Day 3: Dublin, Ireland

Yesterday involved a load of walking and my dogs aren't too happy with me. To hell with them! But not really.

After breakfast yesterday, I headed out to the National Museum, the National Gallery, and the National History and Science Museum. The first place I stopped though was the National Library where they are having an exhibit on James Joyce. I haven't read any of his works but I've been itching to do so, particularly 'Ulysses' which this exhibit centered a lot of attention around. The building was beautiful, as many of the old buildings in Dublin are. Simply amazing and what you'd never find in the States.

The walk was nice even though there was a constant drizzle and showers while I walked around. The National Museum is right around the corner so I tromped over there. It's a lot smaller than I expected with exhibits on Prehistoric Ireland and curiously, Ancient Egypt (just 4 mummies). The highlight of the museum was the section on the fight for the independence of Ireland. These Irish people sure are persistant! Seriously though, the exhibition was pretty sweet although the museum in general was really small.

It's really cool because all four of the museums I visited were right around the corner from each other. I wasn't going to hit up the Museum of Natural History and Science but I was already there and it's free, so why not? The musuem is super old and a lot of the exhibits are pretty dated, a lot of the items were purchased in the early 20th Century. Hardwood floors, little windows, glass cases. It doesn't look like it's gone under any renovations since it's been open. Think creepy stuffed animals with glazed eyes and open mouths. Scary. But hey, that's not to say I didn't learn something. For instance, I never realized moles had such small heads, did you? I think my science loving friends would've enjoyed it though (cough, em).

The National Gallery was by far my favorite, it houses art work from all over the world but mostly by Irish artists. The best painting was by Carvaggio though, titled, 'The Arrest of Christ.' It was painted in the 1600s. THE 1600s! That's been my favorite part about Europe so far, the history and how far it goes back. I blame my dad for turning me into a history nerd but I'm totally fascinated by old stuff and how people lived back in the day.

I was at the museum till closing so we were ushered out around 5pm. On my way back to the hostel, I stopped at a Korean BBQ restaurant. I longed to have the BBQ but since there was only one of me, I settled on some spare ribs instead. Unfortunately, the service sucked and it took forever to even order the people there were not incredibly friendly. When I first walked in, they spoke to me in Mandarin but when it was apparent that I was American, they slightly cooled. Ew. I'm writing to the Lonely Planet people for suggesting it!

It was freaking POURING by the time I left dinner and I got quite wet with my ghetto ass umbrella that I bought on my first day out. It actually only lasted like half a day when it became victim to the wind. It was doing the whole being blown inside out thing. Seriously, you guys should just picture me tromping through Dublin through pouring rain with this half broken ass umbrella. See, you laughed. I did too. On my way back to the hostel, I was walking on O'Connell St with my pitiful, ghetto ass umbrella when an old man with a camera stopped and asked if he could take a picture of me with my umbrella. Apparently you can find his work here: http://www.seanhillen.com/UPW2/index.htm
Who knows, maybe I will show up in a couple days, ha ha.
After that, it was time to retire the ghetto umbrella and I went into a store called 'Penneys' (think Mervyns) and bought a €4 golf umbrella (my ghetto one cost the same price! but it was at a tourist shop of course). I cannot explain in words how happy that giant umbrella made me, it kept me SO dry. YAy!

I'm still suffering from jet lag (yeah, i know you're saying, 'still??' but it's because i went so hardcore my first few days here) so when I got back to the hostel, I chatted with Yinka for a bit before falling asleep around 8:30pm. It was pouring rain out anyway so I was more than happy to rest a bit more. It doesn't sound like I did a whole lot, but it's actually much more than you'd expect. Museums take awhile to walk through and I'm getting to each place by foot which has been quite the learning experience.