Baile Átha Cliath

translation: Dublin. Yes, this weekend I finally had a weekend in Dublin and in the Irish spirit I've decided to incorporate some Irish into my post. It was so nice not traveling anywhere this weekend, catching up on sleep, and finally getting to know the city center (sort of). This week in class I finally am starting to get some homework, I guess I can't spend my entire time here being lazy and having fun. I also am finally starting to feel a bit more confident with my Irish language class and that's pretty exciting.

Recently we've started learning blessings and curses which are a very important part of the Irish language. I think the curses are pretty funny and my favorite one is:

Go gcuire sé sconna ort! - that it may give you diarrhea

We'll start the weekend on Friday. I woke up rather late and took the LUAS to the IES Center where I met the IES advisors to go to a health center and play squash and badminton for a few hours. I had such a great time!!! I didn't realize how much I missed playing racquetball until I stepped onto the squash court. It was also nice to get to know our staff because they are so nice and it's always nice to talk to some Irish people. After we played badminton intensely for about an hour the staff treated us to a pint at a traditional pub called Corrigan's. I of course got a Bulmers and just had a great time talking to the staff about our Belfast trip which is happening in two weeks. Later that night I just went to the city center with some friends and hung out around the Temple Bar area.

póg mo thóin- kiss my ass (this one is pretty touristy, so not many Irish speakers say it)

Saturday I decided to go down to the city center again with Maura and we stopped at the National Museum which is right by Trinity College. The Museum had exhibits from Prehistoric Ireland, Medieval Ireland, Egypt, Viking Ireland, and much more. My favorite part about the museum was the bog body exhibit. It was so creepy, but super interesting. Basically they have about 4 bodies that have been preserved for thousands of years in the bogs of Ireland. One body was complete and the others are just parts like a torso. Here is a picture of the head on one which still had it's hair- i couldn't believe how well they were preserved! After the National Museum we headed over to the National Gallery which had so much art! We looked around for about an hour and a half and still didn't make it through the gallery, but I could only take about that much art. The best part of the gallery was recognizing art from our Art History Class slides.

Go mbeirimid beo ar an am seo arís! - may we all be here this time next year

Moving on from the gallery we wandered in a semi lost state and ran into Marrion Square, which is basically miniature St. Stephen's Green. The weather was brisk, but clear so we decided to eat lunch in the grass and relax there for a while. The best part about the part were the kids playing, people walking, and the overall lively attitude. There were also flowers blooming which makes me so excited for the spring! After finishing lunch we walked to Number Twenty Nine, a historical house from the 1700's. Basically they refurbished the house and made it like it would have been in the late 1700's. We got a personal tour from a tiny, elderly, Irish man who was adorable. The house was 5 stories high and pretty narrow. I couldn't believe how beautiful the house was and it was really worth the stop. It's hard to imagine how different Dublin was in those times, but this house was on the outskirts of Dubiln in it's day and now it's in the middle of the city center. After this tour we were pretty tired and was extremely sore from my badminton and squash- which was unbelievable...I guess I'm really out of shape, so we headed back to Dundrum and spent the night in the apartment relaxing.

Do chleamhnas féin agat! -may you choose your own spouse.

Sunday arrived and I woke up early to go to church. I decided to attend mass at Christ Church Cathedral in Southwest Dublin (by Dublin Castle). The church was beautiful and the service was surprisingly similar to home. The only real difference was a decent choir and a really friendly atmosphere for such a big cathedral. After mass we were invited down to the crypt for coffee and tea which was an interesting experience.

The members of the church were really friendly and one man talked to us for about 30 minutes about Northern Ireland and Belfast. He encouraged us to come back for concerts they have during the week and mass on Sunday and I think I'll definitely go again just for the experience when I'm in Dublin on the weekends. Another tiny pretentious English man came up to us and insisted we come back for a mass when the actual cathedral choir was singing, because he claimed the music was 'dreadful and painful' that mass. I hadn't found it that bad, but I guess he expects 'musical and liturgical perfection in a cathedral setting.' That guy seriously cracked us up because he was so critical of everything and wasn't afraid to talk shit about the choir director in front of everyone.

After we were done in the crypt...we headed over to Dublin Castle, but it was closed for tours. So I decided to go to Chester Beatty Library which is now a museum/gallery. I saw a pretty impressive collection of Japanese art called One Hundred Aspects of the Moon. It was 100 paintings of mythical stories important to Japanese culture and they were from the late 1800's. The museum also had a very extensive exhibit on world religion so overall I had a very religious day.

Go raibh maith agat agus slan! (thanks and goodbye)