A few days ago I spent a good part of the afternoon in St. Stephen's Green. Entrance to this park was once limited to local citizens... the affluent who lived in the houses around the green, but became a public park in 1880 at the initiative of Arthur Guinness of the brewing family. It is a truly beautiful park with several fountains, a pond (or maybe 2) and some trails. I took some pictures of the birds there... a lot of ducks and even a swan.
Although it may be difficult to see... the swans were HUGE! I had no idea they were that large. the one I saw easily came to my waist.
I had my first rainy day in Ireland yesterday... We had had some rain already, but it was always scattered: 10- 15 minutes of rain, then sun again. Yesterday, it rained all day and everyone was soaked. And just to clean up any misconceptions- Dubliners do use umbrellas. I know in other places like Seattle and London, only the "tourists" carry umbrellas. Locals take the rain with stoic acceptance. In Dublin, even the locals whip out the rain gear.
Today I did some exploring of Dublin's outlying areas. I live in the "suburbs" of Dublin already and ride the LUAS (the tram) into City Center everyday for class. There are several stops on the LUAS between Balally (my stop) and my destination. Today I decided to get off on a few of these stops and look around. The Dundrum (Dun Droma in Irish) stop had an old church and a run-down cemetery... very explorable.
So I rode the LUAS to Dundrum, then searched for, and eventually found a crayon (a harder feat than I thought) to do rubbings at the cemetery. None of the pharmacies or other convenient stores had one, but a nice Irish man in one of the stores had a little girl. And SHE had some crayons. He gladly gave me a blue one and I was on my way to the cemetery. It was in very sad shape, but I still enjoyed taking pictures of it... I got a few rubbings, too, but they did not turn out as well as I would have liked.
My last stop on my adventure for today was at Sandyford... This was the last stop for the LUAS so I got off and took a look around. Initially I was a bit dissapointed. It was mostly modern offices and apartment buildings. However, it was not far at all until I found something a unexpected. By the road were wild poppy flowers. I had no idea that they grew wild in Ireland, but I guess they do. They were quite pretty and seemed very delicate amidst all the green grasses and such . Me, being me, I could not resist the urge to snap a few pictures before I returned to the LUAS to head home... adventures over for the day...
More to come
~Dannielle
2 comments:
Glad to hear you're still having a great time!
Things here are going well. Did I tell you I got a job?
I'm working in a chocolate shop.
Are you going to keep going to that same church or are you going to explore a couple of different ones?
I think I saw on your FB status about your job. You learning a lot?
I think I am going to be going to Grosvenor Road Baptist church... where I went yesterday. I just visited Christ Church. It was definitely not my style.
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