Let the Adventures Begin!

After a typical airline delay due to weather and plane arriival issues in London, we arrived in Dublin Airport last evening to be met by "Harry".  The airport is only about 30 minutes from the city which is especially nice when one has been traveling 24 hours (well, almost) with no sleep.  I tried the flat bed, the sleep mask sprayed with lavender, white noise (okay, it was really titled "brown noise" on my iPhone), listening to my book, praying the rosary....nothing.

The Westin upgraded our room because of our status with Starwoods.  That time share in Kauai comes in handy sometimes.  Off we were to find a pub and a meal.  So what if they stop serving food at 9pm????   We finally found a James Joyce Award winning pub and had the obligatory fish & chips.  I can check that meal off the list now.  It may be a tradition, but is there anything less healthy?  So I get a Coors Lite to compensate for the calories.  I take one sip and UGH!  I ask, Dom to taste.  Definitely something is wrong.  The waitress brings me another glass; only slightly chemical tasting.  I switch to Heineken.  Okay, maybe I just should have ordered a Guiness to begin with.  Now the bartender comes over and asks what was wrong with the Coors.  He admits that the lines were just cleaned and perhaps that was the problem.  I have since learned that Guinness sends in their own people to clean the lines in all the bars as they trust no one else to perform this task.  Tomorrow I will learn all about Guinness when we visit the factory.

                                            

A night in the Westin "Heavenly Bed" prepared me for today's adventures.  After a lovely buffet with a mix of typical Irish and the usual breakfast food, Dom & I set out.  They say you may experience 4 seasons in one day in Ireland.  Thankfully, we only experienced one:  a cool, sunny but somewhat blustery 55-60 degree day, sort of like early October in NY.

We started in Christ Church the oldest cathedral in Dublin, dating back to the 12th century.  It was extensively restored in the 1870's.

The cathedral choir traces its origins to 1480.  The choir sings every week during term times which I think means when school in session.
Two things excited me most about Christ Church.   The first is that Handel himself conducted the combined choirs of Christ Church & St. Patrick's Cathedral in his "Messiah" in 1742.

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The second is that the Showtime series The Tudors was filmed in several places throughout Dublin, most prominently Christ Church.

Our next stop was St. Patrick's Cathedral which dates from 1220.  It's the National Cathedral of the Church of Ireland, and a member church of the Anglican Communion.  Not knowing if there is much of a difference between Episcopal (Christ Church) and Anglican, I googled it.  Turns out there's not much.  Oh well.
Actually, St. Patrick's has been a bit of a ping pong between the Catholics and the Anglicans; all depending who was reigning throughout the hundreds of years.  St. Patrick, as you all know, is the patron saint of Ireland even though he was born in Britain.  At 16 he was captured by a group of Irish pirates,  enslaved for 6 years but then escaped.  It's a long story.  The shortened version is that while he was on the run, he managed to travel 200 miles.    He found a ship and persuaded the captain to take him back to Britain.  He walked for 28 days, praying to God that he would find sustenance and lo and behold,  about to faint from hunger, he comes across a herd of wild boar.

Hence the floor tiles.

Patrick studies Christianity, returns to Ireland as a missionary and begins baptizing in the river Poddle which flows beneath the city of Dublin.  It sometimes used to overflow.  Today the area is a park adjacent to the Cathedral and there is a marker on the spot where the baptisms took place.  Dom did not photograph this so I cannot prove it to you.  But here's a nice shot of the park.

So back into the Cathedral...Have you heard the saying "Soldiers do not die; they simply fade away"?  Flags are on display in the Cathedral from old Irish regiments of the British Army.  The flags cannot be taken down or restored.   They will hang there forever in memory of those who fought under them.  They are threadbare and some are blackened.  It may be hard to see in this photo but I thought you could get the idea.

  

When the Cathedral needed restoring, the Guinness family stepped in.  Of course, in return they were awarded their own pews which their heirs can sit in, if and when they attend services.  They also snuck a little reminder of their generosity into this stained glass window.

"I was thirsty and ye gave me drink"

Onward to Trinity College which houses the Book of Kells dating back to 800A.D.  These are the four gospel manuscripts written and illuminated by monks on vellum.  The exhibit displays text as well illustrations.  The process of making the vellum from calf skin is displayed and how the colors are created; what the illustrations mean is fascinating.  Two of the four volumes are on display under glass, of course.  They are considered a national treasure by Ireland.

No flash photography was permitted.

Trinity also has the largest collection of manuscripts and printed books in Ireland, numbering almost 3 million volumes.  We visited the Long Room which houses 200,000 of the library's oldest books.  It is such a cool place.  When you enter the room the aroma of all those books just hits you.  You look up and cannot believe the number of books in one room; shelves upon shelves, in two stories.  

At the end of the room is the national symbol of Ireland:  the Harp.  It is the oldest harp known to survive from Ireland.  

The Disney tour guides held a welcoming dinner for us this evening where we met the 18 others on this tour.  It is a total mix of people from all over the states.  One couple, from Sacramento, won the trip on Wheel of Fortune!  

Tomorrow more from Dublin.