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This morning’s agenda was to hit up Trinity College.

Dublin is a very walkable city. Here you see a Heineken building. I actually didn’t go in.

As many of the European cities we have been to, there is history everywhere you go.

Picture of a government building I think.

Even though everything is in English, we noticed that some different expressions were used. Here ‘take away’ means ‘to go’.

Trinity College is one of the main colleges in Dublin. It has something called ‘the book of kells’

The book of kells is one of the original copies of the gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the Bible) back in the day. Unfortunately they didn’t allow any pictures inside.

Basically they had many of the pages of the book of kells blown up with explanations of the religious symbology and such. At the end of the exhibition area is the actual book itself in a preserved state. Even though the book was a copy of the Gospel (not the original) it had some historical significance as it was a highly seeked treasure which changed hands several times.

Trinity college video

Every college has to have some weird sculptures

Lost baby

Afterwards it started to rain a little bit, and we headed down to search for ‘George’s Street Arcade’. There was a sandwich shop I wanted to try which I found online.

I guess this is the same as so cal except people aren’t spinning the signs.

This was also a place on the targeted to eat list. Such awesome chocolate.

So yummy…

After much searching, we found what we were looking for. One of the joys of traveling to me is actually seeing a place you were researching back at home.

Pesto sandwich review.

Tuna wrap review

Oh so yummy..

As you can tell, food definitely had been a central part of our experience.

Here is a video of george’s street arcade. Arcade doesn’t mean video games here.

Some more extravagant government buildings.

Department of the Taoiseach?

The next destination was to find the Oscar Wilde statue. Oscar Wilde is a famous playright who spent some time in Dublin and who was gay.

Peter ended up asking some old lady for directions. She ended up being SUPER nice and even walked with us a couple of blocks.

Finally found the statue after asking for much advice.

A pretty good impersonation I must say.

Next to some of his famous quotes.

The oscar wilde house which was across the statue.

Gotta take a picture of this.

We ended up walking through some mall.

Leprechaun invasion!

We walked in some gift shop perusing.

I just had too much fun with the statue.

My impersonation.

I may have been a little loopy hehe.

Yes they are!

The next place we went to was Kilmainham Gaol (prison). This was a place where they formerly held political prisoners.

We first got to go through a museum area.

Museum Video

Architectural model of the jail.

They had quite a bit of detail in the photos.

We then had a guided tour take us through the jail.

Forbidden video (videos weren’t allowed to be taken).

The stories of the jail were truly fascinating. This place has a very strong place in Irish history.

Many people got executed at this very one spot.

Contrary to the picture, I am just ‘resting’ my eyes.

They even let us in a jail cell

The view of the inside through a keyhole.

Us in the jail cell

Realizing the jail cell was locked. You would think we would run towards the door but we instead look at the tiny hole in the ceiling area haha.

The ‘thing’

A skyline on the walk back. The walk back had to be 1-2 miles.

More take away hehe.

Fancy trash can.

We were looking for a place to eat, but the restaurant I wanted to go to was way too crowded. Instead we stopped a local and got their suggestion.

Fruity cider.. can’t find this in the states.

Something about asians and peace signs hehe.

I ordered lamb stew.. delliiicious!

Eating is always a comforting time of day because of the relaxing atmosphere and communal bond.

Cheers to water! We were reminiscing on how in Prague we got ripped off.

Happy dan.

Ben and Peter ordered the fish and chips.

Lamb stew review

After dinner we just came back to the hostel and chilled. Rob was chatting it up with these folk here from New Zealand while Peter was talking with some girl from Indiana (?). I ended up going gay clubbing by myself because I wanted to check out the gay scene before I left.

Odd enough, it was dublin gay pride! The gay clubs were packed.

I ended up chatting with some guy who was there from London and got hit on by some old guy in another bar.

He was like ‘bonjour’ and I was like ‘bonjour’ and I was like do you speak French? He said no then I asked, “why did you speak to me in French”. No response from him. Creep.

The next morning we headed out to the airport.

Soccer is HUGE in Europe.

We took Aer Lingus back to Heathro then back to the states.

Oh boy now here is a story for the books. Our flight out of Dublin was delayed, so we were afraid we would miss our connecting flight back home because our layover wasn’t that long. When we arrived in London, we weren’t sure if our plane was boarding so we literally ran to the terminal. It must have taken us about 20 minutes running to get to the other side of the terminal!

Through the flight everyone was waking up pointing outside.

We were passing by some beautiful areas.

Sheet of ice.

Over greenland.

Another plane.

So for the last adventure, Rob’s luggage didn’t make it over on the flight (something happened with the connecting). But at the least he got it two days later.

And alas. the chapter ends.

till next trip..

Fin

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