Twenty.Eleven

Day 11

On our last full day in Ireland, Ashley and I did what we (well, at least me) do best: Sleep in. It's amazing how just walking about exhausts you and that's pretty much all we've been doing. So, after we woke, we put on our tourist shoes and made our way to the Guinness Storehouse, the home of the famous "Black Stuff." The building is set up on 5 different levels, each displaying different steps of the brewing process. At the very top of the building, you finish your tour with s free piont and an amazing view of Dublin. We then left to see Saint Patrick's cathedral, the final resting place of Jonathan Swift. The church was magnificent, but touristy. The gift shop(!) was actually at the back of the church(!!) right as you enter. It was here that I realized that I prefer the Southern Fascade( inside) to the alter in most Cathedrals. The alters are usually boring or overyly ornate while the fascades always have the best stained glass or carvings. The last place we wanted to see was the library at Trinity College, where the Book of Kells is housed. This is a collection of the Gospels transcribed by monks in Latin and are the oldest books in IReland. The Long Room is teh main library with over 200,000 books. The first thing that struck both ash and I about was that none of these books were being read ro enjoyed like they were meant to. Of course, you can't let the public run rampant through the library, but I wish there were some way to use these books for their original purpose. Or at least let me be allowed to read them:)

We headed back to our hotel room with a walk through the Temple Bar area, where ther is not much to see, but it has a neat feeling to it. And of course we were met with a huge Irish rain. Just enough to soak my jeans.

Dublin is a nice city, full of history and outrageously old.~