DUBLIN -- Day 2

Here follow the events of Thursday...

A wonderful bar and restaurant, just across the street from our hostel! I want to go back on Spring Break :)

Globetrotters! Not the sketchiest place ever, but had me a little anxiety-ridden going in and out -- a friend of mine said that this part of town was rougher than the rest of Dublin. But it was fun :)

A funny sign outside of Globetrotters -- it has mileage to all these different cities, and for Tipperary, another Irish city, it just says 'a long way' ;)

Kilmainham Jail = AWESOME

Super cool carving over the door :)

Our tour guide was excellent, and kept offering to put the little Revoir girls in one of the cells for a little bit ;)

Some graffiti on the walls. They were selling entire books about the graffiti, but I figured I would just snap a picture and move on...

I stuck my camera through the eye-hole of one of the cells while walking, and took this picture. I like how it turned out, but I was a little apprehensive to see if there would be a ghost or something in here... Kilmainham has a bad history of being a 'reform jail', and kind of turned into a haven during the Famine times, when people wanted to be in jail just to have a little food. Sometimes, our guide told us, the cells meant for 1 would be holding as many as 5 or 6 people. So sad and scary.

The main area of Kilmainham -- awe-inspiring. Many films have used this area for sets, including "Michael Collins", which we watched part of just before leaving for Dublin. A very cool space :)

The back courtyard. The cross is a marker for where some leaders of the rebel leaders in the Easter 1916 uprising -- a very somber piece of history.

This is when we were back outside -- the two strange bricks above the window were where they had pieces of wood to hang people on. A double gallows, where people could watch the hangings :(

We then drove a loop around Phoenix Park and saw the taoiseach's house (pronounced tee-shuck)! Many jokes were made about White Houses and parallels to American governmental houses.

A monument in Phoenix Park, though I can't for the life of me remember what it's for -- Owen mentioned it and drove on, and I was so focused on getting a picture that I didn't listen very carefully. Tourist.

My favorite place to walk by -- lots of literary quotes from men being men :P

A bust of Michael Collins at the Hugh Lane art museum -- the only picture I got there, because this was another institution that didn't want me taking pictures on the inside :P

So I was a rebel and took a picture of the sign outside. It was a cool exhibit, lots of fun art pieces, include a few Monets I had never seen (I thought of you, Mom :D)

Brittine and I, being hardcore English majors, spent a good deal of time in the Dublin Writer's Museum, but again, no photography technically allowed on the inside. So, I took this picture on a staircase when no one could tell me off for it ;) It was an excellent museum, with very informative exhibits about well known (and lesser known) writers here in Ireland

From there, we headed right to another second-hand book store. I swear, my suitcase is going to be full of books and not clothes when I come back...

To round the evening off, we saw a professional production at the Abbey Theater, called "Bookworms". It was okay -- I liked "The Clean House" better and that was a college production in Galway. It was still cool to be at the Abbey Theater!!

 And then, after the play, I went back to the hostel and read my new book. I got so cultured this day, guys, you don't even know. Part 3 up next!

-S