Thursday morning we left early to begin our excursion to Dublin! We left PLH at 8am and got to our first stop of Clonmacnoise around 11am. Clonmacnoise is a huge, old monastery that was founded in the 6th century. It was founded by Saint Ciaran and was able to flourish because it was on the Shannon River. It was a great place to explore around, with several churches, high crosses, and cemeteries. There is a visitors center there and they actually had to move the three main high crosses inside because acid rain has been eroding them. So in their original places they have copies of the crosses so you can get the general idea of what the place looked like. The actually crosses themselves still look pretty well and are awesome to see. A reason that I loved visiting this place was because we had learned about it in my archeology class. My professor is really good at describing cool places for us to go at our destinations. Our class before our excursion she listed several places to go see in Dublin while we were there. Then, during our free day on Saturday, we were able to know what places were interesting to us. Anyway. We left Clonmacnoise and continued on to Dublin. Our bus driver for this trip was awesome! He has worked with our program for a couple of years and is actually a National Tour Guide of Ireland...so he knows his stuff. So when we actually got into the city of Dublin he quick gave us a tour of the city. He pointed out places that we would probably want to go so that we could find them easily. And parents, he also told us the places to stay away from, so no worries. Then he said, "I'm not your dad, but just don't go there." The first thing that we toured was the huge park in Dublin--I'm spacing on the name of it, sorry. Apparently it is the largest enclosed park in the world--over 7 miles of wall. Think of it as a bigger version of Central Park in NY. On our drive through it we passed the house of the President of Ireland and also the house of our US Ambassador. Then we stopped at the place where Pope John Paul II visited and had gathered over a million people. He visited Ireland 30 years ago and this was one of his stops on the tour. A huge cross was built for the ceremony and still stands there today. Check out my picture of it on facebook. Anyway, in front of the cross (or behind it, however you look at it) is just a huge open space of grass. We all stood there and imagined literally a million people standing there and cheering. Anyway, after we were done here we were dropped off at our hostel and had the night free.
Friday morning we got up early and headed out to see the Newgrange passage tomb. First of all, this tomb is huge! Second of all, it was built around 5,000 years ago, making it older than the pyramids in Egypt...no big deal. The white rocks on the outside were actually carried from the ocean in order to be used in the building. And although it is a huge structure, there were only about 3 people buried there. Must have been pretty important people.. Also, it makes me feel pretty lazy with my life. The fact that this structure is still standing and being admired 5,000 years later is amazing. Another amazing thing about it is that the passage is perfectly lined up with the earth so that on the Winter Solstice, the sun's rays come straight through the passage and light up the tomb within. This occurs when the sun is first rising for the day. I guess that this was supposed to signify the end of the shortest day of the year and the beginning of more light. Basically, these people were very optimistic and ritualistic. You can put your name in a lottery to be chosen to come and witness this feat on the Winter Solstice every year. Apparently last year's lottery had around 33,000 names in it. So it is a huge deal. When you are actually in the tomb they shut off all the lights and then simulate the light coming in by using a flashlight. Needless to say, it was pretty cool. This is another sight that I learned about in archeology and thus I was even more excited for.
After we left Newgrange, we made a brief stop at the Hill of Tara. This was an ancient city place in Ireland that consists of several hills. Gaelic Kings would meet here and have important meetings/celebrations. It was the political and spiritual capital at the time of the Celts. And you know what, it was actually raining when we went there! *side note--we have still had gorgeous weather here in Ireland. It has only actually rained a couple of times, other than that it will just mist a little bit and then be over or be partly cloudy* We didn't stay very long because of the rain, but of what I did see...there wasn't that much to see. It's more of a feeling of being at a place that was this significant during this time period. We headed back to the actually city of Dublin and had some more free time. The bus driver dropped some of us off at an art gallery, some at the hostel, and some at the Guinness factory for a tour. I chose to go on the Guinness tour. It was cool to see everything in there...I definitely felt like I was in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As you go through you keep moving up to higher floors of the building and you end up at the "Gravity Bar" at the very top that has glass windows all around and that give an amazing view of the city of Dublin. At the very top everyone who takes the tour, if they are of age, gets a free pint of Guinness. We all got ours and just hung out at the top enjoying the view.
On Saturday we were given a free day to do whatever we wanted in Dublin. Some of us started at the Book of Kells at Trinity College. For those of you who are familiar with the St. John's Bible at my school, think of the Book of Kells as a much older and cooler version of that. It was a book made in the 9th century at a monastery and contains the four gospels. If you want to know more about it, just Google it. So after we saw this we decided to go to the National Museum of Archeology. There they had a "bog body" display. Bogs are found all over Ireland and have a special acidity level. Basically, it is really good and preserving things. So, when they found bodies that were dumped in bogs, they bodies were pretty preserved. It was like finding a mummy. So there were about 4 or 5 of these bodies on display at the museum. It was really cool because they gave a description of how they died and what their life must have been like from what they found. Again, just google it for more information. We took a break for lunch and then took a tour of Dublin Castle. Later that night we all got dressed up and went to a play. It was...interesting. I'll leave it at that.
Sunday morning our only stop before coming home was at Kilmainham Gaol (Jail). Again, Google it because this post is very long and I've run out of energy..haha. But it was really cool to see and I guess has been used for a music video for U2. The reason it is so important is because the leaders of the revolution were executed here in 1916. After our visit here we came back to the cottages and unpacked and got our lives back in order. I love going on excursions, but it is also nice to come back to something familiar. Then I had two big nights of homework Sunday and Monday night.
Sorry this post was so long and so overdue. I leave on Friday to go on my ten day break trip. I'm going to London for 4 nights, taking the train to Paris, and staying there for 3 nights. I probably won't blog about that until I get back so I'm sure that will be another series of long posts when I get back.
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