Goodbye Ireland

Yesterday I left Ireland and made the trip over to London, my final city on my trip. I went back to the hostel I stayed at last time I was in Ireland, so that means no pictures until I get home.

Thursday I made the trip up to Dublin for some of the St. Patrick's day festival as I am going to be in London for the actual day. Most of the things to do for the festival start closer to the evening so on Friday morning I took a historical walking tour of Dublin. The guide was really knowledgeable as he was a history graduate from Trinity college. I guess this is what history majors do for a living. He gave a good history of Ireland's struggle for independence and talked a little bit about the violence that has been going on in Northern Ireland in the past few weeks. (Not sure if anyone heard but a group called the RIRA and CIRA both have killed some people in the North.)

I went back to my hostel to write out some postcards and was met by some of my roommates. They are students from Indiana on spring break. They came into my room at about 4 PM all of them drunk. They had come in to sleep it off and then go back out and get black out drunk that night. I was a little upset they didn't extend an invitation to me but I was able to find some other things to keep me busy.

I hiked up to northern area of Dublin Saturday morning to try and see the grave of Michael Collins. I saw that the grave yard was somewhere north but forgot to check the distance. In the end I didn't find it and later found out that the graveyard was a couple kilometers from where I was. I did find a capuchin church on my way though. The alter in the church was designed by Padraig Pearse's father. I thought that was sort of cool.

That afternoon I met up with my friends who were studying in Florence but were on spring break in Ireland. We went over to Christ Church cathedral and saw the mummified cat and mouse. (Jennifer, I agree it's probably not as cool as a heart, but at least you get to see it. Chopin's heart is inside the pillar so you don't get to see anything) We walked by St. Patrick's cathedral but chose not to go in. We had stepped inside and the church seemed to have been made into a giant gift shop. I wasn't looking forward to paying 6,50 € to go into a gift shop. Afterwards we went over to the Guiness storehouse and took a tour through it. There I got the chance to pour a pint of Guiness. For those of you who haven't seen it, there is a special way to pour a Guiness. You don't just fill up the glass. While there Ireland was playing Scotland in rugby so I watched a bit of that. It was a good day as Ireland won 22-15.

That evening there was a ceili so we all went to that. (I believe I gave a rough description of a ceili before so I am not doing it again) It was held at the Ireland Institution which is basically a Irish culture center. When we got in there the people all started talking to us in gaelic. After convincing them we knew no gaelic (although I can say 'what stinks' in gaelic, I refrained from using it here) they told us where to go in english. It was interesting when they would call out the steps for the ceili, they descibed them all i gaelic. Instead of skip one two three, they would just say it in gaelic. Afterwards we went to a few pubs and I introduced the Florence crowd to the wonderful drink of Irish cider. We ended up at O'Sheas, the first pub I went to when I came to Ireland and finished the evening there with some good Irish music, as well as a few Johnny Cash songs thrown in for the Americans.

For Sunday mass we all went to a church Eric and I had come across last time we were in Dublin, St. Kevin. It was a beautiful church but I had failed to see that all the masses here were in latin. That, and they use the pre-vatican II service (with the blessing from the Bishop so it was a legit mass). It was an interesting experience to see how much the service has changed in such a short time. Afterwards I had to collect my stuff to make it to the ferrys to go to Wales and then bus and train to London.

Thats where I am now and I probably won't update this until I get back home. So there is a good chance I will be posting a lot of pictures this Thursday. Until then I will probably be hanging out in the White Chapel area.