March 24-25: Days of Dublin

After the Paddywagon dropped us off and some of us checked in at the Paddy's Palace in Dublin (again, not palacial), some of us went on a quick walking tour of Dublin. We checked out St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Stephen's Green before meeting people back at the hostel for the evening. I got ready quickly and went out with Caragh and Aoife, my friends from Accenture's Core Consultant School.

I went to dinner with the Caragh and Aoife and two of their friends at a Spanish tapas restaurant, then out to 3 lounge-y pubs NOT in the Temple Bar. We had a really good night out, but I was exhausted from the week and had to call it a night after the 3rd pub. I felt like I might be coming down with a cold...

The next morning confirmed that I had definitely come down with a cold. The first few days of the tour had been in VERY cold weather in Northern Ireland, which I was not adequately prepared for, and then after a week without enough sleep and staying in hostels where we were lucky if the sheets had been laundered rather than just straightened on the beds, it wasn't surprising I wasn't feeling well. I was not alone: at least half the people in our group were now feeling under the weather as well.

I took it easy on Sunday and just spend the early afternoon checking out the Book of Kells and the Long Room at Trinity College, both of which were truly amazing. The Book of Kells was written by Irish monks around 800 AD and is a fully illustrated. It is incredible considering the incredibly rudimentary methods used back then to produce a book, something we completely take for granted now. The Long Room is a library that is 300 years old with publications going back 600 years.

I stayed two nights in Paddy's Palace Dublin and by the end of it, was very ready to leave the backpackers hostelling lifestyle behind me. Shelley, Nora and Kristy - how did we manage to live like this for 1.5 months?? One week and I'm through with the dirty showers, some of which switch off after 2 minutes and have no temperature control, through with the bunk beds, through with trying to sleep through freight-train snorers. Whatever accommodations are waiting for me in Woking will seem heavenly!