an animal jail with few outdoor areas for the animals but over the last few years they have been building a lot of nice outdoor exhibits for the animals and are still working on updating it as we speak. I saw loads of animals and lots of baby animals (baby monkeys, orangutans, rhinos, and more). Towards the end of the day it started to get a little chilly so I decided to begin my walk home before it got too cold.

I would definitely like to go back to Phoenix park in the summer time to spend the day wandering around as there is a lot of ground to cover.

A couple days ago, I went to the Rememberance Gardens, which is a pond and monument built to remember all the Irish who have died fighting for Irish freedom. It was a very nice monument, very tranquil. The pond is shaped like a cross with mosaic on the bottom and ancient style swords and shields in the mosaic pattern. The main sculpture looks like people struggling out at the bottom then turning into geese flying away to freedom. The groups of Irish freedom fighters who fled Ireland inhopes of keeping the fight alive from Europe were referred to as Geese. There is also a poem on the wall in both Galeic and English which was very nice.

That's about it around here.

ohh I went to the movies last night with my roommate. We saw one of the films that is playing for the Dublin International Film Festival called Turn it Loose. It is a documentary about the world breakdancing competition from 2007 that was held in South Africa. It covered the competition and visited 6 of the competitors in their home countries leading up to the competition. It was very interesting to see why they enjoyed breakdancing as much as they did. At the end of the movie two of the breakdancers and the director where there to answer questions and sign autographs. It was a very interesting day.

I'm still working on the covert mullet mission... so stay tuned.

Katie

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Photos

The Spire
If your lost in dublin head for the pointy thing in the sky.

Wellington Monument
Built in 1816-1871

Zoo
Monkies

Zoo
Lake

Comments

[Cathie Lutes]

Animal life
Hey Katie, looks like you had a really nice day. I love the pics especially the sleepyhippo. So the tall spike will always guide you back that will come in handy when Kim and I join you in Dublin. We will be landing in Irelant June 12 2009 all booked. So don't try to hide we will head for the giant spike. Thanks for sharing your wonderful pics. Love you mom

[Leigh]

so awesome!
wow, Katie! your pictures are so awesome! they keep me really entertained while I'm at work! It looks like you are having an amazing time! I love how everything is so green!

[Diana]

Hi from the McCabe's
Hey Katie! Just caught up on all your entries and pics. Jim, Brendan and I just got back from a weekend in NY and we spent a day at Central Park so it really gave me perspective on the size of Phoenix Park. Wow! Keep up the interesting and funny (can't wait for the mullet pics) entries. Good luck on the job hunt.