Derek and Dublin

Hello my wonderful American friends!!! Alright, so today was fabulous. . .a wonderful gentleman that I work with, Jack, has family who lives here in Ireland (pretty darn to close to Dublin). As it turns out, I was able to meet up with one of his family members named Derek. He's about my age I'd guess, and I was thrilled that he agreed to meet with me. He knows the city, and as always, it's wonderful to have someone to talk with.

So we met at Trinity College and we went through and saw the Book of Kells and the Long Library. The Book of Kells are over 1000 years old. They're a fantastic work of art. The exhibition shows how the books were created, how the carvings and depictions on the pages were made on the parchment, and what they represent. Then there were the books themselves. Seriously you guys -- I'm running out of ways to describe the beauty over here. Especially when you have to think about how a 1000 years ago there was no such thing as a printing press or a bindery or carving tools. The methods to create these types of masterpieces were nothing short of genius.

The Long Library was amazing also -- it was reminiscent of The Marsh Library, but about 30x bigger. It's this vast open hall with nothing but books from hundreds of years ago. It smelled like a library filled with information and history. I could live there. Sadly, again, there is absolutely no photography allowed in either of these places for the assurance of preservation for these artifacts. While it is disappointing, I can also understand it. These amazing things haven't made it this far by being mistreated.

After that we grabbed a quick coffee and walked through St. Stephen's Green. Ah, it's a beautiful green park...marvelous walking paths and ponds, and perfect weeping willows everywhere. It's the image of tranquility. I wish we had stuff like this at home. Sadly there isn't much to boast about in La Crescent Minnesota.

Finishing our coffees we walked out of the park and just sort meandered around the city, taking in the local atmosphere (at least I was -- it's where he lives, so probably not nearly as fascinated as I was). It was really neat. There were a bunch or street performers: people playing guitars, harps, drums, singing, and there were even a couple of cool guys who bring in a good amount of sand and they sculpt stuff. The ones we saw were sculpting, very accurately, sleeping dogs. Life size. Wonderful.

We went to the famous (famous for Dublin) Temple Bar and got a drink. Which was nice. Very authentic Irish bar. Very expensive Irish bar, but still a good experience.

Then we took the tram or whatever the above-ground metro is called, to the Guinness Museum thing -- that was interesting. You don't actually get to see the beer being made, but it shows you how the ingredients are chosen, and give it gives you the history behind Guinness, and it talks about how they've perfected the brew. Quite fascinating. And you get a free pint of fresh Guinness at the end of the tour, and you drink it in the Gravity Bar. It's this bar at the top of the museum, goes all the way above the city and it's a circular room with all of the 'walls' made of windows. You get a fabulous 360 degree view of the city below. I will admit that I didn't drink my entire pint. My lack of liking beer didn't suddenly disappear, though as far as beer goes, it definitely was not the worse thing I've tasted and I could tell it was fresh. It's actually the freshest beer I'll probably ever drink.

Since we have now had a bit to drink without food, Derek suggested this little walk-in, no seating place that only sells fish and chips, which are apparently the best in the city. Famous people actually go there. The "Wall of Fame" listed people like the entire cast of Good Morning America. And I must say, it was really really good fish and chips. And you get a huge portion!!! I couldn't even finish mine.

It was so nice to have someone to walk around Dublin with. Derek knew a lot about so many of the places and was able to point a lot of it out to me, which was fabulous.

I'm not quite sure what my plan is for tomorrow, but Sunday I'm taking a long, one day tour, to the Cliffs of Mohr. We leave at 7 a.m. and don't get back until 9 or 10 that night, so darling peeps, there may not be a post Sunday. Since I'm not leaving till Tuesday, and will probably be tired after Sunday, I think I might turn Monday into a day of rest and re-packing of the infamous duffel bag. Then it'll be off to Liverpool for 3 nights and then I end in London. It seems strange there is only two weeks left. I feel like I just left home.

That's all for now Lovelies!!! Missing you and loving you!!!