Last Saturday, I did something that was completely out of my comfort zone. I went to a new city, in a different country, by myself. For me, this was absolutely terrifying at the beginning because I was completely unsure of what to expect and what I would/will do once I got to the city.
Saturday morning at about 5:00, I was extremely unsure if I should/could even go on the trip or not. I wasn't feeling the greatest and I was scared out of my wits but I couldn't justify losing the money I had spent on the train ticket and/or missing out on a great time. Needless to say, about 6 a.m., I phoned for a cab (my first time doing that as well) to come pick me up and take me to the station. 5 minutes and 5 pounds later, I was at the station waiting to board my 6:50 a.m. train to Dublin. The train ride was smooth but weird due to most of it being in the dark. Now I am used to flying when it is dark (plus I really enjoy seeing the beautiful sunrises above the clouds) but riding on a train in the dark was interesting but a good way for me to catch up on about an hour of my sleep that I lost. It was also really awkward because when you try to stare out the window to look at the scenery, you are actually staring at the people sitting on the other side of the train. Finally, we pulled into Dublin Connolly Rail Station and I felt a bit more calm but was still seriously unsure of how to get where I wanted to go and how to get there.
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| Scenery on the train ride to Dublin |
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| More beautiful green scenery! |
I started off at the National Museum-Archeology. I viewed everything from the exhibit of Kingship and Sacrifice to Ancient Egypt. All the plaques that were describing the artifacts were both in Gaelic and in English which was really cool because it was interesting to try and match up the English words with the Gaelic words. It was interesting to see all the different types of jewelry and Ireland's gold that they have found all over Ireland and at the same time, mummified bodies of the Iron Age that were the result of human sacrifice.
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| Description of the mummified guy below |
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| Mummified guy in the Kingship and Sacrifice exhibit in the museum |
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| Gold necklace's that people used to wear!! I don't plan on wearing those any time soon!! |
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| What one would look like wearing the necklaces and ear plugs |
After the Museum, I decided that I wanted to see more of the city but wanted to be back for two tours of the National Library at 2:30pm, so I hopped on a Hop-On, Hop-Off bus. Although I didn't get off the bus to explore the sights because of time constraints, I did see a wide variety of sights. I saw everything from where Oscar Wilde's statue and where he grew up, to the Guinness Storehouse. I plan on going back to view the sights in more depth later on this year but driving by the Storehouse, it had the most interesting smell ever. To me, it smelt like somebody was cooking baby food, which is not how I imagined a brewery smelling.
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| Guinness Storehouse/Brewery |
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| Guinness Storehouse/Brewery |
I got back just in time to grab a little lunch and head back to the National Library for the tour to the reading room. The room was huge and had books dating back till the 1700's!! Their catalog system is unlike anything that I have seen. They have all of their books in ledgers on a bookshelf. Once you find the book/s that you want, you take the information up and give it to the librarian who goes and looks in the stacks of the books they have and bring them to your table. After the tour of the reading room, I went on a tour of the W. B. Yeats exhibition. Apparently, William Butler Yeats was one of the most important 20th century poets. The exhibition goes throughout Yeats's life from birth till death highlighting his main works. It was interesting to see the actual works of the poet sitting in glass cases or seeing the last set of glasses the great poet wore. If you would like to know more about the exhibition/take a virtual tour of the exhibition, you can visit the exhibition website,
http://www.nli.ie/yeats/main.html.
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| The library's catalog system! |
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| Oldest book I found!! 1758!!! |
After the tours of the library, I decided that it was time to head back towards the train station because it was starting to get dark and I didn't really want to be in a big city, at night, by myself. On the way to the station, I entered quite a few shops just seeing what they had and the possibility of buying cheap items. I entered one of my favorite stores, a soap shop. Not knowing if I had enough Euros to buy food to get back and any unknown items I might pick up in the station, I refrained from buying. Don't worry though because next time I am saving all of the money that I can and buy as much soap that I can (if I can find the shop again)!! :-) It was the same way with all the chocolate shops that I passed. They looked so good but seemed a little bit highly priced for the current monetary state I was in. Oh well, next time!!
So all in all, it was a great day!!
Moving on to this week, the fellow YAV's and myself went with our site coordinator to the Holy Cross Benedictine Monastery. We went to their worship service which was very interesting and unique due to my inexperience with that type of service. Talking with one of the monks and experiencing their worship and their prayer time, really allowed me to see the differences and similarities between our lives and worship styles. I hope that I can go back one day and experience their worship again and talk to the monks again. On our way out of the monastery, we made a stop by their little shop, which contained their homemade candles, postcards, cards, and beads. It smelled fantastic and I definitely plan on buying more cinnamon scented candles!!
All in all, the past few weeks have been full of fun, exciting adventures, and great learning experiences!! There are many more to come and I can't wait!! Thank you to everybody for your love and support throughout this year!! It means a lot to me and I hope you are enjoying this blog as much as I enjoy writing it!!!
Here are some random pictures to finish it off!! :-)
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| Cool mosaic floor in the library |
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| I saw fake leprechauns standing on the corner!! |
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| A dog made out of sand!! So cool!! |
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