Ireland Day 8: the Last of Dublin

Saturday was Kevin's last day at his conference, and our last day in Dublin. Since Kevin again had to head out early, it was my job to go pick up the laundry, pack up the suitcases, and check out of the hotel. (Why does this always take longer than you think it will?) I left the bags at the front desk, and headed out for my last chance to see Dublin stuff.

I still had a fairly long list of things I was interested in seeing (since I missed some time when I was sick), so I had to pick and choose what was most important to me. I decided on the National Gallery (oh how I love art museums!) They have a pretty decent collection (the highlight being the Taking of Christ by Caravaggio) although not as great as some I've been to. I nevertheless managed to wander around gawking for 3 hours before it dawned on me that I was going to be late to meet up with Kevin.

I hurried out and called Kevin and we planned to meet in the middle instead of at his conference building. Unfortunately, we didn't quite understand each other and each went to different places, but eventually we met up. This only left us with about 1/2 an hour to see the National Museum of Ireland, which was such a shame because they have LOTS of really neat artifacts there (HERE were my Viking artifacts I was looking for at Dublinia!) They had lots of prehistoric artifacts (including the stuff they found inside Newgrange and Knowth--remember those burial mounds I talked about earlier?) and medieval artifacts (including some amazing well-preserved clothes that had been found in a peat bog, where the acidity had prevented them from decaying), and lots and lots of gold and other treasures. The staff had to kick us out when the museum closed.

Next on our list was to visit St. Patrick's cathedral, which was a fair distance away. I had planned to take a bus, but as we tried to board I learned that my 3-day pass had just expired (like 30 minutes ago or something)--drat! So, we walked. It took about 40 minutes. St. Patrick's was originally built *outside* Dublin, although obviously the city has expanded since then. It is built at the site where St. Patrick baptized a number of pagan converts at a well (a stone from the well is on display inside the cathedral, along with a statue of St. Patrick.)

Another interesting thing about St. Patrick's is that Jonathon Swift was dean of the cathedral for about 30 years in the 1700s. He is buried beneath the floor of the cathedral.

We then had to embark on the long walk back to the center of town, where we caught a quick dinner (at Subway--I know, not exactly very Irish) and booked on over to the hotel where we picked up the luggage and caught the bus back to the airport. We took a late flight on Ryanair to the other side of Ireland, where the next leg of our adventure would begin. [Sidenote: have yhou guys heard of Ryanair? They are a European airline, the dirt cheapest of the cheap. Our tickets cost like $10 each (base fare) but then they slap on all the fees--a fee for checking luggage (which, by the way, had very tight weight restrictions even if you paid the fee), a fee for using a credit card, a fee for checking in at the airport (even though as non-EU passport holders, we weren't allowed to check in online)...the list goes on and on. Ryanair recently announced they were considering charging passengers to use the BATHROOM. And it wasn't a joke. They don't offer drinks, snacks, magazines, trays on the seats, or even seat pockets. But, even with all those fees, our tickets were way WAY cheaper than any airline in the US. So, I can't actually complain that much.] The flight went quite smoothly actually, as did the rental car pickup (a MUCH friendlier staff this time), which I was grateful for because we were arriving late (10:30 I think) at a tiny little airport and I was paranoid that no one would actually be at the rental car desk. We hopped in the car (which looked exactly like the last one--another Nissan Micra) and drove about half an hour to our little bed and breakfast, where we'd be staying the next three nights. We had a small amount of difficulty navigating there, but nothing too terrible. I'll tell you more about the B&B later. All we really cared about on Saturday was that we *made* it! Our friendly host was even waiting up for us.