Dublin: Day 5 - St. Patrick's and Homeward Bound

After enjoying one final breakfast of toast and cereal, we gathered up our belongings and set off into one more Dublin morning. Though it would seem we'd seen everything in the city by now, there was one item on our checklist that was still evading us. Having found St. Patrick's closed when we attempted to visit it for free under the Dublin Pass, we never got to make it inside. So we had a plan to get there for the Choral Matins and go in to attend the service, thus avoiding an entry fee and maintaining our poor student reputation. Well, when we got to...

St. Patrick's Cathedral

(Sorry, for formatting consistency I had to do that.) We arrived to find that our Dublin Pass guide had listed the service times incorrectly, and we had missed the Matins! Oh no! Well, we decided that a few Euro would not break the bank, especially since we'd done so much free stuff yesterday, and we decided to give to the church and go in. There, we were met by a nice woman who informed us that if we had any questions, we should just let her know, since she was a volunteer historian and tour guide, who didn't work for the Cathedral, but just liked it a lot. We told her we would, and wandered off on our own, seeing the impressive architectural and historical contents, including an old copy of Handel's Messiah, which had received its first performance at St. Patrick's, in a big cooperative event with Christ Church. So there's your neat history fun fact for the day. As we were looking at an old organ console (I think that's the term?) we were once again approached by the (overly?) friendly volunteer, who wanted to know if we had any more questions, and if there was anything in particular that we liked. Ryan mentioned the copy of the Messiah, and it also came up that he played the organ, and from that moment on, our trip became a private tour of the Cathedral, wherein I was ignored, since the moment she realized he was a musician, our 50-something year old guide was in love with Ryan. Unfortunately she couldn't pull strings to get us up in to see the new organ up close, but she still brought us all over and shared lots of great stories. When our tour was concluded, we thanked her profusely and went back toward the center of the city.

With a couple of hours left before we had to get on a bus and head to the airport, we decided to stop by a few touristy shops for some postcards for our families. Then we spent the rest of the time in a little pub in order to enjoy a few more pints of Guinness while still in its home. Eventually, energized by the pub's 80s-heavy playlist, we left our friends at the bar behind to the beat of the Safety Dance, and boarded our bus.

And with that, after a bus ride to the airport and an hour or so waiting outside a nut vendor called "Totally Nuts," which kept a sign prominently displayed warning that "Some Products May Contain Nuts," we were back in the flying mall of RyanAir, heading home to London.

Whew! That's that. Dublin is done. Two and a half months after the trip, I've finally recounted it in incredible detail. Interrupted by other travels, three papers, and an exam, it is now done. As far as Norway, Italy, Paris, and Scotland... Not to mention the day trips to Stratford, Cambridge, and Bath... We'll see if I can even get those up before I get home. I have one more exam on the 17th that I'll be studying for now, and then a trip to Barcelona, and then the flight home on May 24th. So if I don't end up blogging about it, I'm sorry. But it gives you an excuse to find me this summer and let me tell you the tales in person!