Dublin Days

Tina and I have spent the past two days doing miles and miles of tourist activities in Dublin. Yesterday we walked down to St. Stephen's Green, saw some interesting buildings, visited Oscar Wilde's house, and then crossed the street to see a Huegenot cemetary from the 16th century.

After lunch, we made the huge mistake of going to see Dublina, a "medieva museum" of Dublin, which is more like a Canada's Wonderland history tour. It was kind of brutal, but then we went to the lovely Christ Church Cathedral and walked around there for a while. The monument for Strongbow was particularly interesting -- the original one had been destroyed and only a small part still exists; it sits right beside the current one.

We ate our traditional fish and chip dinner in a pub in Temple Bar, that's after we had a half-pint at the Stag's Head, which is a really cool old pub.

Today we got up early, went to Dublin Castle and took an amazing tour with Tom. He was an awesome guide, the perfect mixture of humour and history. After that we toured around the Charles Beatty Library, which is full of marvellous old books, parchments, and other book-related objects. On the second floor, it's full of amazing religious books, representing all corners of the Earth. Finally, it's got a roof top garden that gives a nice view of the Dublin Castle grounds.

We ate at "Juice" (it seems that many restaurants in Dublin have one-word names, how shee-shee). Then we went to the Dublin Library and saw the James Joyce exhibit.

Now we're on our way to the Abbey Theatre to check for tickets for tonight! Wish us luck.

Whew, the running commentary has run on long enough as I try to give at least a small idea of what we're seeing, if not what we're actually experiencing which is sore feet, constipation and a lot of frustration over how quickly the weather changes.