The Completion of Dublin
Oct 14, Dublin
Long days. That's really the life you have to embrace as a traveler. Getting up at the movement of others as the sun rises, traffic roars to life, construction crews begin thier battering of the road. Finding your way through the cobweb of your head as you blunder through your travel bag and sort out your compacted life before you head out into the whirlwind of the day. Wandering strange cities without quality knowledge of where you are going, not knowing where your next meal will be, or perhaps even where you will bed down for the night. Planning day trips, managing long-term trips, figuring finances. Then finding your way to the evening meal and to bed, or whatever repose you enjoy.
And then, repeat. And again. And again.
Today finds me on a bus for the southwest. I have a town in mind, but what you plan doesn't always work the way you think it should, or in fact will.
The remainder of Dublin was spent wandering through any part I hadn't seen in the first few days. Visiting places like the Garden of Remembrance, Dublin Castle, St Werburgh, a corner bar that my friend and I exited quickly after a run in with a too-friendly local, St. Stephen's Green, the National History Museum (which sorely needs to update its displays - most of them are animals that were taxidermied in the 1890's).
The National Art Museum was especially wonderful. Huge, as museum's tend to be, and rather unmapped, which is a key hobby of the Irish - not mapping anything properly, it took awhile to get around, but once the Magellan instinct cut in, all was grand. We found paintings by the likes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Poussin, Titian (way over-rated), and Paninni, who in addition to epic paintings appartently made a fine grilled sandwich.
Of course no trip to Dublin can be complete without checking out Trinity College and the Book of Kells. No artistic expression has ever impressed me more than it. The absolutely laborous detail that went into each page is astounding. I tried to take a picture, but security I found is quite against that, but to thier credit they were extremely potite about it.
And then there was Rathmines. A place I was told of thousands of miles away, a place people in Dublin seemed not to know, a place that was literally off the published maps of Dublin. Mythical Rathmines. It took an hour to walk to where we finally found a person who knew what we sought and helped narrow our search. And as was told before, so it was true. Rathmines was exactly how good old Mick Carmody said it was going to be. Brad is witness.
Speaking of, it was an unfortunate moment when Brad had to catch a plane, but such is the way of the road. I am sure we shall adventure again.
And so, after another day of loping around Dublin, I decided to slip my cable and get outta dodge. I may have stayed longer, but my hostel was too overrun with hygene-challenged Poles to bear the idea of another night.
Long days. That's really the life you have to embrace as a traveler. Getting up at the movement of others as the sun rises, traffic roars to life, construction crews begin thier battering of the road. Finding your way through the cobweb of your head as you blunder through your travel bag and sort out your compacted life before you head out into the whirlwind of the day. Wandering strange cities without quality knowledge of where you are going, not knowing where your next meal will be, or perhaps even where you will bed down for the night. Planning day trips, managing long-term trips, figuring finances. Then finding your way to the evening meal and to bed, or whatever repose you enjoy.
And then, repeat. And again. And again.
Today finds me on a bus for the southwest. I have a town in mind, but what you plan doesn't always work the way you think it should, or in fact will.
The remainder of Dublin was spent wandering through any part I hadn't seen in the first few days. Visiting places like the Garden of Remembrance, Dublin Castle, St Werburgh, a corner bar that my friend and I exited quickly after a run in with a too-friendly local, St. Stephen's Green, the National History Museum (which sorely needs to update its displays - most of them are animals that were taxidermied in the 1890's).
The National Art Museum was especially wonderful. Huge, as museum's tend to be, and rather unmapped, which is a key hobby of the Irish - not mapping anything properly, it took awhile to get around, but once the Magellan instinct cut in, all was grand. We found paintings by the likes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Poussin, Titian (way over-rated), and Paninni, who in addition to epic paintings appartently made a fine grilled sandwich.
Of course no trip to Dublin can be complete without checking out Trinity College and the Book of Kells. No artistic expression has ever impressed me more than it. The absolutely laborous detail that went into each page is astounding. I tried to take a picture, but security I found is quite against that, but to thier credit they were extremely potite about it.
And then there was Rathmines. A place I was told of thousands of miles away, a place people in Dublin seemed not to know, a place that was literally off the published maps of Dublin. Mythical Rathmines. It took an hour to walk to where we finally found a person who knew what we sought and helped narrow our search. And as was told before, so it was true. Rathmines was exactly how good old Mick Carmody said it was going to be. Brad is witness.
Speaking of, it was an unfortunate moment when Brad had to catch a plane, but such is the way of the road. I am sure we shall adventure again.
And so, after another day of loping around Dublin, I decided to slip my cable and get outta dodge. I may have stayed longer, but my hostel was too overrun with hygene-challenged Poles to bear the idea of another night.
posted by Caleb Jordan Schulz @ 12:39 PM
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