Wendy's Blog

After the stop at the City Trust, I hoofed it over to Christ Church. I wanted to catch the tour at 7:00pm. I made a mistake though, I didn’t ask the tour desk if I needed to RSVP. Instead like an idiot, I just waited where they said the meeting point was. I waited from 6:15 to 6:45pm and then went to ask again if I need to RSVP. The lady then told me I had to go to this other desk to get a sticker. Long story short, the 7:00pm was booked out and the only time left was 8:00pm. Sigh, I just wasted 30 minute! I could be in St Patricks catching their tour!

But it was actually ok, there was a choir singing while I was waiting, and they were actually really good!

And it was nice taking a rest after all that walking. I also got go around the church when there were very little people and check out the scene. It’s been 10 year since I have been to this church last. And it was a lot smaller than I remembered.

And you get to see the crypt (the treasure from the Church) for free. Oh yes, if you ever go to this church, you must go down to the crypt to see this.

These two were found in the church organ. The cat chasing a mouse! How classic.

Anyway, I wanted to see more so I hopped over to next door to see Dublinia. By now it’s quite cold and I had to queue outside. I was always curious about this place but I am glad I didn’t pay the 6.5 euros to see this. I wish I just walked a block down to see something else instead.

The most exciting thing that happened in this venue was a news crew was there while I was in the queue!

That little boy was a hellion, he wouldn’t stop screaming, teasing his brothers, and sisters. I later saw the news and if you look carefully you can see my coat! YAY, I was on TV!

Back to Dublina. Dublin was founded by bunch of Vikings. Dublinia is a museum dedicated to Vikings and how Dublin came about. Back in the 60s or something like that, the government found some Viking Settlement Ruins while building that area. Instead of preserving it, they just demolished it. So there’s no Viking stuff anymore, just memorials. (I am starting to see a trend of Dublin in the 60s!)

Instead you get Dublinia so you can learn about Dublin in Viking time. Here are some photos from Dublinia, so you can decide if it is really worth going. It’s not bad, but I am not 6 and I have been to a real Viking Museum in Denmark, and this is just not for me.

Here are some high lights.

Replica of a Viking ship,

Some display on bathroom behavior of Viking. Back then they have no toilet paper, so they use moss instead. Very educational!

This is actually pretty cool, a miniature of medieval Dublin.

A stuffed dog. He kind of looks like Oskar!

The best part about this section is that I got to walk over this,

It’s a bridge connecting the two buildings! I have always walked by and never knew you could cross it.

View from the bridge,

One thing that is awesome about Dubin is there are events going on all the time. Last week, there was the Author Guinness Day where the pubs gave out free pints 17.59 (because Guinness was founded in 1759). Unfortunately, I didn’t make this one because I was too lazy to trekk the 10 minute to town to get a free pint. Plus Mr is back in the US and drinking alone (even with bunch of strangers) just doesn’t seem that fun to me.

I also was saving up for Dublin Culture Night. On Culture night, all the participating venus are free and opens until late. It’s a neat idea, you get to see ‘behind’ the scene of places. There were also parades and music events.

I was pretty excited! I spent time looking over the map to figure out where I wanted to go. Planning was part of the fun.

Since the time was limited, I budgeted only to go to 2 place. Though I could have gone to more because there were places open everywhere!

I end up picking Christ Church and the Dublin Civil Trust. Civic Trust had an exhibit on Victorian Publican life and I thought that was neat and Christ Church is pretty near to Civic Trust so it made sense to go there after.

On the way to the Civic Trust, I saw a parade! (Actually I saw 2 but only had time to take photo of one)

She must been freezing because I know I was!

First stop, the Dublin Civic Trust!

This is the only building that is in its original state from the early 1800’s. All the others on this street were demolished in the 60s. A pity really. It would be a nice place to hang out.

The building looks small from the outside but from the inside it’s huge! It’s 5 stories and there are skylights everywhere. Pretty smart design for letting the light in.

I kind of misunderstood the description of this venue. I thought there would be a replication of an Victorian Public House. But what they really meant was items salvage in the 60’s from a Victorian Pub. It’s weird that people were just going to throw this stuff away! It’s awesome.

If it were to survive, it would have looked like this,

And the sign for the pub would look like this,

It is a real shame that none of these stuff are around anymore. I suppose it makes what we have now just that much more special.