THE LATEST

On Thursdays I have my History, Politics, and Artistic Expression in Ireland class (long title) with professor Tommy Graham. He's really cool and it's a cool class, so far we've mostly gone on walking tours/field trips around Dublin while he lectures simultaneously. This past Thursday we went to the Irish National Gallery (I'm not sure that's the right name, basically it was a fine arts museum) and the Museum of Natural History. The fine arts museum was okay, pretty small in comparison to most museums I've been to in the States, but they had some cool stuff by modern/recent artists. The Museum of Natural History was basically like the taxidermy section of Tom's Tropicals. Our professor said it hadn't been changed since 1916, and mostly it consisted of just stuffed dead animals. And not even ones that had been killed and stuffed for scientific purposes or to be put in a museum; animals that were like taken from people's homes and whatnot. They were poorly done in a lot of cases, and the bullet holes were visible. Rather disturbing. The cases were all dusty and they weren't arranged in any particular way except like species, and I don't think they were really even labeled with information besides the name. The bummer was we weren't supposed to take pictures in there, but if I go back (it's free anyway) I probably will because it was so bizarre.

Right now I am sitting at the bottom of the stairwell of my apartment building because I can't get on the wireless in the building. I have to sit right by the door to pick up the office wireless signal, and it's rather cold and the floor is stone and hard. The internet situation here is so crappy. Ughhhh...

Lots of photos

Today after class, some classmates and I had lunch at Castle & Elephant, a restaurant near Temple Bar. The service was a little slow and the prices kind of high, but it had a nice atmosphere. The funny thing was apparently it's a chain restaurant with the only other location in Greenwich Village in NYC. I had a burger with pesto, mozzerella and tomato on it and it was pretty good.
After that, Briin and I walked all over the city and took pictures. We covered some serious territory. We went to College Green, St. Stephen's Green, and lots of places in between. We spent about 3 hours exploring the city. Here are the photos:


















I'm hoping to go to the Dublin Zoo later this week, which is in Phoenix Park (haven't been there yet.) I'll update again soon with some new pictures.

Quick Dublin Pics

Hey

First post from WITHIN Ireland. I intend this blog to be mostly pictures, because every time I type something and read it back it seems so boring and lackluster. If I don't want to read what I write, certainly no one else will, so I will try to keep this as painless as possible. I'll write more when something interesting happens or there are pictures to tell the story. 'Til then, I'll keep it brief.

Yesterday: Got into Dublin, moved in, unpacked, napped, bought groceries, ate, watched TV.
Today: "Orientation", walked around a bit, toured the gym, got a little lost, ate ice cream, went to pub.
Tomorrow: Class, ?.

7 DAYS

Counting down 'til blast-off.