Adventures in Deutschland: Day 60

Thursday was our last full day in Ireland. After a rather uneventful four hour drive, we found our B&B outside of Dublin. It was the nicest B&B I've ever seen. It was a small house/condo with only a few bedrooms, but it was really well furnished with really up-to-date bathrooms. There was a lot of care put into it - even the light fixtures were gorgeous. Of course we didn't spend a lot of time there. As soon as we had the car unloaded, we walked to the bus stop in order to start our hour-long ride to Dublin. A few stops after ours, a lady got on the bus and was searching through all of her belongings for a Euro she must have misplaced in order to pay the bus driver. The driver, not happy with the situation but also not very patient, told her to find a seat and she could give him a Euro in a few minutes when she found it. He then drove away chatting with a young college girl who stood next to him. That's when the fight ensued. The driver stopped the bus in the middle of the road and demanded that the woman in the back pay him a Euro. She walked up and gave it to him, saying that she had been waiting until the next stop so as not to distract him. This made another woman very angry for embarrassing the woman with the missing Euro. A few blocks later this mad woman yelled, "What you're doing there is illegal! You aren't allowed to have that girl standing next to you talking to you like that! I'm going to report you!" (all with a very thick Irish accent). The driver yelled back, "I'm not doing anything wrong! You're the ones who didn't pay me a Euro!" (I guess the mad woman was with the woman with the missing Euro). She fought back, "That was an honest mistake. You're breaking the law. I'm going to report you. What's your ID number?" The bus driver then swore that he didn't have a number so she couldn't report him. They fought back and forth for a long time. I just prayed that this man wouldn't get too angry and make us all get out of the bus in the middle of nowhere. The bus driver drove on, but the college girl did sit down after this exchange.

Todd, Therese and I got off the bus in the middle of Dublin. It was a huge city with very big, somewhat modern European looking buildings. Apparently much of Dublin was burned down in riots in 1916 when people were fighting for liberation. We wandered around for a little bit, used an internet cafe to check-in to our flight the next day, walked along the main street (O'Connell Street) and then headed to Trinity College on the south side. We took a great tour of the college given by a recent graduate. His quick Irish wit made the tour very entertaining. At the end of the tour we were given the opportunity to see the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels inscribed by monks in the 800s. It was beautiful. We also walked through the Old Library (as the Book of Kells is housed there) which is the largest single roomed library in the world. It is this huge open room with book cases and ladders lining the walls for two stories. According to our tour guide, the Old Library isn't used much by students because the books are not allowed to be checked out (most are from the 17th and 18th centuries) and, most importantly, they are organized and shelved not by subject, not by author, not by the Dewey decimal system, but by height and thickness.

As we left Trinity College, the storm clouds were gathering as though a large gray blanket were creeping across the sky. The pictures below can attest to this. We decided this would be a good time to get dinner and snuck into the nearest restaurant. It was a very trendy looking place with good beer, good cider, and good food. We split baked brie and chicken with veggies. Therese ate an entire bowl of broccoli.

After dinner we caught the bus back to our B&B. We packed our things for the big flight home the next day and put Therese down nice and early. All in all, it was a nice way to wrap up our time in Ireland.