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Published: June 19th 2010
I left the US at what felt like a dead sprint. After nothing short of a mad, fumbling scramble i was 'ready' to leave, jumped in the car, late, and soon enough was on my way to Dublin, Ireland. No delays, no stops, minimal waiting-felt like a whirlwind. Leaving at 7pm put us in Dublin at about 930am- but a mere 7hours later...leaving us with a MAYBE 5 hour night sleep. This, however, did NOT deter us from hitting the ground running. No, no. In fact, we got off the bus, looked around -and running toward us comes Saly's friend from her study abroad in South Korea, Diego. It turns out that his last full day in Dublin was our first- and he offered to spend it showing us around a bit. Begin- a Very long day... So Saly met Diego, an italian during their study abroad in Korea- he had been in Dublin for the last year doing his masters at Trinity College and while its nice to know a bit about who you're spending the day with ( you're probably thinking ok so what) Really it offered us a few little perks! After droping our bads at our hostel we headed across the street to the first tourist stop on our list- Trinity College. Because he's a student, Diego was able to take us through the museum and to see the book of Kells for free. Who cares about a irish college? Well the Irish of course! But what's the big deal? Well, in ireland it is quite ae big deal having beeen established in 1592 as the first university in the country. It is also home to the oldest book in the world, the Book of Kells. The book of Kells is an incredibly old, ornace and of course hand crafted manuscript of the Gospels. Impressive. If you imagine a children's book where the first letter of the story is much larger than the rest and ornate followed by what reminds you of medieval ages- That is this book, written on the hides of 85, er or is is 185 calves. really neat. From here we headed down grafton Street where there are lots of shops many pedestrians and few cars. At the end of Grafton street is a park, St. Stephen's Green. We spent some time strolling through. we made our way to O'Neils, a pub serving traditional Irish lunch and of course showing the afternoon's world cup match. The food (i had corned beef) was delicious and the serving was Plenty! Potatoes, gravy, vegetables...geez. Full, we headed toward the Dublin Castle where Saly and I took the tour to learn about it's history and the usage of the castle since it's original constuction in the time of the vikings. The castle itself was constructed later though parts of some construction have been there since the11th century? If i remember correctly- and that portion is actually shown as an excavation site. After a MUCH too dense history lesson from our tour that was confusingly organized and spoken at a rapid pace we took in St. Patrick's Church as he is the patron saint of Ireland. We spent some time in the courtyard with some of Diego's friends from school chatting and taking a break from walking. Rejuvinated, we walked to Temple Bar- which is actually a street/area of Many bars and shops popular to American tourists and study abroad students. Needless to say we didn't spend much time here though we did catch some fantastic street performers and irish music here. After a pint and the first hafe of the 3rd game of the day (brasil vs north korea) we said our goodbyes and thank yous to Diego and his girlfriend and finally checked into the hostel- only to find we'd missed ALL 3 Goals of the game! We ventured out for a snack before collapsing into bed.
In the morning we got up by 8am and headed straight for Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced Jail) and got a REALLY great tour recounting the history of the jail and some of its more famous prisioner as well as their roles in achieving Irish independence. We were allowed to enter some of the prision cells, and only then did the well-lit place take on a Very real and errie feeling. It kind of felt like it would be a good investigation site for one of those perinormal activity television shows. eek. But this incredibly well done tour cleared up some of the confusing history we'd tried to take in the day before, which was really nice as well as interesting. We continued our walk through the gardens of the museum of modern-kind of a nice short cut, on our way to the Guinness Storehouse where we'd bought tickets for the brewry tour in advance. The building was Huge, and despite the slight disappointment that we weren't actually touring the currently functional part of the storehouse, we learned a lot about Guinness in Ireland and around the world and how it's done. At the top of the enormous building, which Guinness has a lease for 9,000 years, yes a 9,000 year lease, we were served a fresh cold pint. Yum. Our self guided walking tour of Dublin continued to 2 unrealized destinations, as in we attempted to make it there in time for tours/visits but didn't quite make it. Those destinations were Croke stadium, and the newly opend (though closed for the evening when we arrived) leprechaun museum- you can imagine the reaction of the Irish to that one. We intended on going Just because it sounded silly- though it was supposed to include some of the irish mythology etc. Day two wound down with some walking around, sitting outside on pedestrian streets and taking in some decent people watching and street music. Not bad.
