Dublin, Ireland

The sun was shining in Dublin today! It was a beautiful day...fairly warm, mostly blue skies...and we were strolling around Dublin.

Dublin is huge... a little under 1.5 million people - or so I was told.

We started our day at Christchurch Cathedral...actually in an exhibit called Dublinia, which was an interactive display telling the story of the beginnings of Dublin. Think: Vikings! It was very well done. As we were exiting the exhibit, the bells were ringing to signal the time to begin the Sunday morning service. I wish I had timed how long they rang, it was long. I don't know, but it gives me chills to be in a place like that...so old, so historical, and hear the bells. I always reflect on the time, the energy, the vision the people had who designed and built cathedrals like this.BubbleShare: Share photos - Find great Clip Art Images.


We then went on a tour of the city via our coach. We had a red-headed Irish lady giving us the tour. She was... well, I thought she was OK... we've been spoiled with Mr. O'Brien... he's just so wonderful, so knowledgeable.

We saw the Guinness Brewery - 60 acres of it...St. Patrick's Cathedral. Now an interesting thing we learned: Ireland is VERY Catholic..it's the dominant religion, but Christchurch and St. Patrick's are protestant churches...the Church of England or commonly called here, The Church of Ireland. We went to Phoenix Park - twice the size of Central Park in New York. We saw the American Ambassador to Irelands home... their president's home... and the cross that was erected on the spot where Pope John Paul II delivered a mass in 1979. Remember today, there are a little less than 1.5 million people...and on that day in 1979, there were 1.2 million people there to hear the mass!

Trinity College was next on the list. What a beautiful university! We sat on the grounds and had our lunch (our home stay families had made us lunches) followed by an 'interactive quiz'. For the quiz, the delegates were divided into teams of 4. Each team was given a map of Dublin and a page of questions. They were to maneuver themselves through the city, finding different statues and filling in the answers - which were the names of the statues. We (leaders) were waiting at the last statue to see who came in first...and, of course, to make sure they all returned! Keenan came in first, but unfortunately, he didn't have his group with him, so he didn't earn his first place. Next, in an entire group, came Kris, Tyler, Larissa, and Keisha. They won... I think Sam gave them a bag of candies to share. It was more for the glory! Once everyone was returned, we turned them loose again, in groups, to explore the city on the own. More shopping was done, even though they were warned that Dublin is THE most expensive city in Europe. We had a little over 3 hours to explore the city on our own.BubbleShare: Share photos - Create and Share Crafts


We met back at the statue of Molly Malone at 4:45 and took off for our bus. We started our journey back to meet our host families...who we met at 6 p.m.

Tomorrow morning we will meet and our wonderful Mr O'Brien will take us to catch our ferry to our next destination. I have no idea (haven't you heard this line before?) if we'll have internet connections. It will be at a university, but it's not in it's normal sessions, so I don't know.

I think we'll all be sad to say good-bye to Ireland...

Cheers!