Dublin: Part II

After approximately 12 glorious hours of sleep, Lauren and I woke up at 9:00am on Tuesday, just in time to eat a delicious continental breakfast before it closed at 10:00am, and then we headed back to the city center for our second day in Dublin. First, we took a stroll around St. Stephen's Green, a really beautiful park that we had passed by on our tour the day before. The weather was incredible, at least mid-fifties and loads of sunshine. Not too bad for the second week of January. 

I (unsuccessfully) attempted to befriend a swan:

As we were about to leave the park, Lauren and I were taking photos of a statue, and a kind stranger, accompanied by with his wife (presumably), nicely asked if we would like him to take our photo. Afterwards they talked to us for a few minutes, asking how we were enjoying Dublin. They had been visiting Dublin for a couple weeks and were near the end of their stay. They were American also, and, as it turns out, the woman is a state representative for Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where my grandparents live. Small world, huh?

After St. Stephen's Green, we headed to the National Museum of Ireland. The museum was really neat. There were lots of artifacts from Dublin and Ireland more generally, and as Lauren pointed out after we had been looking around for a while, at least half of the collection was described as having been "found in a bog". Evidently, there are a lot of bogs in Ireland, and a lot of things must go missing in them. Photography wasn't allowed in the museum, however, here's a sneaky photo that Lauren took, while I tried my hardest to look inconspicuous: 

Going back through my photos, I can't find any of the museum itself. But it's a really beautiful building, and I want to show you guys, so here's a photo from Wikipedia:

photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Ireland

After the National Museum, we headed to the National Library of Ireland, which is housed in a practically identical building just across from the National Museum. Once again, I somehow failed to get a photo, so here's the one from Wikipedia. Look familiar? (I swear that they are two separate buildings.)

photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Library_of_Ireland

Ah. The National Library of Ireland. Probably one of my favorite places that we went during our trip. Firstly, the library was absolutely beautiful. Secondly, there was an incredible W. B. Yeats exhibit at the library during our visit. Thirdly, the library security guard was really nice to us. 

For those of you who aren't studying in literature or who haven't come across any of W.B. Yeats's work before, he is a poet and playwright, and definitely one of the most famous Irish writers from the 20th century. The exhibition was so cool, and you can guys can visit it virtually here: http://www.nli.ie/yeats/  I know, amazing!

Here are some photos of Lauren and me with our new friend, the extremely nice and helpful library security guard. When we first walked into the library, he asked us, "So what's the story, girls?", and I'm pretty sure that we both thought we were about to get in trouble for being somewhere that we weren't supposed to be or doing something wrong. This, however, was not the case! The security guard explained the set-up of the library to us, and whenever we were done looking around, he talked to us about Ireland and the local area, and gave us advice about where to find less expensive, more traditional pubs in Dublin. He even took our photo in the library. Although his Irish accent was so thick that I couldn't understand a decent amount of what he was saying, it was still really nice to be treated so kindly. 

After the library, at my request, we made our way through the city to the River Liffey, the huge river that runs pretty much through the center of town and is quite beautiful. We walked along the river seeing some more lovely old buildings, including the Ireland Custom House, which sits right on the water.

 This is us in front of The Custom House. You can't really tell because our heads are blocking it....

 Take my word though. 

After getting slightly lost, just slightly though, we made it back to the heart of town and decided to spend some time in the National Gallery of Ireland before getting dinner. The gallery was great. There were some really neat works by Irish painters and famous artists from other countries as well. (Also, there was a bag check, which meant we could abandon our backpacks for awhile!) We spent about an hour in the National Gallery and then decided to go looking for food. We took the library security guard's advice, and ate at a traditional Irish Pub called O'Donoghue's. It was still pretty early whenever we decided to eat, so the place was empty when we arrived. The barman was quite nice though, and we found O'Donoghue's to be pretty charming, much different from the extremely touristy Temple Bar that we had been to the day before. We had cheese and ham sandwiches (one of the only two food options), and Lauren ordered a half pint of Guinness, the drink of Dublin. I copped out and only ordered cider; however, I tried a couple sips of her Guinness, and I'm still amazed that she managed to finish the whole thing. I'd definitely say it requires a developed taste. 

 I know, I'm a poser. 

We still had an hour or so to kill before we needed to catch the bus to the airport, so we ended up walking around another museum, this time the Natural History Museum, which should really be called "The Museum of Taxidermy." The museum is filled with thousands (maybe tens of thousands?) of stuffed or preserved animals. It was really pretty fascinating, although I couldn't help but hoping that all of the animals in the museum had died from natural causes, which I realize probably isn't the case. 

After getting our fill of natural history, we headed to the bus stop, not before purchasing some postcards, of course. We made it to the airport in plenty of time for our 7:50pm flight to Edinburgh, which was undoubtedly the shortest flight that I've ever been on; it was barely 40 minutes. We made it smoothly to the airport in Edinburgh, and asked for directions from a really nice woman at the information desk (which was in the process of closing for the night). She explained that because of road work in Edinburgh, the bus routes had been changed and that the bus from the airport would stop exactly in front of our hotel. How perfect! We arrived and unloaded our things at the hotel in Edinburgh around 10:00pm, and realized that we were quite hungry. We asked the (also very nice) man at reception for advice on any close, cheap places to eat that would still be open. As a thirty year resident of Edinburgh, he recommended a kebab place nearby that he visits once a week for their outstanding chicken kebabs. We took his advice, and after having a late night snack, made it back to the hotel for another night of amazingly deep sleep. 

Here are a few photos from our time in Dublin: 

Next time: Edinburgh. Thanks for reading!