Duh-blin, Part One

I know it's been too long since my last blog- we've been busy these past few weeks! We spent last weekend in Dublin, the capital city of the Republic of Ireland. To start off the weekend, we left bright and early on Friday morning to make the 3-hour bus ride up to the city. The sights on the ride there were beautiful, of course, although I have to admit I slept through most of the ride again (just like the ride to Dungarvan from the airport- the rolling hills seem to put me right to sleep!).

When we arrived in Dublin, we checked into our hotel as a group and had a few moments to ourselves before starting the day. Our first stop was Dublin Castle, where our favorite tour guide, Mr. Tom Keith, gave us a short history lesson on the Castle. A few group photos later, we headed to the tourists office and grabbed a quick lunch. After regrouping, we moseyed on down to the National Archaeology Museum and checked out some Bog People- the amazing bodies which were preserved in bogs almost completely intact. After browsing in the Archaeology museum, a few of us walked a few blocks down the street to the National Gallery of Ireland, and stopped on the way to check out an Oscar Wilde monument. Reading the quotes really helped to put a different twist on our Dublin experience.

The last big event for the day was our tour of the Irish Parliament. This was a big deal, because the only way to get a tour is to be invited by a member- in our case, John Deasy, a Mercyhurst Alum, was able to get us in for a tour. I've personally never been to Washington, D.C., but I imagine it would be comparable to what we saw on our tour. While the Irish government seems similar to ours, we learned that there are many differences in the day-to-day operations.

With such a busy schedule, we couldn't wait to get back to our rooms and rest up for the next action-packed Dublin adventure.