DUBLINIA

Our super-enthused tour guide (she's a doctor [of history] now)

I just got back from a trip to Ireland! Rachael and I found a cheap flight to Dublin and decided to take a short 3-day trip to Ireland with some of our last days in England. Dublin is a great place. All of Ireland's recent history concerning its independence (except for the IRA's activities in Belfast) seems to center around the city. We took a great walking tour with a recent history graduate of Trinity College (Ireland's best university), and learned a lot about some of the landmarks of the city and the history that goes along with it. She was a pretty intense speaker, but I guess she had to be to impart so much information in such a little time. I think what I learned most is how ignorant I am about a lot of world (particularly Irish) history. I didn't know too much of what she told us, but I guess that's the point, right?

The second day we spent walking around the city and locating the free activities. We began 'Free Day' by visiting the Modern Art Museum, which had a few good exhibits, including one around which we had a tribal dance (Rachael has a video...). Next we checked out the Chester Beatty Library, which is one of the best museums I'd been to in a while. The collection consisted of religious objects from many of the world's religions and also a number of very old books from old civilizations. There were scrolls from Japan, Islamic texts with wonderful coverings, and an ancient Chinese encyclopedia. Very cool place.

After this we headed to Trinity College for an exhibit we read about at its Science Gallery. It was called 'Technothreads' and focused on the budding technologies of textiles and how they are being applied in the fashion industry. There were some very interesting techniques for designing fabric and clothing, such as using 3D printing technology (pretty strange). One of the coolest sections was the 'biological clothing.' Among this display were two garments created from red wine and Guinness beer. They were made by slowly layering films of alcohol on top of each other (like when a film forms in an old bottle of wine). They smelled a little and seemed prone to deteriorate, but our guide assured us the technologies were in the development stage. Another garment on display use fungus to dye fabric instead of traditional dyes which harm the environment.

The aptly named 'Guinness Lake' (for its residents and appearance)

As if all of this wasn't enough, on the third day we took a van tour out to the countryside surrounding Dublin. We witnessed the most beautiful lakes set against gorgeous mountain backdrops that made me want to build a house in the very spot. Our very Irish guide made sure to point out the various locales which were used in a number of films, including Braveheart, Reign of Fire, and...I don't remember what else. We continued to drive through the boglands to a place called Glendalough, which means 'valley of the two lakes.' Here we walked around the ruins of a monastic settlement dating to the 6th century. Later as we walked on a boardwalk surrounding the area we saw two deer feeding on the grass. They stood there watching us and eating for the longest time. It was incredible. We also saw a little slug which reminded me of the 'man-eating' banana slugs which I learned about as a little kid at some state park near Seattle.

Irish Banana Slugs

Irish Deer

So, excluding our monstrous (~7 hour?) journey to and from Ireland, that was our trip. Oh, and we made like 10 PB&J sandwiches during the trip...is that a Guinness World Record?