The first thing we see after we alight from the bus is an enormous silver spire. By enormous, I mean 400 feet tall. It is known at the Spike, believe it or not; they're very creative in Dublin. We never did find out exactly what it represents or what it commemorates. The next thing we see is a huge advert for Bailey’s. Welcome to Ireland.
Our first day is spent doing the most touristy things: we cross the River Liffey on several different bridges and take pictures of the reflections in the water,
we go to Christ Church Cathedral and marvel at the beauty of the reconstructed stonework,
we get pulled into a Catholic church by a small but enthusiastic old woman and see a relic of St Andrew, we tour the Guinness Storehouse Museum and learn how the famous beer is made. 
In the evening, after dinner (I enjoyed my ‘traditional Irish pancake with vegetables’, i.e. burrito), we went to a pub that was recommended to us as a great place to hear traditional music. And incredible traditional music it had, as well as hordes of German tourists and wildly overpriced drinks. Typical.
Our second day was organized around our desire to see more of the city besides the touristy centre. We chose to walk to the sea; little did we know that this was much farther away than it looked on the tourist maps. Finally, though, we found ourselves faced with a huge expanse of smooth sand stretching as far as the eye can see, flanked by wooded hills (one topped by an old lighthouse) on either side. Tide was out. But we smelled the sea breeze, felt the sand, and marveled at the wide expanse of space we had discovered. This also called for a near-insane amount of pictures taken to document just how glad we were to be in Ireland.
Next stop, Dublin Castle. There is a statue of Justice in the courtyard - not blindfolded, as she is usually depicted, and with her back turned to the city. Was the sculptor confused? I think not. The castle itself is fairly uninteresting, but off to one side is a hidden treasure trove...literally. It's called the Chester Beatty Library, and it houses a massive collection of old books, bookmaking supplies, Eastern artwork, and religious memorabilia from around the world: Japanese picture-scrolls, illuminated medieval books, examples of different types of Arabic calligraphy, bindings from the Middle East,
recently discovered pages of Manichean prayers, fragments of copies of the Gospels from AD 200, 
Buddhist paintings, 
incredibly gorgeous illuminated copies of the Qu'ran, 
and much much more. So much care is put into these books, into making the written word a work of visual art! Made me think of this: Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? - Oscar Wilde
We went out for a Polish dinner afterwards...we had no idea what we were eating, but it was delicious anyway. Little silver fish in green oil? Yum. Cabbage and beans in a brown sauce? Perfect. Fried doughy balls with meat and vegetable mush at their centres? Just what I was looking for. Our meal was supplemented by Polish MTV and fake flowers in neon-coloured plastic vases. It was wonderful.
The following day, we saw more books. Oh how I love travelling with literary people. We walked around the campus of Trinity College in the rain,
then ducked inside the exhibit that houses the Book of Kells. Once again, I was completely awed. The exhibit described how illuminated manuscripts were made (such as how certain colours of paints were made, how the pages were sewn together, how many artists worked on each book, etc), and described a lot of the imagery in the illuminations. Then we saw the book itself - and it is so brilliant! The colors almost jump off the page, the detail is exquisite. The book itself is so large, I can't imagine how much work it took to create. Behind the museum is the college's old library - two levels, long vaulted room, full of old musty books. Heaven. Last stop on this literary tour was the Dublin Writers' Museum, which took us through the literary history of the city. An impressive list of authors called Dublin home - think James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats, Bram Stoker, Samuel Beckett, and Jonathan Swift, to name just a few.
Then it was time for a long walk through new portions of the city, a quick dinner, and the bus to the airport. Flight back to London Luton airport - night spent eating chocolate-covered peanuts, playing cards, and trying to sleep on the airport floor beneath a money exchange - groggy check-in at the flight desk - a quick nap at the gate - and we're off to Prague!
No comments:
Post a Comment