The next morning we were up early and off to London, England. We were able to quicky check into our room and hop in a cab to meet Another friend of Saly's for lunch. This time the friend is from Chicago visitng for his dad's birthday- so the 4 of us went out to dim sum lunch. We relaxed a bit before meeting Saly's OTHER friends in visiting THEIR friend (who works here in London) all originally from Sweden- these kids saly met on her study abroad in Singapore. It has been really fun to have peopel to meet and hang out with place to place. We all met up and went out for the night ending at a REALLY strange bar/club playing music that i can only describe as disco meets house. Good thing there were few pints involved.
The following day, yesterday, Saly and I got up and took off for Buckinham Palace to view the changing of the Guards or the Mounting of the Guards. It was a ceremony of music and marching and yelling and drumming the works. All of it lasted about an hour. Intense. And they do it Everyday in the summer and every other day the rest of the year. Our self guided walking tour continued through St. James Park toward the river Thames. We saw westminster abbey, big ben, parliament, lots of uniformed guards-both traditional and contemporary, the london eye, and walked around the Tate Modern museum of modern art, passed the shakespear globe and got to see tower bridge (which most poeple think is London Bridge, but it's not). All really neat sights and lots of walking. I think the most notable thing about Europe is just how much Older and how much more history is here than in the U.S. We're just a little baby country in comparison. The number of sites i've seen in movies and such to finally see up close is really neat. I've really enjoyed these two cities, and the vast differences from other places i've been.
We were out late last night, and so we concided to a late start on the day. We walked Oxford street to Piccadili Circus, which is the equivalent to Times Square. We walked all the way to the Shakespear Globe again to get a better look at it. We walked through some fantastic parks that we hadn't seen yet. One of which is where Peter Pan landed in the story. In that place the creator of Peter Pan secretly and unnanounced had installed a sculpture of Peter Pan as a nice gift to the park. Super neat. And so in the park there are street signs for Peter Pan, really funny. Oh and last night it was raining a bit, looking at the ground for worms as i always do, i saw the BIGGEST fattest yellow slug making its way down the cobblestone sidewalk. Of course saly and julian weren't nearly as fascinated as i was and quickly pushed me along, but it was sweet. So, no worms but Big nasty slugs. We haven't had too much down time so far on this trip, hence my first update 5 days and two countries in.... but we certainly have made our way through the cities we've visited taking in as much as we can and doing so on foot to get the best meandering feel for these places as we can. It's worked out well and despite how different this trip has been thus far it's been Really great.
Tomorrow we're off to Barcelona Spain in the evening. Saly and I are already getting a little sad to part ways in a few short days and continue our trips separately. But for the evening we're taking back to our meandering walk through this drizzly city that seems absolutely incapable of deciding what weather it wants to give us! My next update will certainly be from another country... if not another continent. It just about time to leave the land of English speakers behind. Which has left me thinking about how nuice a warm-up to a long trip these days have been. Safer, cleaner places where language barriers are not a problem though with all the pace and stress of figuring out what we're doing or where we're going. The warm up is almost over... here goes!
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Heather
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I enjoyed your post about Ireland and London. The Leprechaun museum wasn't open yet when I was there, and that's too funny! Spain is so fantastic, you'll have a great time! My blog is looking for travel photos, reviews, etc, to share. If you have the time, check it out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com, or email me at dirtyhippiesblog@gmail.com. We also have some hostel reviews up, and several are in Europe, if you're looking for places to stay. Continued fun on your travels! Heather