Dublin: Day One

We flew on Ryanair to Dublin bright and early Thursday morning. After checking-in to our hostel and eating a traditional Irish brunch, we took advantage of the good weather by heading to Saint Stephen's Green. Its very small compared to other city parks, mainly consisting of a duck pond and a flower garden. We were actually able to smell the beautiful flowers throughout the park, something we've never experienced before.

Although we could have sat around in Saint Stephen's Green all afternoon, we walked over to Trinity College to see their legendary library. The campus was absolutely amazing, but nothing compared to the old library. We saw an exhibit about their most famous book, a copy of the gospels illustrated by monks in the 11th century, known as the Book of Kells. Can you imagine writing almost all the new testament by hand, without making any mistakes?

Our last stop of the day was the Marks & Spencer's on Grafton Street, Dublin's version of Fifth Avenue. We had afternoon tea at their top-floor restaurant. Our tea came with scones, clotted cream, and strawberry jam for seven euros per person. It was a little bit of a splurge, but so delicious! In retrospect, we were glad that we had tea in Dublin because it was much more expensive in London. We didn't see any advertised for less than ten pounds per person.

We ended the day by having dinner in the Temple Bar area. We were hoping to listen to some live music, but all of the pubs with music were outrageously overpriced. Though we found a reasonable restaurant eventually, we found Temple Bar pretty disappointing overall.