In Dublin's Fair City...

Every time I go away and it’s a Monday I always smile and take stock of where I am, and where I’m NOT, namely: the office.  Still, for a Monday where I wasn’t going to the office I was up awfully early!  We had to drive the hour and a half to Dublin airport, get the car dropped off and Marnie checked in for her flight back to Rio...naturally! It was a quick goodbye as she had to hurry through the customs line thereby ending our short but sweet reunion tour.  I have to say that there is no one else I would have wanted to spend a few days in Ireland with more than Marnie and I was so pleased that she managed to make it work. 

Once on my own, I found the left-luggage’ area and hopped onto to a city-shuttle bus into Dublin city centre for a few hours of site-seeing before my own flight.  I didn’t have a whole lot of time but I hit a few hot spots.  My first destination was Trinity College.  I was there before to see the Book of Kells and the library and I knew it was worth seeing again. It is fascinating to see the pages of the book explore in such detail. They also had an interesting video on the binding of books. I don't think I ever appreciated what it took to make a book! And then I went up to the long room where I saw thousands and thousands of old books! It was crowded but I managed to ignore a lot of people.  There was an exhibit on 19^th century medicine and I couldn’t get over some of the symptom and cure combinations they came up with.  I wish I had written some of them down – they were ludicrous.  Very creative!

 After a walk down Grafton Street, popping into a few shops here and there and watching buskers, I wandered through St. Stephen's green. I always love finding green space in the concrete jungles that I visit.  I had lunch in a funky, yet strangely empty, bar near St. Stephen’s and then headed back up to stay close to the bus stop where I needed to catch the return shuttle back to the airport.  I had a few spare minutes to head down to Dublin Castle thinking I’d never been and would like to see it.  Once there, though, I was struck with a strange sense of déjà-vu!  I seemed to recall an exhibition on some underground tunnels there but when I wandered through the gates this time, I mostly found parking lots and a small gift shop.  It’s one of those things that I’m quite sure I did but was left scratching my head thinking I was going crazy.  That was part of the fun of this trip!

I had been meaning to get back to Ireland ever since I left it in August, 1996.  I never thought it would be 15 years later.  The country has a special place in my heart and I’m really pleased that I made the time to get over there while living here in Europe.  It would have been a shame to miss it and what a great 5 days it was.