To our delighted surprise, the weather was sunny and appeared to be perfect this morning. Because we had opted against the day trip, we were left to explore more of Dublin. We packed up and headed off to visit Europe's largest city park, Phoenix Park. Nearly 10 minutes after we left our hostel, it started to rain. When it began to rain, we were nowhere near the park (and, honestly who wants to spend time in a park when it is raining?). We wandered around, trying to find a spot with internet access until hunger took over; we then decided to find anyplace open to grab some food and discuss some still-unfinished portions of our trip. It took us quite a while to find a place that was within our budget and that was open, but we ended up in a small part of town called Temple Bar, and ate at Gallagher's Boxty House which served Traditional Irish Food. We both had hearty breakfasts that left us feeling full for much of the day. Erin had the traditional, while James had the "Bap" - which was the original, sausage, bacon and egg, with the addition of a hamburger bun and some "Irish salsa" - diced tomatoes and onion.
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| A traditional Irish breakfast with toasted bap (a type of bread). |
Once the rain stopped and the sun began to shine (about an hour or so later), we decided to head over to the park. On a "gear" note, James would like to add that despite the rain, his NorthFace pants really did dry quickly, and his Victorinox raincoat performed admirably well. Erin emerged unscathed, although it is clear at this point that her flip-flops are suffering from a severe lack of traction.
It was a surprisingly long walk to the park - we think the scale on the free tourist map we were using may have been a little off. But, we finally arrived and it was worth our meandering walk through random and, at times, somewhat sketchy parts of Dublin. We did get to see the whole of Dublin's legal and court community ont the way, something James took particular notice of.
Phoenix Park was lovely, filled with dew-strewn, well manicured lawns, sprayed with colorful flowers - yet surprisingly vacant of parkgoers. Once we entered the park, we sat and rested for a few minutes before wandering the park. Despite the fact that we followed what seemed to be the only main road, and our efforts to follow the paths marked on our now obviously "not-to-scale" city map, we soon realized that our planned route out of the park was simply unavailable. After at least an hour in the same unending direction, we decided to backtrack. We knew we could at least find our way out by going the same way we came in.
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| Inside Phoenix Park...before we got lost. :) |
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| The Wellington Monument, commemorating the Duke of Wellington's victory over Napoleon |
After finding our way out of the park, we headed back down the light rail tracks, and found ourselves at the National Museum of Ireland, on our way back into the city center. The museum entrance was free, which gave us added incentive to pound our now-weary feet further and take in the exhibits. The museum is housed in the the former Collins Barracks, and we spent our time in the an exhibit focusing exclusively on the Irish military. We had fun wandering through the museum and taking pictures (even though we weren't supposed to!).
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| The barracks actually housed the museum itself, which was quite unique. |
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| Erin posing with a member of the Irish military. |
After our unintentional park marathon and unscheduled museum visit, we were both quite tired and hungry. We headed back to the hostel and met our new roommates for the evening, a couple from the Czech Republic. Because we did not want to bother them as they settled into the room, we stayed in the movie room of the hostel and took turns using the computer for work purposes and leisure (i.e. blog updating).
Tomorrow we will be heading to Northern Ireland to stay in Belfast for 2 days. We will be staying with a friend of Erin's who lives there, so we will learn more about how the Irish locals live. James also hopes to find some way to watch Michigan's football team play Notre Dame - here's hoping the internet provides a way.