Dublin Exploration Part 2

January 3, 2010 10:38 pm

Kristen and I went out to explore the great city of Dublin again today. The jet lag was kicking in this morning. We didn't leave our room until around elevenish to search for breakfast. After dragging our tired butts out the door we realized what an amazingly beautiful day it was outside. We wandered around on the south side of the River Liffey in search of a pub that served breakfast. While in search we found a really cool bookstore that had everything from children's books on Irish lore to Marketing around the World (Kristen loved that one! I looked mainly at the children's books on Irish lore.)

After leaving the bookstore and wandering around for a tad bit more we found a cute, quaint little coffe shop. We still have yet to figure out in which restaurants you just sit down and order and which ones you order at the counter. We sat down at our table and looked over the menu and thankfully the girl came to us!! Kristen order a breakfast panini that was delicious she said, and I ordered the full Irish breakfast which consisted of eggs which are more smooth than American eggs, sausage that is not as good as Iowa sausage, a slice of bacon, baked beans (yuck!), and black and white Irish pudding which were round compressed weird things that I cannot even begin to describe. For the most part it was all good besides the weird things and the baked beans! Kristen also had her first coffee which was VERY strong, but I'll make a coffee drinker out of her yet!

Upon leaving the coffee shop we tried to find where our apartment will be. We found Black Hall Place road which is the road we will be living on, but Irish roads are very different. They are very short and a lot of the time we will be walking and within two minutes will be on a different road without even realizing it (that is what happened today). We wandered the road for several minutes, slipping on the ice the whole way, but failed to find our apartments. We will be taking a taxi on tuesday though, and hopefully he knows where it will be at!

We gave up on finding our apartment and wandered upon the Millenium Bridge to sit and admire the beauty for awhile. If you look at my pictures you will see how amazing the view was! After a few minutes of sitting we crossed the bridge and took some random streets until we stumbled upon St. Patrick's Park/Cathedral where it is told that St. Patrick baptized the first Irish Christians in a well. How cool is that?!? We walked around the park with many different people who did not speak English, but it was an amazing experience to be that close to so many different walks of life. After several picture ops, Kristen and I decided to try and find the National Museum of Archeology and History since it was only to be open three hours on Sundays. We found it (we are getting used to Dublin roads already!) and it was pretty cool. It described Ireland from the stone age up until the Roman era. A lot of the artifacts were found in bogs fully intact which was really neat. The items that stood out to me were a 50 ft boat that the ancient Irish used to fish in which was made from hollowed oak, it was made in 1500 BC they believe, Roman coins, and mummiess which were weird. The Mummies were in a dark room so it was kind of creepy to be looking at dead bodies.

The jet lag caught up with us again around 4, so we returned to our hotel and napped for awhile. Around 7:30 Kristen and I went out for our first Irish pub experience at O'Neil's Pub. That was pretty cool! We had no idea what we were doing, and Kristen explained that to a man working there (I was kind of embarressed haha!) He led us to a place that had three men behind a counter and were serving people whatever they wanted on their plates. After carefully looking over the menu, Kristen and I decided to share Irish stew which consisted of mashed potatoes covered in lamb, carrots, potatoes, and gravy. It was SOOOOOOO good! We loved every bite!!

After sitting and chatting for awhile, Kristen and I headed back here. We meant to mingle with the locals, but the crowd was in their 30s so we decided to wait until next time! The people here are SO friendly and everything is just amazing! I hope my pictures show even the slightest view into this wonderful world, everyone needs to come sometime and experience it themselves. Everything is different and I want to remember everything. Dubliners do not wait for the crossing sign on the street, they just go when they want and the traffic yields to them. You can tell the people who do not live there because they wait for the light to turn green to walk...Kristen and I were terrified at first but now we fit right in with the Dublin crowd. There is so much more that I'm sure I will write about soon!