Ireland Journal

          I wrote quite a few notes about the places we went, just fun facts and tidbits and such, but I'm going to leave them out of these posts. I feel like they'd only really make sense to me, because I was there and it's in my own kind of shorthand. But anyway, here's day two:

Day Two:                                                                                                                           May 18, 2015

          Well, we've been at St. Michan's Church this morning. The church was small, about the amount of seating that our's has, but it had a beautiful stained glass window above the altar and a pipe organ in the back. Then we took a tour of the crypt below the church, which was made in 1095. That's super interesting, considering that the church has burned down a few times. I didn't like being in the crypt. It was dark and crowded with people, living and dead. I did muster up the courage to touch one of the dead people. It was 'The Crusader'. They call him that because his arms are crossed, even though he died 650 years ago and he's too young to have been in the crusades. So, the crypts were kind of terrifying, but next is St. Patrick's! Hooray!

          Actually, next is food. Right now we're in the Brazen Head, which is the oldest pub in Dublin. I ordered the Traditional Irish Stew with caesar salad and chocolate fudge cake. Yum!

          We're in St. Patrick's now and it is beautiful. It's also the most at home I've felt on the trip, even though it's nothing like the churches we have at home. Just sitting in front of the altar felt like a breath of 'ah, this is familiar'. It was really nice, even though I've only been gone for three days now (the first being a day of traveling). The detail in here is beautiful, and there is so much of it. I wish I would've brought my prisma colored pencils so I could draw a stained glass window or the floor. Hopefully some of my pictures will be able to show that detail.

          Next we went to the Christ Church Cathedral. It was very beautiful, but not quite as beautiful as St. Patrick's. The coolest part about Christ Church was going to the bell tower. We had to go up a really cramped, steep, spiral staircase, and then across the roof. We went across the roof! And then we got to ring the bells. After that we went downstairs to the crypt. This one was much roomier than the last one (no visible dead bodies!) and it had a gift shop in it. So much less creepy. After that, we were going to see the Nigerian dance interpretation of The Wooing of Emer. Unfortunately, they were sold out, so we went to a poetry reading instead. It was kind of cool listening to Irish poems, but, not going to lie, half way through I was wishing it would finish soon. Sometimes it was hard to understand what they were saying. Coming back and making dinner for my roommates was probably my favorite part of the day (other than St. Patrick's). It felt almost like something out of a movie. Here we were on the 4th floor of our building, sitting at a glass table, next to a huge floor-to-wall window, drinking wine (a couple sips for me, but that's all) and talking about poetry and classic literature. I don't know where else I would get that experience. I felt so civilized! And of course, we had a great time figuring out how to use the dishwasher afterwords. Now it's about 12:30 a.m. and I'm trying to remember everything. One of my roommates is in bed and the other is in the living room with me, also journaling. I think it's finally hitting me that I'm in Ireland. I'm in Ireland!