Dublin Part One!

Dublin! Finally :)
So Friday morning we roused out of bed at an early hour to board our bus to Dublin! About 3 hours later we arrive, and hit the ground running. Dublin's a big city to see in two and a half days! First we went to Dublin Castle, a beautiful old Georgian building with a lot of history, most of which we got courtesy of Tom our walking encyclopedia. If Tom doesn't know it, he makes it up, if he can't make it up, it probably doesn't exist. Tom is probably the most informative tour guide you will ever have, ever. After Dublin Castle we headed out to find lunch! A group of 26 very hungry college students soon descended on three unassuming cafes. Afterward we headed over to the Irish National Archeology Museum. A huge museum with a lot of great exhibits on everything from early Irish life to the Vikings and ancient Egypt. It was really well done. Not only were the exhibits interesting, but the building itself was gorgeous. It had huge detailed doorways, with ornate carvings and rich blue and gold painting around them. There was marble everywhere, I saw a lot of green marble which I'm assuming is Connemara Marble. After the museum, we walked next door to Parliament! Where we got to tour around the building see where Parliament is held now, where it used to be held, and some history of the place and the people who had been there, including JFK. Again, until you think about it, walking the same halls as JFK... After the tour we headed back to the hotel to unpack, officially check in, and nap before heading out for the evening. I had dinner at a cute little Bistro near our hotel, and the food was amazing. We then began our wander around Dublin, until we finally ended up in O'Donoghue's where we caught the end of the Rugby match on TV. After hanging around there for a bit we called it a night, and headed back to get some much needed sleep for the next day.
Day 2 (Saturday)
Up early and headed out we walked over to Christchurch Cathedral, a ginormous church with some very neat/creepy crypts. After that we headed over to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells, unfortunately I didn't get to take any pictures at the Book of Kells! But it was amazing. The book is incredibly detailed and I was impressed with how well it had been preserved. Upstairs from the Book of Kells was "The Long Room" a huge library filled with tons of old books on who knows what! But it was awesome - think the library from "Beauty and the Beast". I found this picture of the Long Room online.
After the Book of Kells, we headed over to the GPO (General Post Office) the main site of the Easter Rising of 1916. We had been hearing about these places in history class, and here in our Seminar, but to finally get there and see it was pretty cool. Made you feel pretty small. I think sometimes I forget just how big the world is. After seeing the GPO we all split up for the day in our own groups and headed out to tour Dublin ourselves. I decided to walk around explore Dublin. We tooled around Henry Street, grabbed some lunch and headed over to St. Stephen's Green. It was a beautiful park complete with swans in a lake! Then we marched all the way down to the Mercy International Center on Baggot Street - where the Sister's of Mercy first started.
That evening we headed out for round two of Dublin nightlife. After dinner at a Chinese place - I know I know... Chinese in Ireland - We got our group together and made our way over to Pravda, a Russian themed Bar just across the River from Temple Bar. It was a very laid back bar, with great music, any DJ who starts the night off with MGMT and rocks out to Arcade Fire and Passion Pit is a-okay by me! After that we headed back, for the night, we had a long day ahead of us on Sunday!