New pictures

Yesterday I left County Dublin for the first time since I've been studying at Trinity and went down to Glendalough in County Wicklow, the county just to the south of us. I visited the Glendalough National Park and its monastic ruins. It's a beautiful place settled in a valley with huge cliffs to either side and two lakes on the valley floor. Waterfalls and streams descend the cliffs and empty into the lakes. I can see why someone would have come to this place to seek God. I hiked around for a few hours and wandered through the remains of the medieval monestary, cathedral, and accompanying buidings. It was good to get out into some Irish countryside and leave the city behind for a day.

Now, I know that this would have been a good place to have taken my camera if I hadn't left it in Alabama. But I did. Maybe I'll go back sometime and get some pictures. For now, I have some pictures of Dublin Castle that I have never posted. I found them today on my computer.

Dublin Castle is a bit of a hodgepodge of different kinds of builings from different periods. This picture shows three different elements of Dublin Castle today. The round tower in the center is the oldest of the structures in the picture, a remainder from the 13th century castle on the site. The other two are non-medieval (modern) structures. To the left is the 18th century state building or palace of sorts, and to the right is a Gothic revival chapel designed to seem older than it is. It all kind of looks funny mashed together like that, in my opinion.

This garden stands on the site where a deep and dark pool formed in the medieval castle moat. Some believe that Dublin comes from the Irish for "Black Pool" and that this place gave Dublin its name. Seems plausible enough to me. Now they have a lawn with this elaborate Celtic design worked into it in stones or bricks. This is a view from one of the state palace windows.

To the right of the garden (and outside of the picture) there is a book museum donated to Ireland by a rich American tycoon. It contains fragments and books of papyrus Gospels and letters of St. Paul from the second and third centuries among many other old and interesting books from all around the world. They have some especially fine illuminated Korans as well. Admission is free, so I slip in there fairly often. Unfortunately they do not allow pictures inside.

There's a different explanation as to why I don't have a lot from inside the state palace: 18th century palaces kind of bore me. I do have this picture of St. Patrick's Hall, the room in which the Irish presidential inagurations take place. In this picture, they are preparing it for some kind of banquet to be held that night. Maybe a bit on the gaudy side, but it's still fairly impressive.

Dublin Castle's not the most exciting thing to visit in Dublin, but maybe these pictures can keep this website from getting too dull while I wait for the arrival of my camera.

Back in Ireland

I know I've been fairly neglectful of this journal for the past few weeks. Here are my excuses, in chronological order:

1. Final exams
2. Christmas shopping
3. Trip back to Alabama
4. Essay due in Early January

I'm back to a somewhat normal existence now, so maybe I'll keep this thing updated. There's not a lot to report today since I've basically been in my room or in the library working on that paper. But I do have a couple of things:

Sam, after spending two weeks in glasses because I neglected to bring an extra pair of contact lenses to Alabama, I think I have answers to your question about the contacts/glasses comparison: they don't fog over; they don't put pressure on the top of my nose; they cover my whole field of vision; they don't fall off. But most of this probably has everything to do with what I'm used to. I don't think I've ever worn glasses for an extended period of time. Just mornings and nights and such.

Yesterday the long war between myself and my wall-mounted bookshelves came to an end. After dumping my books in the floor half a dozen times and resisting all my attempts to repair them, they have both been removed from the wall. A standing model that I purchased for 59.95 is doing their work. I don't know if that makes me the winner or the loser.

Classes begin Monday here. Since there's a little time, I'm also hoping to slip off to Wicklow (the county just south of Dublin) if I can finish my applications for Penn St. and Indiana within the next day or two. I hear it's beautiful down there, but don't expect any pictures because I left my camera in Alabama. If anyone's crossing the Atlantic within next week to two, would you mind dropping my camera by Dublin? Thanks.