Day 2

Morning Dublin :)

In our lovely little hostel, our windows look out to a wooden deck square with just a view of other hostel windows, which means little to no light. When we woke up, we found that it was 11am and we were almost the only ones in the room. Remember the random guy that sleeps all day and night? Yep.. he was still asleep ;)

We got up and ready and embraced the afternoon in good ole' Ireland by grabbing a bite to eat. Just across the street, there's a fresh market with a deli inside and they have a lunch special where you get a sandwich, an apple or chips, and a drink for 5 euro. The sign above the deli says "Choose Your Own Filling". Me and Chris just stared blankly while everyone else ordered. When it was Chris's turn, he picked a sandwich already listed on the menu, but that wasn't part of the special. The man at the deli said with a thick Irish accent, "Yuh choose a mayte and tuah feelings, cayne bay mayte ore chayse ore whatayver". I ordered first and ended up with a chicken, shredded cheese, and lettuce sandwich on "brown" bread.

Then, we were off.. first thing that caught our eye was the famous Brazen Head Pub. It's the oldest pub in Ireland, established in 1198. When the Guinness Storehouse makes its deliveries, this pub is the first stop.

We walked until we reached St. Patricks Cathedral. BEAUTIFUL.. :) This cathedral was named after Ireland's patron saint, St. Patrick and the structure dates back to 1220. We're planning on attending mass on Saturday morning to see the inside, but we took this video of the outside for you all to see!

Us in front of St. Patricks Cathedral

Us joking around in the courtyard :P

We had our little Dublin City Centre map and there was a little marker for the Marsh Library. By far my favorite place so far :) This is the entrance..

Isn't is amazing? :D If you can see behind me, there is a stairwell that winds up to huge black doors and there is a little sign that says "Buzz for Library". We buzzed, as instructed, and Mr. Peter Logue - a 65 to 70 year old man answered the door and asked if we'd like to visit his library.. dated back from 1701. It was 3 euros for both of us and without a doubt, the best 3 euros ever spent. The little rickety library was covered in floor to cieling black bookcases with black ladders on each section. There were three rooms with the same set-up and every single book was OVER 300 years old. It looked straight out of Harry Potter. They had two different displays out, one was an exhibit on Bibles with a King James Version Bible published in the 1600s. The other exhibit displayed medical books throughout the ages.. our favorite being one by Santorini. He studied the body's intake and outtake by measuring all of his food, water, urine, and excrement. Sounds disgusting, yeah? We thought so too. But his "findings" were the funniest part. His conclusion was that a substantial part of a body's intake was lost to "insensible perspiration" ;) The last section of the library was watched over by an Irishman named Tommy. From him, we learned that OY? means Can you please repeat that?

Then, we went for a stroll in St. Stephens Green. What we've learned about Ireland is that all the good weather comes in the morning and leaves by around 3pm. We got stuck in a rainstorm inside a park similar to Central Park in New York. BUT, it ended up being incredible. We waited out the storm under a gazebo and watched the sea of umbrellas pass by. When it slowed down a bit, we headed to the Archeological Museum at Trinity College. We learned about bogs... :/ It was a lot of medieval Ireland utensils and rock weapons.

At this point, OUR DOGS WERE BARKING! We had to rest our feet. We went to the National Museum and walked straight to the cafe for a hot cup of coffee and what for Chris? A diet coke! We sat in the heritage library laughing and looking up information on our ancestors for about two whole hours :) I looked up my grandpa's marriage information to my grandma and the census where he was just a year old.

When we got back to the hostel, we thought going out sounded fun so we asked our native roomie Jay if he knew of any good places. He drew us up a little map. We said thank you, walked outside, decided it was too cold, and walked right back in the hostel.

Busy bees.

:)
Alicia & Chris