Thine, Ireland is thine

Alright, so this post is about the full day that I had in Ireland.  This was Thursday, June 2, for those of you who might be keeping track (because I'm obviously not).

We woke up in the morning and went down to breakfast around a quarter to eight and we started to finish the plans we'd made the night before.  If you remember, I kind of inadvertently shut those down when I realized that being really really tired made me rather cross and if I didn't want to cross anyone, I would do better to go to sleep.  So we spent some time deciding where to go that morning, and finally settled on the seaside town of Bray that was under an hour's journey away by train (light rails sort of a thing).  We were hoping that we wouldn't miss out on the green hills, but quite honestly, I think that this was the best decision that we made all day.

Bray was beautiful.  There was this magnificent silverly water (the sun hadn't fully risen yet, and there was this awesome mist effect going on) that turned to a beautiful blue as the day wore on.  There were huge rocks on the beach, and packed sand down by the shore with bits of debris swept up all over the place.  And then you stand with your back to the sea and there's the town surrounded by great big green hills.  We walked on this path that took us up into this hill and was on cliff, so one side was beautiful green Irish hill and the other was beautiful water and sand.  It was so perfect and beautiful, I didn't even mind the enormous blister that developed on my heel.

Us girls on the beach!  See the hill in the background?

BEAUTIFUL green hill and the water all in one shot.  (And I know you're excited to get two pictures of me at one location, admit it.)

So we were in Bray for a few hours just hiking and enjoying how beautiful it all was.  Seriously, the best idea ever.  We stopped at some place for lunch (they had a smoothie called Laura's Summer Sunset that had MANGOES in it and I seriously almost got it because it was so fantastic, but I didn't) and got croissant-style sandwiches and made friends with a really small black and white bird that wanted our food.  Anyway, then we headed back to Dublin, because we had some very important things to see.  For example, Oscar Wilde's house, the Book of Kells, Trinity College, the site of the first performance of Handel's Messiah (that was my favorite) and a lovely stroll down Temple Bar.  Oh, and of course . . .

Palm trees!  (I wore a green shirt for Ireland that day too, see?)

Yeah, so background story to the palm trees.  When Lorraine and I were rerouted way back at the beginning of this crazy trip (see like the first post on this blog for full details, or at least partial details) we saw palm trees in L.A.  We started joking about how we were fooling our parents.  They thought we were going to rainy England (which has been surprisingly NOT rainy) but we were really going to run off to a tropical island with palm trees.  So we took a picture next to them, pointing at the palm trees.  Then I go to Ireland and lo and behold on Trinity College there's just a bunch of palm trees sitting there!  Ta da!  Had to take a picture of course!

The Book of Kells was pretty neat, but I really liked the Long Room or whatever it was called that had a bunch of other neat papers and journals and such.  The coolest things in the room (in my personal opinion) was the bones of this giant from way back.  He was like seven feet tall and had an enormous ribcage, so he must have been HUGE!  It was a growth defect or something.  The other really neat thing was this harp that, they say, is the oldest harp found in Ireland.  Harps are really really neat, even if I don't know much about them.  I was kind of upset that I couldn't take a picture of it.  (Honestly, what's up with these places not letting you take pictures of cool things?)

Well, in the midst of our wanderings we stumbled upon the Dublin Shakespeare Festival which was happening that week at Trinity College.  Being the total Shakespeare nuts that we are (I was with three English majors, and then there was me, who obviously loves Shakespeare, and then Molly) we decided that we were going to see Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet!  Note Amy's stylish socks with her shoes.  (Ducks the flying object.  Love you Amy!)

The play was really good, and we were perfectly situated to see both Romeo and Juliet during the tower scenes, unlike the people on the other side of the theater.  I'd never seen Romeo and Juliet live before, so I was really glad that I saw it.  However, we were all freaking exhausted, so I'm afraid that we were rather giddy and spent the entire intermission and a good portion of the second half stifling giggles.  Amy found that in the very nice Elizabethean tights that the men were wearing (yeah.  Not as tight as the ones guys wear for ballet, but still.) Benvolio had a slight on the back of his thigh.  And then there was the glare that Amy threw at Jason when he scoffed at the "womanly tears" Romeo was succumbing to.  Yeah, it was a great play both in the fact that it was awesome Shakespeare and in other entertainment value coming from people who had been walking around all day and gotten very little sleep.

And so ended my first day in Ireland.  It was pretty awesome, and I'd fit in most everything that I had wanted to do in Ireland except for, of course, eating in an Irish pub.  And so stayed tuned for tomorrow folks!