A wee jaunt to Dublin

Temple Bar area & my first Pub Crawl

Dublin. A city I had heard much about in literature, but was way different than I expected. For some reason, in my mind, I had a mental picture of a sprawling, quaint town---and in reality it’s an urban metropolis with an interesting mixture between the ancient and the modern.

It took 6 girlfriends and myself 4 hours by train and bus to reach the city and once we arrived it took us quite some time to reach our hostel, because there are NO street signs in Dublin. Or if there are, they are very well hidden. Also, the roads never follow a pattern or grid like the United States, but rather the old trails of the Vikings. That explains a lot J

Paying homage due from English majors everywhere

My first hostel experience was an interesting one. I was placed in a room separate from my friends and it was filled with French people who wouldn’t talk with me—slightly awkward.  It was a beautiful sprawling stone building with four floors and room after room of dorm beds.  We met some nice Irish and Italian people, but overall it felt like an orphanage. Yuck

We (of course) had to do a pub-crawl, and so we met up with about 60 other backpackers and hit three pubs and a dance club in the Temple Bar area! It was chaos! I recommend going with a smaller group if at all possible. My favorite pub one was that played reggae music with a band called the Barley Mob.

Had to do it

The majority of the rest of our time there was spent sightseeing and learning about the city’s turbulent history.  The Irish rebellions against the English were key in all the places we saw and it was fascinating because I had learned about the time and people through Yeats, Joyce etc., and now I have images and experience to match with the things I read and study! Definitely a cultural highlight. I also visited the Dublin Writer’s Museum to make my English professors proud of me…ok…and I guess I liked it too! We went to the Guinness factory and my favorite part was the gorgeous 360-degree view of Dublin from the top floor. However, overall it was one of my least favorite activities because it was so crowded and slightly boring learning about the brewing process. I did have a sample there though J

Christ Church Cathedral

The absolute BEST experience of the whole city was going to the Chester Beatty Library and seeing all the ancient religious documents.  I had one of the strongest spiritual moments of my life when I saw the portion of the oldest known book of Romans.  I tried to stop the tears when it hit me that my Bible is based on true documents written thousands of years ago, but they just kept coming. I will never forget that moment.

Other highlights were: Stephen’s Green Park (SO beautiful), Christ Church Cathedral, Kilmainham Gaol, the General Post Office, Dublin Castle, The National Museum of Archaeology, walking along O’Connell street, eating out and so many other things!