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| St Patrick's Roman Church |
Hike Info:
Type:Touring
Description:
I did not sleep well last
night. A bit after I woke up, my CGM lied to me that I was having a
low on my blood sugars (I checked it out with my meter and the CGM
was 30 points off.) I finally went back to sleep only to wake up at
6:30. Then went back to sleep again until 8. This is a long way to
say, that I am not doing a lot today. Yesterday we talked and
decided this is a NERO day (a backpacking term for doing nearly
nothing-a portmanteau of nearly zero). Hopefully I will go out for a
walk when the rain is not going bad. If Sherri gets up in time, I
will see if she wants to go.
I had my granola breakfast,
then talked with Andrea, then Rachel. They are going out. Then Steven
is going out as well. They are going to the EPIC museum with its
exhibit on the Irish Famine. Sherri gets up shortly afterwards. She
would like to walk with me after doing some things. So I spend my
time writing up some blogs and just reading Facebook a bit.
After a while Rachel comes
back from her yoga class. On the way back she stopped at a coffee
store and bought a pour-over coffee maker for Sherri. Such a good
kid-I need to find another word for my off-spring than kid or child,
particularly since they are older. But in some ways I will always
feel that way about them. I suspect it is a natural parental thing.
Sherri is still getting ready
until past 11:40. But Rachel thinks we still have time for a short
walk and lunch before we go out to Trinity.
We walk past
St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church,
then on to Ringsend
Park. I
do not think this is the Park Andrea told us about. But it is nice
and pleasant, even under an overcast sky. We walked around, and then
saw a bunch of men with these paddles. I approached one of them and
found out that they play a game called hurling,
or as the man said Gaelic football-sort of like American football is
a variation of soccer. But he says that hurling actually has its
roots back centuries ago, well before soccer was established. We had
a good conversation for about 15 minutes. I am now wondering what
hurling look like?
We have lunch before we go out
to Trinity. We will not all meet up until 5:30 at Boxty.
Here is an outline of today’s activities by person:
Steven:
-
Whiskey tour-Teeling
Distillery,
right by Trinity. Steven shared some of what he found here.
-
EPIC-Both
Andrea and him were here but not at the same time. We also heard
tidbits of this as well.
-
Trinity
College
-
Boxty
Andrea
.-
On her trip downtown , the bus
pass did not work. But the driver allowed her on anyway.
-
Bread
41-She
saw this yesterday with a line and thought it should be a good place
to have coffee and a pastry. Her experience confirmed it.
-
EPIC-Famine
Tour. Talked about the Irish potato famine. There was a sense that
the British used the famine as a way to hold down the Irish
population. She noted that the population is less now than it was in
1900.
-
Jeannie
Johnson-This
was part of the EPIC museum and talked about the life of an
individual in the Famine
- Cemetery-Afterwards, Andrea
spent some time in a cemetery. I do not know which one.
-
Boxty
Rachel:
Sherri:
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| Trinity Bell Tower |
Now that you have a recap of
everybody else's, I will talk about what I did and bring in the rest
as we go through.
Our first stop will be Trinity
College where there is an exhibit of the Book of Kells. But you need
a timed admission to this.The only tickets which are available are to
do a college tour. O shucks. I guess I will need to walk around a
college campus. But first to get there, Rachel, Sherri and I take the
bus over to a stop close to Trinity. We passed by the Whiskey Museum
Steven went to. Almost next door is a sweater place, the Aran
Sweater Market.
Sherri and Rachel go in and I guard the door-well actually I read.
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| Inside the Museum Building |
When we get to Trinity, we do
not see Steven there. We got in a line-wrong line, so we were
directed around to the bell tower where the campus tour had just
started. The guide, she talks about how this section has some of the
oldest buildings. There are two identical buildings facing each other
in the quad. The first is the chapel, which any Christian
denomination can use. Across from it is the exam room. The students
call these buildings heaven and hell-I will let you guess on which is
which.
Our tour guide talks a bit
about the who's who of Trinity College. The first female president
was not too long ago: Mary Robinson-who also became the President of
Ireland. But it was not too much before her that females were first
admitted over the dead body of one of the previous presidents. Our
female tour guide noted one of her exams was delayed because of the
funeral of that president. She also noted several notable Trinity
graduates with some Nobel Prize winners as well-see my
partial list
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| Sphere in the Sphere |
The guide noted that there was
a building across from us donated by alumni which gave three groups
full use of the building: history, theology and philosophy. Sounds
like they could have interesting debates. This is the GMB-Graduate
Memorial Building Then she moved on to the student housing area and
explained the significance of having glass windows. She noted that if
you had a window, you paid a special tax. So often a window would be
bricked up. This was called “daylight
robbery.”
There was another building which was a bit ostentatious. The building
was built during the 1850’s when the Great Hunger was going on. The
British built it in an “in your face” effort. They were rich and
you are starving. But the building is beautiful. It is now called the
Museum Building, and we are allowed in to look at the main lobby.
Around the exterior edge are 600 plaster flowers, none of which are
duplicates of any other one. Then the inside has these beautiful
columns. At the end of the tour is a bronze
globe.
