Dublin - January 27 and 28

Here are a bunch of photos from Dublin, in reverse chronological order (of when I took the photos during the roughly 20 hours I was there). I know this blog post is pretty late, but things have gotten busy at school (homework, field trips), and I continue to try and hang out with others when I can, so not a lot of time left over for side projects.

Anyway... there were scheduled trips to art museums - some cool stuff, some not as exciting stuff. Everybody from the school also got checked into a hostel. After the scheduled stuff, me and my brother saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College, and walked around for a little bit. Then we met up with some friends, and proceeded to wander around the outer edge of the "city central" area (which is the area that everybody on the trip basically stayed in for the entire time - it's pretty big). It was night time but we were in a group of eight and stayed on well-lit streets. We were actually walking for almost two hours, only stopping in a couple of pubs briefly. Then we finally settled in a pub near our hostel, and enjoyed a couple of drinks while just talking and relaxing.

The next day, me and Dustin walked around for a while trying to find a certain antique shop we had passed by the night before (it was closed then). We asked for directions at several places (we knew the name of the shop), and finally found it. It wasn't that exciting, unfortunately, but the owner was friendly and we chatted briefly. I'm forgetting right now what else we did on the 28th (besides eventually leave for home)...












Just an example of the doors I see sometimes with a knob in the center.


Some police on motorbikes.



Sidewalk artists.



I thought some of the names of shops looked funny, so I took pics.



Parts of Trinity College.




Speedy train that went through the city. Got a little close at times to us pedestrians on the sidewalk (or I guess we got too close to it. :P )


Front of Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Galway

On January 23rd (I think? I can't remember the exact day for some reason), there was a mass trip for students to Galway. Galway is one of the largest cities in the country - not saying a lot compared to big cities in the US I guess, but definitely felt big compared to tiny Ballyvaughan). I can now say I've been in two places that qualify as European "cities" (first was Galway, then after that we made a trip to Dublin - the next blog post should be about that).

What was in Galway?.... let's see... a lot of commercial/consumer-centric stuff, some of it not the most appealing to look at. A lot of people walking around, though, which was nice in a way (the sense of more activity and energy than in a place like Ballyvaughan). There were whole sections of street that were only for pedestrians, and had a lot of shops crammed next to each other. I think I remember seeing, in a video on Galway before we came to Ireland, that there are not a lot of old buildings left in the city (I forgot exactly why - maybe something to do with the British?). The church interior in the photo below - that building was actually only constructed in the 1960s.

Shortly after we arrived, me and Dustin and our friend Ashley (from the school) went wandering. We found a shop where a young woman artist carved jewelry from bone - we all went inside and she showed us the back area where she worked. She had a huge jaw bone from a sperm whale that somebody had given her, just sitting on the floor. The carved jewelry was all neat to look at too.

After that we went briefly to a used book store, then through a shopping mall, where we got some shakes, checked out a book/art supplies store, and stopped for a short time at a comic book store. We then decided to split from Ashley, and me and Dustin went on our own way, walking towards and across the river. I think it was after this that we stopped in a seafood joint and had a small meal. Then we happened to meet up with some friends at a nearby intersection and wandered with them for a short time. We split from them, and went inside the Galway Cathedral, then walked to the University (U of I) campus. There we wandered around, not really looking at anything in particular. It was pretty quiet and deserted, and we later heard there were exams going on. We also saw signs for an anime convention, and eventually found it, but decided not to pay the money to go in.

At the end of the day me and Dustin went to a couple more art supply stores and bought some materials.

That's most of what I can remember of our day in Galway.