Ireland Trip Day 12, Dublin

So first thing after breakfast we met in the lobby of the hotel and started out on a walking tour of sites associated with the book Ulysses by James Joyce.  Our guide was a professor who had obviously spent a great deal of time studying the man and his works.  He was fairly interesting but I came away thinking as another tour member said-"If I have to study it that hard, keep a map of early 1900's Dublin to understand what he's talking about I'm not reading him."  I had been reading another of his books Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, it wasn't too bad but I don't think Joyce wrote for history if he intended for all his readers to work as hard to get his meaning.  Maybe it's the same feeling I have about poetry:  Why can't the author just mean what he said?  English teachers seem to want to tear everything into little bits and take all the enjoyment out of it, I don't know maybe that is their enjoyment.  (They'd probably wonder the same about me and my interest in early KC.  To each his own.  I like poetry, I just don't want to pick it apart. I think liking Joyce may be beyond me now.)  Anyway, we ended up at Bewley's Cafe on Grafton Street for lunch (a terrible mushroom soup) and a short theatrical work about life changes and the confusion they create which I liked very much.  Mark had given us maps of Dublin and we had free time after that so I started off walking to the Medieval part of Dublin.  I got a little turned around so I walked farther than necessary but I ended up at the fabulous Christ Church.
After walking all around it, I crossed the street and went to the Viking museum.  Dublin was a Viking city, set up at first as a place to tie up their boats it was eventually a permanent town with walls and a castle.  The Northmen became part of the Irish people by intermarrying over time.  It was called Dvblinia.  I enjoyed the museum very much, at the end you walk over the street and into Christ Church, very unique.  Then I walked over to Dublin Castle, just a short ways off.

The tower looked older than the rest of the building.  The part in front is the Chapel Royal and it was gorgeous inside (but they didn't allow photos!) It seemed like there where a lot of offices in all the buildings of the chapel.  It was pretty late in the afternoon so I didn't take a long tour.  I did buy a patch for the memories quilt and a dainty Christmas ornament there.  Then I hiked back to the hotel, a lot shorter than the way I came!

I'm getting tired and I miss talking to my children, closing in on time to go home and I think I'll be ready.