City Centre, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
I have a few things that I want to post. I’m looking for a cafe that will let me dock my laptop to their network. Hope to find one very soon.
I became pretty buggy over the last couple of days. The fact that I couldn’t get the cottage heated to over 60 degrees, plus the last three or four days of rain, plus the exposure to mold and mildew…well, it took its toll. I’ve been fighting of a bit of a bug due to all the changes.
When I couldn’t get warm yesterday (and when I plugged in the TV only to realize that it recieves 2 channels – one of them Gaelic cartoons for toddlers…), I realized that it was time to move on.
I stayed at a hostile last night in Sligo. I arrived in Dublin a couple of hours ago. I took a room at the Morgan Hotel, which should be a lot nicer for what I’m paying. At least its a couple of blocks from Trinity College.
I just left the Book of Kells exhibit. Beautiful. I wish I could have taken pictures to post to all of you. Unfortunately, the vellum and inks the manuscripts are made out of are extremely sensitive to light. A photo flash could take a few years out of it. Pretty heavily guarded to.
I just wanted to touch the pages, feeling the texture of the inks and scratches. I wanted to smell the 1200 year-old bindings. So much is missed in a book behind glass.
Which leads me to the Great Library at Trinity. 70 feet long and two stories high, it houses the college’s oldest books. All behind ropes. What horrible denial! If they allowed us to peruse freely, I don’t think I would ever leave Dublin.
Except for the traffic. This city is massive! And saturated with people and cars. It took 3 1/2 hrs. to arrive here from Sligo (only 135 miles, though!) and over an hour just to find the hotel. Talk about frustrating!
Thankfully, there are thousands of different places I can eat with just as many different types of foods. Too bad I’ll only be here until tomorrow.
I’m pretty certain that I’m off to Waterford tomorrow, then to Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Galway. Then up to Sligo and back to the Glen for SCUBA diving. I think I should be back north by Monday at the latest. Whirlwind tour.
There’s a “friendly” match between Ireland and the US soccer (football) teams tonight in about 2 hours. I need to go find a good pub to watch it. Should be fun. Not sure who to root for, though. When in Rome….
Take care. I hope that everyone is well. I expect to have some good stuff posted very soon.
Till then-
a roamin’ I will go….
-a