This is Arnaldo Pomodoro’s Sfera
con Sfera or
Sphere within Sphere.
Apparently there is some significance to this. Several places have
one by the same sculpture, including UC
Berkeley.
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| Notables |
We then get let into the Book
of Kells
exhibit. There is an audio self-guided tour which I am able to get,
but my earphones has gone dead-not sure why since I have not used
them on this trip. Rachel loans me one of hers, so we are joined at
the hip, going through the exhibit. Actually her earphone has a
pretty good range, so we are able to wander some apart. The
explanations of the Kells book are good, but the layout is trying to
show a progression, but with the number of people going through, it
is chaotic. The effect is that we only get a partial explanation. I
think there is a good
one online
which I will need to dig up.
At the end of the exhibit
area, Rachel spots a couple and asks if they are from the Central
Valley-they are wearing clothing which is oriented towards our
section of the world.. They are from Porterville. We talked for about
15 minutes. I guess with the number of people whom we see, it is
inevitable we would run across someone. Still it seems rather
serendipitous for it to happen.
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| One of the many shelves |
Our next stop is to see the
actual Book
of Kells.
The pages of the book are turned over periodically to minimize
exposure. The tour guide said once every three months. I thought I
read it was once every 6 weeks. She said that the page just got
turned over today. When I saw it, the page was still vibrant. After
1200 years that is amazing. One wonders what it was like when it was
fresh.
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| Ada and Gary-without Ada, Gary would have been digging ditches for a living |
Our reservation for Boxty
is at 5:30 and it is only 4 now. What to do? With our new found
knowledge of hurling and the National Finals of hurling going on
right now, we set off to find a pub which would allow us to
experience it. We found it at Mulligan&
Hayes.
The barkeeper is friendly. Rachel and Steven order beers with Steven
some garlic fries. We settled down to watch the game. |
| Steven watching the hurling match |
I think we were the only ones
in the pub which were engaged in the game, not that we cared who won.
But just trying to understand it. It seemed like there were a limited
amount of rules with the idea that you get rid of the ball as quickly
as you could. You could carry the ball for a limited amount of time
or catch it or carry it on your paddle-hurley is what this is called.
The idea is to get the ball into the goal or at least through the
uprights for points. It is played without padding, yet I did not see
anybody injured. There was a lot of physical contact. If you were a
player, not for the weak of heart.
The game ended at about 5. So
we made our way down to Boxty.Along the way, Andrea joined us.
Rachel has a friend who recommended this place. Andrea and I looked
at getting a sampler of their stews, then others wanted to join in.
All five of us enjoyed it. Then Andrea and I ordered a different
sampler while others got their own meals. We failed in our endeavor
finish it. The coup de gras was a dessert of Sticky Pudding. This all
was a good meal, good tasting. When we exited, there was a feeling of
contentment.
Evidently boxty is a dish more
than a restaurant. According to Wikipedia,
it is a traditional
Irish potato pancake. The dish is mostly associated with the north
midlands, north Connacht and southern Ulster, in particular the
counties of Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Fermanagh, Longford, and Cavan.
There are many recipes but all contain finely grated, raw potatoes
and all are served fried.
After Boxty, there was a bit
of an issue getting back to the AirBnB. The bus we were going to get
was not going to run because of a disturbance. We walked around and
eventually caught another bus which let off in a different place,
close to our condo. We made it back at 8:30.
Tomorrow we will be picking up
a rental car. The issue is that besides Rachel, we do not have a
driver. Each of us is reluctant to drive. We are undecided about who
will be the alternative drive-that will be decided between Andrea
and Steven tomorrow before we go. With that concluded, we return to
our rooms, and settle down for a good night’s sleep.
Sherri is last up and is
turning down the lights. But she encounters an intruder. I will let
her describe what she experienced:
I
[I] was the on the second floor and came down to finish packing in
[the] bedroom on [the] first floor. I had turned the light on to
come down the stairs. … I closed my door to our bedroom. [The]
lights were on and one daughter on the first floor and was talking on
the phone. Gary and I were talking and had lights on in our
downstairs bedroom. It was about 10 to 15 minutes before I went out
to grab a jacket that I left on [the] stair railing and to turn off
the light that I had left on to come down stairs. I was not sure
which light controlled the light on second floor landing so I was
turning lights on and off multiple times. When I was turning lights
on and off I saw light through the outside door. Then I saw someone
coming downstairs. I was not thinking there would be somebody in the
house so was wondering if it was one of us. Then no, I thought this
person was much smaller than my family. He came down very quick and
mumbled something inaudible. He had a dark hoodies and dark bottoms.
When He passed by very quickly He was thin faced with some facial
hair but [not a] full beard. He was white had a thin build. in his
early twenties.
All which I heard was Sherri
screaming that someone was in here. Then, Rachel,
are you all right?
I got on my pants and looked, but nobody was there. This is rather
unsettling. Rachel notifies the condo’s host about what happened
and tries to have some sort of safe place for us. But there is no
joy. I end up pulling some pads from the couch with some sheets and
placing them before the door. This is where I will be sleeping
tonight. I think this makes everyone feel a bit safer. There are some
prayers going up tonight to keep us safe.
