Sunday in Dublin

Last night, I found an out of the way Catholic Church and attended Mass with Alecia and Amanda at 8:00. The church was on Merchant's Quay and looked like a regular building from the street, but opened up into this enormous Georgian style church; my favorite part of the architecture was the ceiling, which was latticed off into sections that were painted blue with white lattice work and the shades of blue got darker as it went up. After church, we came back to the apartments and played Quiddler, a word game at which I got beaten soundly.

This morning, I got to sleep in until about 10, when I got up and showered/got ready for my day. Susy, Alecia, Amanda, Katie, Molly, and I went shopping; I found most of the gifts for my family, but I'm not telling what any of them are! We also found a coffee place called Butler's Chocolate Cafe'; the coffee costs about as much as McDonalds (about 3 euro), plus they give you a truffle for every cup you buy. That was a pretty exciting discovery for us, because the coffee was fantastic.

We met up with the group around 2 and visited the garden of remembrance with the Children of Lir statue. The Children of Lir is an Irish myth about a widowed chieftain who remarried to a woman who was jealous of his love for his children, so she cursed them and made them turn into swans. They were forced to remain swans for 900 years; this garden was built to remember everyone who has died for Ireland.

After that, we visited the Dublin Writer's Museum, which was one of my favorite stops so far, since I was familiar with a lot of the writers. I also liked it because there were a lot of new writers that I learned about. I was told before I left that Ireland publishes some of the most beautiful books in the world, and I understand that now; every time I go into a bookstore, I want to buy a lot because they are just beautiful books. The other place we visited today was the Hugh Lane Gallery; a lot of it was closed because they're getting ready to open a new exhibit, but they did have one room with stained glass in it that was gorgeous. I bought a postcard with the panels from "The Eve of St. Agnes," which we read in my British Lit class last semester.

Once we were done with the gallery, I came back to my apartment and took a nap, then had dinner up in another apartment with some of the girls. Once I get back from the internet cafe, we're going to play cards, then get ready for our last day in Dublin; we're visiting Kilmainham Gaol and some of the Bloomsday activities. Then, on Tuesday morning, we head out for Waterford.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy! Love you!