"In Dublin's Fair City"

Dublin was, sadly, not one of my favorite cities. It was nice and I am definitely glad I visited, but I probably would have had more fun just staying in Oxford for the weekend.

Dublin is a large city, and has many different sections that you can end up in. The main tourist section is near Trinity College, where lots of shops like 'The Disney Store', "Captain America's', and other such places. That section is really nice, clean, and crowded. There were lots of people pretending to be statues or singing for money there.

But closer to our hostel and near the museums we visited, Dublin got a bit darker. The streets were not as clean, and it seemed almost darker there. (I am not sure if this was psychological or real.) The buildings were closer together and everything seemed grungier. Some of the buildings did seem older, like in Oxford, but in a creepier kind-of way. Not nearly as majestic.

The museums themselves were nice and tidy, but once you stepped back onto the street things got blander. It also rained nearly the entire trip, not making our impression any better. At night when we were walking around, I felt nervous that someone might sneak up on us, probably due to the streets having few people on them and fewer lights.

However, Dublin is going through some tough times economically right now, so that could be a factor of the issues, as well as that Dublin is very much a drinking city. Ask anyone. And I am not really a drinking kind-of gal. So perhaps Dublin was already a bit smudged in my mind? I do not think so, since I was excited to visit as my family is from Ireland. But perhaps I had too high of expectations? And either way, Dublin really was not a horrible trip, just not one of the places I will probably revisit.

One cool thing about Dublin though, was that all the signs were written in Celtic and English. It made me feel like I was in some other world, which in a way, I guess I was.

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Walking around Dublin after getting off of our plane, we checked into our hostel and got some dinner from a local pub for the night. It was too late to visit any museums or shops, so we pretty much called it a night immediately after dinner.

The next morning we were, or at least I was, awoken by the loud screeches of seagulls. I suppose we were near the ocean as we were on an island, but I never saw it. And why were the seagulls right outside my hostel's window? We then headed to a nearby church, St. Mary's Pro Cathedral, to have some Jesus time. (To be honest we do not really attend church that much, but if we are in a new city on a Sunday morning, as in this case, we also seem to decided to visit one.) After the service, we had planned on going on a free, three hour walking tour, but it was raining so much that we chose to push that off until Monday morning even though that was when we were suppose to be meeting with Austin's friend from home.

Next, we stumbled upon a monument to Oscar Wilde inside a park. Honestly, it was a creepy statue. I felt like he was watching me where ever I went and the way his face was carved looked like he had some dirty ideas running through his mind.

We then headed to some free museums we had looked up before the trip. The National Gallery was the first one to open, and apparently the first to close. After pretty much stepping into a painting gallery, the National Gallery alerted everyone that it was closing in fifteen minutes and everyone needed to leave. It had only opened about thirty minutes before this. So, we grabbed our things and headed to another museum.

The National Museum of Ireland-Archeology was our next stop and it had rather normal things you would find in a museum: pottery, recreations of ships, old jewelry  well preserved bodies that had been found in the local bogs, normal stuff. The bodies actually seemed to be the main attraction and they were in these special rooms so that if you did not want to see them, you did not accidentally wander in. They looked like people who had died their skin ink black and gotten punched in the face too many times. They even still had hair on their heads!

This museum stayed open long enough for us to look around and see all we wanted, and then we were off to, you guessed it, the National Leprechaun Museum. Because, leprechauns are an important piece of history.

The ambiance inside was rather strange and a bit creepy. There was a room where everything was huge and you could try and climb around on the giant furniture, and also a room where there was a 'fairy well' that you could make wishes into. Except after learning about how fairies sometimes liked to steal your newborn babies for fun, I was not sure if I really wanted to be making wishes to them.

You can learn more about mystical folk in my previous post, Over the River and Through the Fairy Woods.

That night we went to a comedy show that was free and that also had free ice cream. I am not sure how we found out about it, but it was legit and really funny. (Although some of the jokes were a bit crude, but that was kind-of expected.)

The next morning we headed out to our free walking tour and learned lots of interesting facts about Ireland, even though we could only stay for about an hour. We learned that America made St. Patrick's Day a big drinking holiday, as it had been a day of prayer in Ireland until then. We also learned about how the English persecuted and mistreated the Irish, seen clearly from the Dublin Castle's statue of Lady Justice (which was under British rule). The statue was facing into the castle (aka with her backside facing Ireland), was not blind as she usually is, and he scales were extremely unbalanced. (She also had a sword which seemed to beckon that if anyone got out of line she knew what to do next.)

After having to leave the tour early, we met with Austin's friend at Trinity College and got some tasty lunch together. She told us all about how studying in Ireland was going. Overall, it was a nice wrap up to the end of our Dublin adventure.

Until next time...

Embrace the Odd,
Caitlin

P.S.- The title comes from the song "In Dublin's Fair City" by James Yorkston. Also, I know Dublin is not technically in England, so my label does not make sense, but I am studying abroad in England, so it does work.

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information." -Oscar Wilde