A Moveable Feast: A Long Weekend in Dublin

Above is a picture of Trinity College in Dublin. I was there a few weeks ago for a long weekend with Jessalyn, one of my best friends from high school who is currently studying in Madrid.

The trip to Dublin was great! It was interesting to see how the city was so different from what I had expected: I think it's easy to assume in English-speaking countries that the culture won't be that different from the U.S., but that hasn't been true at all. And I don't even know that Ireland could be called an Englis

h speaking country! Of course, everyone speaks English, but I had no idea that they were required to learn Gaelic in public schools and that all of the signs would be in both languages - and as you can see from this sign, the two have almost nothing to do with each other.

Dublin is also an amazing city to be if you're interested in writing. I was already starting to think about writing my senior thesis on James Joyce, so the Dublin Writer's Museum was the first thing I went to. For a relatively small city, and one that was culturally removed from other major European centers for such a long time, there really was a lot of writing bang for your buck here. Some of the best writers of the last century are from or lived in Dublin.

We saw the Book of Kells, one of the oldest and definitely the most famous illuminated manuscript, at Trinity College. One of my favorite museums that we went to was the Chester Beatty Library. He was basically an American business tycoon who decided to go around the world collecting cultural artifacts. The collection includes some amazing religious texts, including copies of bible pages written in Greek from the year 150 and about ten incredible korans. There are also lots of Chinese buddhist texts and illustrated stories.

In addition to the museum going (we were very good student-tourists), we also did what one has to do wh

en in Dublin - go to pubs. While we were staying right in Temple Bar, the supposedly really cool but touristy pub area, we stayed out of that neighborhood and mostly went out around Grafton Street. We even accidentally went into a really famous pub where Bono from U2 goes all the time and didn't even find out until the next day. We drank lots of Baileys Coffee (definitely NOT coffee with Baileys - we were corrected several times) and everyone was almost shockingly friendly. The pub culture isn't a myth - every single night, every single bar was packed almost to capacity.

We also saw some important sights like Christ Church, which has a really cool tomb underneath it, and the Viking Museum. We went to the Jameson Whiskey Distillery and I was quick enough to volunteer to be a taster. I don't even like whiskey but I braved through a taste test of Jameson Irish Whiskey, Scotch, and American whiskey. It was really interesting to see the distilling process and how each one tasted so different.

All of my pictures from Dublin can be seen at