Kacy's Trip to Ireland: Saturday, May 8

Steph and I had an AWESOME day today. It was so much fun. We didn't have anything planned so we just went with the flow. We made our way into Dublin and walked by the National Gallery of Ireland so we decided to make a stop in. There were hundreds upon hundreds of wonderful paintings from even thousands of years ago. We really enjoyed it.

After the gallery we walked to Temple Bar for the Mexican food I have been craving so much! I saw my student, Isabel, and was able to talk to her family who was making the food as well. They were so kind and said very nice things. Steph and I both ate chicken fajitas that were even better than we had hoped for. It satisfied and went above and beyond my Mexican food craving.

Once we ate our delicious food we decided to stop into Dublin Castle. Unfortunately we had just missed a tour, so we only got use out of the restrooms. I was SO excited though because it was the first time I've seen the word "restroom" on a sign since I've been in the States. They always call them "toilets."

We then headed to Christchurch Cathedral to try and tour that. For some reason it is closed for the weekend, so that was a fail too. We then made our way to Dublinia, a museum about the Vikings entrance into Dulbin in the 800's. It was really neat actually. We learned a lot about what Vikings did for medicines, work, armor, etc.

This is me with a Viking helmet. I think I would have really fit in during those days. Too bad I was born about 1100 years too late and on the wrong continent.

This was absolutely hysterical. This part of the exhibit taught about how Vikings used the restroom and what they used for toilet paper, which was apparently moss. There was actually some moss in that basket near this guy's foot. This poor gentleman was accompanied with some sound effects. I'm sure if you use your imagination you can think about what they sounded like. At the end of his struggles he said, "Don't just stand there, bring me some more moss!"

After we went to Dublinia we decided to make our way over to the National Museum. Once we got about half way there though we decided it didn't sound all that exciting because we were pretty tired. We turned back around and walked against wind, which made something fly into my eye, which caused my eye to swell. It grew rapidly for about 15 minutes and I was actually very nervous about what I was going to do. I can just imagine being in a foreign country with an eye that is swollen shut without knowing what medicines to take or what to do.

Thankfully it went down a little and it's not too bad anymore. Phew. Kind of gross, I know.

We got back onto the bus and decided to get off at Dun Laoghaire for some ice cream that everyone talks up quite a bit. We found Teddy's after a bit of searching and were a little disappointed at what we saw. We had expected to see an ice cream store with lots of flavors and toppings. Instead it was just a small stand with soft serve ice cream, and the woman who served it was quite rude actually. Oh well, it was a sunny day and ice cream was nice to have.

Steph and I stopped into a grocery store today and found some GIANT tissues. They are called man-size tissues.

I liked this one because it says they are "gorgeous." In the states we use this word to explain something we have seen, but people here describe nice people as gorgeous, things that taste good as gorgeous, things that smell nice are gorgeous, and apparently even soft tissues are gorgeous as well.

Diane told me I must try a candy bar here called Mars. I bought one a few days ago.. it was pretty good. It kind of reminded me of a 3 Muskateers and a Milky Way put together.