Graduation!

Last Friday through Sunday Megan, Allison, Matt and I took in all Dublin has to offer. With my total amount of sleep for the whole weekend somewhere between 3 and 4 hours, I left with a feeling of accomplishment and a slight cold. After a 3.5 hour bus ride, we arrived in Dublin around noon and proceeded on to fulfill our thirst...for knowledge. Trinity College houses a gigantic library and the Book of Kells. While the Book of Kells was not on display, we did receive half price admission, plus the amount of old leather bound books in the library was amazing. The Irish History Museum was only a block away, and also extremely interesting, probably because I had been directly learning about everything in there in my Irish Archaeology class (and I'm easy to entertain). Incidentally, I found myself more in tune with that class today as the professor showed pictures of late bronze age artifacts in Ireland, all of which I had seen in person at the museum.

Later on the first night we met a Shane, a friend of Megan's who was studying at a nearby seminary. He took us to our first authentic Irish dinner. My dish was called Celtic-something or another and was delicious - and the price of 9 euros was much better than expected. After retiring for the evening in our hostel, I spent the next 4 hours trying to fall asleep amidst the noise of the street and hostel. Around 4 am, our other roommates burst in the door in classic Irish fashion (aka drunken stupor). We spent the next hour or 2 talking, laughing, and getting to know Ross, Phil, and Ryan who were from Northern Ireland and came to watch the UFC fight on Saturday. While the lack of sleep wasn't ideal, the hostel surprised me in safety, amenities, and friendliness. However, earplugs are a must next time for this light sleeper.

Saturday was about as typically Irish as anyone can hope for - a tour of the Jameson Whiskey Distillery was up first during the sun filled morning, followed by a lunch of fish and chips, a small hurricane on the way to the Guinness Brewery, then a quick power nap, and topped off with another dinner and night out with new friends.  The Jameson tour was hands down the favorite part of Dublin. A 25 minute tour of the distillery was concluded with a complimentary drink for everyone, plus 8 lucky participants were selected (all 4 of us!) to taste test Jameson versus a black label Scotch and Jack Daniels. Afterwards, we were presented with diplomas from Jameson dignifying us as "Qualified Irish Whiskey Tasters".

The Guinness tour was not guided, but was much more modern and offered a 360 view of the city from atop its tower aptly titled "The Gravity Bar". Apparently stout beers diminish in taste the further the beer travels from the brewery. The delicious Guinness provided to us from the brewery is testament to that! The rest of the evening was a blast as we went out with our new friends who wanted to show us a proper time in Dublin.

Before taking the 2:00 bus back to Cork on Sunday, we went to the Irish Art Gallery, which I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed very much. While I have never been a fan of Renaissance Era art including all the naked statues and huge murals, this gallery also housed the works of many Irish painters as well as landscape and historical works of the country. I particularly enjoyed the works of Jack Beats, an Irish painter whose paintings in the gallery were in order by the year they were completed. Early on in his career he was a clear, focused painter who featured [among others subjects] landscapes of Irish cities. He became progressively impressionistic and it became harder to determine the focus and meaning of each painting. The last few paintings of his in the room were so sloppy that the subject was hard to point out. That's enough/all the art appreciation I have for now.

On a slightly depressing but equally interesting note, Anglo Irish Bank (AIB) succumbed to its insurmountable bad debts and was nationalized last Friday, making big headlines throughout Ireland. While the Irish are much more money conscious, they have been hit much harder by the recession than back home **(2 weeks ago I saw several hundred people lining up outside the Cork unemployment and welfare office before opening hours). As I was reading about the bank buyout in a newspaper in a Dublin cafe, I realized the picture in the paper matched a setting we just walked past. The picture here shows a main street that leads up to the city centre. The National Bank of Ireland HQ is in the shot and AIB is slightly off and way left of the picture. While pictures were lackluster in this trip (batteries went dead early on), I plan on at least passing through Dublin in the future and will fulfill my touristy obligations and take more photos.