Dublin in my head is two cities. During the day, the old brick and metal buildings seem harsh and dirty against the autumn sun. There is smoke and rot and wetness and unfamiliar smells. Dublin in the daytime seems ugly to me. Yet somehow the air smells pure and everything is real. This city is solidly real, with no pretensions or social facades, it is what it is.
At night, Dublin transforms into something dark and cluttered but somehow warm and welcoming. The lights soften the buildings and there's comfort in the air. And yes, you hear music in the pubs.
The people are like the city, rough around the edges and a bit … unglamorous, but REAL and warm and so very welcoming. Everyone is friendly and the cab drivers tell you jokes featuring their wives and insist you take your time getting out of their taxi.
Ireland is a country of musicians and writers and I see why, albeit in my limited experience staying only within the confines of its largest and capital city. Dublin is filled with stories and walking the streets inspires me because this really is a city out of some novel, romantic and tragic, its people reflecting their centuries of hopes and struggles and simple joys. Yes, I'm sounding cliché, but I can't think of any other way to describe it. I look forward to a future visit, but this time to its hills and villages. Just to see. And to fall in love some more.
This is so refreshing, having lived in Los Angeles for almost 13 years. The two cities are so vastly different, though both the stuff of legends. I am intrigued by Dublin. I too, am compelled to write novels.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Manuscripts and something out of a movie
Today we walked around the city, having a late start because of my illness, and went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. We began the day with scones and tea and all sorts of yumminess at the Queen of Tarts, a fabulously delicious bakery and tea room on Dame Street across from Dublin Castle.
Dublin is a walking city. There is no subway, but there is a great and reliable bus service and taxis galore. But when the main stretch of the city is about 3 miles across, you can really get around just by walking .
The Book of Kells is located in Trinity College's library on permanent display. Trinity College was established in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I of England. It's a compact college, right in the heart of the city, with the Bank of Ireland building (former location of the Irish Parliament) across the way.
The Book is a set of ornately decorated and written manuscripts done by Celtic monks in the 1st century (around 800.) The Book contains the 4 gospels of the New Testament in Latin. The exhibit also features other famous Dark Age-period illuminated manuscripts, as well as offers a timeline based around these books and the history of Ireland at the time. There are videos detailing how these books were made and how these monks – artists in their own right, really – decorated and wrote these texts. I love calligraphy and the art of book-making and this exhibit fascinated me.
We later walked into the College's Old Library Long Room and it was something out of some period film, just utterly amazing. JD was floored. The Long Room is wall-to-wall first editions and bound books, many of them hundreds of years old. It's just hard to describe this place. I looked up information about the Long Room on wikipedia and supposedly, the Jedi Archives featured in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was inspired by the Long Room.
After leaving the College, we spent some quiet time in Ireland's National Gallery. We are culture-heads, yes. We are not ashamed.
Hate to say it is an early night for us, as I was feeling a bit worse by late afternoon.
We depart for London in the morning!
Dublin is a walking city. There is no subway, but there is a great and reliable bus service and taxis galore. But when the main stretch of the city is about 3 miles across, you can really get around just by walking .
The Book of Kells is located in Trinity College's library on permanent display. Trinity College was established in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I of England. It's a compact college, right in the heart of the city, with the Bank of Ireland building (former location of the Irish Parliament) across the way.
The Book is a set of ornately decorated and written manuscripts done by Celtic monks in the 1st century (around 800.) The Book contains the 4 gospels of the New Testament in Latin. The exhibit also features other famous Dark Age-period illuminated manuscripts, as well as offers a timeline based around these books and the history of Ireland at the time. There are videos detailing how these books were made and how these monks – artists in their own right, really – decorated and wrote these texts. I love calligraphy and the art of book-making and this exhibit fascinated me.
We later walked into the College's Old Library Long Room and it was something out of some period film, just utterly amazing. JD was floored. The Long Room is wall-to-wall first editions and bound books, many of them hundreds of years old. It's just hard to describe this place. I looked up information about the Long Room on wikipedia and supposedly, the Jedi Archives featured in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was inspired by the Long Room.
After leaving the College, we spent some quiet time in Ireland's National Gallery. We are culture-heads, yes. We are not ashamed.
Hate to say it is an early night for us, as I was feeling a bit worse by late afternoon.
We depart for London in the morning!
Wow, there are drunkards in Dublin?
Welcome back, all. It's day two of our Dublin stay, and what do you know, I GET SICK. Of all the shit-ass luck. But did it stop me? Of course not.
A funny anecdote about last night from JD's point of view. While I was in the internet café typing away, JD chose to hang outside to give me some privacy and he becomes witness to an amusing drunken episode. So the café owner was outside talking to some guy (don't know if he was talking to JD too), and a few minutes later, one of the city custodians comes by and parks his wheelbarrow of trash. Suddenly, some drunkard comes up and grabs the wheelbarrow and starts running around with it doing a little jig and saying something unintelligible that sounds like "wheeeeeeeee!" with many more syllables.
Needless to say, the custodian does not like this one bit and mentions something to the drunkard about there being human waste in the barrow, and the drunkard needs to stop messing around with it. Then the drunkard comes up and put his arm around the custodian and was saying a bunch of stuff and ribbing the guy. To which the custodian was cowering and yelling "fuck off! fuck off! GAH!" The custodian manages to coax the drunkard away from the door to the internet cafe and when he leaves, the one guy who was friends with the proprietor looked over at JD and knowingly smirking... like "ay- kin ye believe that!"
Dublin rocks. More to come… ;)
A funny anecdote about last night from JD's point of view. While I was in the internet café typing away, JD chose to hang outside to give me some privacy and he becomes witness to an amusing drunken episode. So the café owner was outside talking to some guy (don't know if he was talking to JD too), and a few minutes later, one of the city custodians comes by and parks his wheelbarrow of trash. Suddenly, some drunkard comes up and grabs the wheelbarrow and starts running around with it doing a little jig and saying something unintelligible that sounds like "wheeeeeeeee!" with many more syllables.
Needless to say, the custodian does not like this one bit and mentions something to the drunkard about there being human waste in the barrow, and the drunkard needs to stop messing around with it. Then the drunkard comes up and put his arm around the custodian and was saying a bunch of stuff and ribbing the guy. To which the custodian was cowering and yelling "fuck off! fuck off! GAH!" The custodian manages to coax the drunkard away from the door to the internet cafe and when he leaves, the one guy who was friends with the proprietor looked over at JD and knowingly smirking... like "ay- kin ye believe that!"
Dublin rocks. More to come… ;)
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