Friday, May 3, 2013

Wednesday, May 1st: More Dublin! Whoo!


Skyline view of Dublin!

Happy first day of May everyone! I hope you all had beautiful weather where ever you are, because we certainly did! We made the most of it by exploring the many sights in Dublin that we didn't get to see yesterday.

We started off the day a bit earlier, with a breakfast in the hotel. A few of us decided to try a Full Irish Breakfast, which has eggs, potatoes, sausage, bacon, tomatos, and mushrooms, which was quite delicious. We then headed back to the bus tour from yesterday and hopped on to tour some of the famous churches of Dublin.







The first church we went to was St. Patrick's Cathedral. This is a very famous and extremely old cathedral in Dublin, as it was established in 1191. It is the largest church in Ireland. It was built in honor of the famous Saint Patrick, and houses the famous well where he baptized his converts during his stay in Dublin.  It was filled with various old religious artifacts and many of Britain and Ireland's past flags. It was extremely interesting to explore this very important aspect of Ireland's rich religious background. Our exploration of religion continued when we made the short walk to the nearby Christ Church Cathedral.









Christ Church Cathedral feels lot larger than St. Patrick's, as it had many more parts open to the public that we could explore.  Christ Church was just as important as St. Patrick's Cathedral in terms of Ireland's religious history. St. Patrick's is associated with Roman Catholicism, while Christ Chuch is associated with the Church of Ireland (which is Anglican, similar to the Church of England). This is very important to Ireland's medieval history, when it was part of the United Kingdom, especially during King Henry VIII's separation from the Roman Catholic Church.

 While the cathedral itself had many different smaller rooms to explore, it also had crypts below, which were filled with various British Tudor artifacts. There were even the costumes used in the BBC show, The Tudors!





After we explored the crypts, we hopped back onto the bus and headed toward the Guinness Factory! Guinness Beer is a very important tradition in the Irish culture and the Storehouse tour definitely reflected that. It was very informative on how exactly beer is made, explaining everything from getting the barley to using special water to brew the beer. The coolest part was the Gravity Bar at the very top of the factory, as it allowed us to see a full 360 view of Dublin. Due to the beautiful weather, we could see the Dublin "Mountains" in the distance (they're actually more like hills).





Again, we hopped back on the bus tour and rode around Dublin until we got to the National Museum of Ireland of Decorative Arts and History. The outside of this museum was extremely spectacular, as it was inside the old Irish Army Collins Barracks. Just walking into the museum's courtyard left us all in awe. We then went inside and many of us opted to walk through the "Soldiers And Chiefs: The Irish At War At Home And Abroad" exhibit. This was fascinating to many of the people in our group, as for our projects, we examined many of the different wars and battles that have happened in both Irish and British history. This exhibit featured many different uniforms from the various wars Ireland has participated in, along with various guns, cannons, and tanks. We also got to see the skeleton of the famous horse, Dickie Bird. He was a famous horse during the Crimean War in 1854. His skeleton was previously believed to be lost, until from archeologists discovered that his memorial plaque had been moved in the 1960s, and were able to rediscover his grave.







We then hopped back onto the bus to head towards the hotel. We got off at Grafton Street, which is filled with various shops and stores, so many of us shopped on the walk back to the hotel. Our group then went out to dinner at a local cafe. Many of us were extremely impressed with our meal, as they were absolutely delicious.

After dinner, we had a free night so many of us took the opportunity to explore Dublin on our own, to shop or experience the Irish culture Dublin had to offer.

                                                                          Top sites of the day (Click for more info!):
                                                                        1. St. Patrick's Cathedral
                                                                        2. Christ Church Cathedral
                                                                        3. Guinness Factory
                                                                        4. National Museum of Ireland

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