A Sojurn into Dublin

So today was the start of a weekend in which I have nothing planned and everyone whom I would normally talk to is gone. So, with me here all by myself, I decided it was time for me to plan out my own adventures. I started by planning out a trip into Dublin today--the SOUTH side of Dublin. Dublin is divided by the Livvy River, and there's a train station on either side. Normally I get off at Connolly Station, on the north side of the river. From Connolly Station it's an easy walk to the Spire, which is at the heart of a major shopping district that has pretty much any kind of shop you can think of (except a comic book shop! Grr...I haven't found one yet!). Anyways, instead of going into Connolly today I got off at Pearse Station, on the southern side of the river.

I started out my journey, however, with a rather neat surprise in Maynooth. I set off on my trek to the train station at about 10:20am--I was running late, of course, and so of course I miss the train by about 5 minutes (grr!). I had 45 minutes to kill until the next train, so I wandered around. I went by the river and noticed that there was a large flock of birds hanging around. I soon discovered that a mother and her child were throwing bread into the river, which was what was attracting all the birds...and ducks, and swans! It was a huge congregation of birds! I got my camera out and took some nice photos of the beautiful (but feisty  swans and the very cute ducks! They didn't seem people-shy at all.

One of the swans that came up for the feast. They're so beautiful, but be careful, they bite!

So many ducks! They were so CUTE! I just wanted to hug this one, which came right up to me like he was totally cool with it.

After I had my fun with the ducks I got on the train and arrived at Pearse Station at approximately 12:30pm. From there, I immediately headed right across the street to Trinity College, a very famous college in Dublin that also happens to be the oldest college in Ireland. It was founded in the 14th century. Talk about history! Trinity College has several libraries and even its own museum. I walked around the college for a bit, totally blending in with the other college students that were heading to and from their classes. Then I went toward my primary destination--the Old Library, which housed the Book of Kells. This book is one of the oldest and most-well preserved books from the Middle Ages in Ireland. It contains the Four Gospels. I went on a tour of the Old Library and the Book of Kells was one of the first things I saw, in its special high-preservation room. It was so cool being able to read an actual page of the book. The book was written in Latin, and it was a bit hard to read because it was (a) faded and (b) written in a very elegant script. BUT I could pick out a few snippets here and there. I could actually translate some of the Latin!

After the Book of Kells the tour took me into the Long Room, which is, well...a very long corridor-like room FULL of really, really old books. It was a library, like something straight out of a Gothic novel (remember Disney's Beauty and the Beast and the library that the Beast showed Belle? Yeah, it was totally exactly like that). Most of the books were, unfortunately, roped off, but they did have several display cases full of old book for you to read. It was cool because I could actually read the page of a book written in, like, 1875 or something. But oh, what I would have given to spend a whole day in that library, picking out some of the books off the shelves! It was such a shame that we weren't allowed to take photos of any of it.

Once I was finished at Trinity College I grabbed lunch, and then headed off to the Natural History Museum of Ireland, which was just around the corner from the college.

The entrance to the Natural History Museum of Ireland, set with a nice rotunda.

The museum was pretty neat. I walked around and saw lots of old tools and stuff, but they also had a huge "treasury" room FULL of gold. Gold torcs, gold crosses, gold brooches...you name it. It was a very glittery room. The museum was laid out chronologically, so you started at like 5000 B.C. and then gradually progressed, through the Vikings and then Medieval Ireland and so on. Oh, and then they did have one side room dedicated to Irish Bogs--apparently, the bogs of Ireland are pretty famous. They're unique and rare, and are full of archaeological finds. Perhaps the coolest (and most disgusting!) thing was that they've found thousand-plus-year-old bodies in the bog. The nature of the bog acted to carefully preserve the bodies with their skin and hair intact (although most of their bones and organs had eroded away). They actually had a few of the bodies on display. It was so freaky! I remember thinking that one guy's upper torso kinda looked like a shirt you could wear, only it had hands attached to it (*gulp*). But it was kinda neat because you could actually see the guy's hair and face and whatnot.

After the Museum it was, unfortunately, starting to get late. I could not stay in Dublin for as long as I wanted, because it gets dark so early! Before I left, however, I did drop by the National Library of Ireland, because it was literally right next to the Museum. I wasn't able to explore the whole library, but I did see a nice exhibit that talked about famous Irish poets, with a feature on William Butler Yeats. I love Yeats! He is by far one of my favorite poets.

I managed to make it to the train station and hop on a train around 4pm. By the time I got off the train just before 5pm, it was completely dark outside. I felt like I had a lot of fun getting to know more of the history of Ireland today, and exploring the south side of the river. Some other time this weekend, however, I plan to head into Dublin again and have fun on the north side!

Irish Word of the Day: book -- leabhar
I saw lots of very old books. -- Chonaic mé go leor de na leabhair an-sean.