The Sun will come out... Today!

Today was the Dublin Tour. We drove by all of Dublin's main tourist attractions while riding in this.... 

Not the best picture, but you get the gist... 

Ok, so we didn't actually ride on the Viking Splash tour boat. But really, who wouldn't want to put on Viking Helmet and tour Dublin?.... 


Our vessel for the morning was a little less flashy... A giant green double decker bus. I figured if that didn't scream tourist enough, I wouldn't leave any doubt... The Irish tend to wear mostly neutrals, so when I showed up looking like big bird, camera in hand, I was only a fanny pack away from tourist of the year. 

Big bird complete with tired eyes and a giant flower hat.

Even though the tour was Freezing, it gave us a good idea of where things were. The hour and an half drive passed the Guinness Factory, Temple Bar, Trinity College, Dublin Castle, The Four Courts, and a ton of places in between. 

After the tour we had the rest of the day to explore Dublin. The nice thing about the bus tour, we could get on and off the bus whenever we wanted. We decided to check out Trinity College after a quick lunch. We stopped at a pub (the name I don't remember) and had a chicken and stuffing sandwich (super popular here, tastes like Thanksgiving on bread). Some people got Guinness pie, but I wasn't feeling that adventurous. 

 ** If I hadn't mentioned yet, the weather up to this point was complete rubbish. It poured the first 2 days and day 3 hadn't been looking too promising. When Irish people say the weather is piss... then it really must be bad... When we walked out of the pub the sun finally came out! I knew Irish weather was fickle, but I could not have been more thrilled to see the sun.

No hamming on this one. This was pure joy.

Anywayyy... Trinity College = Gorgeous. 

The Dublin Shakespeare Festival was going on so there was a huge (private) stage set up in the middle of campus. We didn't want to pay to walk into the middle of a show, so we kept exploring the campus. Every building we passed by made me increasingly jealous of every student that attends Trinity. 

Luckily we skipped Shakespeare because we got to The Old Library just before close so we had just enough time to make our way through, but not enough time to be charged full price! We got to Book of Kells and The Long Room. It blew my mind to think about just how much history was in one place. Both were absolutely beautiful. 

The Long Room.... It said no cameras, but Jorie snapped this on her phone.  Saved by a technicality? Probably not. Either way, this library was beautiful. 

After the long day around the city we decided to explore our very own street! 

Today was a day of getting to know Dublin and some other IES students better. Tomorrow is the Ireland's first Eurocup 2012 game against Croatia. We were told they may a shot a winning it... but we shouldn't get our hopes up. I guess we'll have to wait and see!


Until tomrrow... 


Cheers, 
     Becca :)