Dublin & Advent

Today was a very, very, very, very long day. & I'm half-asleep whilst writing this, so if it doesn't make sense in places it's not you, it's me.
This time. :P

So. Today.

Getting up at 5am = rough. I'm so much more of a night owl; I'm simply not made to get up early. I walked to the train station (or, about half way, then got lazy, saw a cab & rode the rest of the way) & was there by 6:15am. I was the second of the postgrads there.
Eventually we all showed up, joined the massive queue to get onto the 7am train, took our seats & tried to fall asleep. It didn't work too well for me, but I kept trying to sleep anyway. I'm stubborn like that.
Oh, & in case you're wondering, dawn was around 8:30. I'm sure you were all overly curious about that.

Well, we were thus in Dublin around 9:40 & promptly took a bus to Stephan's Green...so that we could walk 10 minutes to the National Archives. Luckily, it was sunny this morning in Dublin town.
The nearly two hours spent at the Archives was informative & was actually one of the best talks by an archivist that I've endured in quite some time. First she helped us with where to look for manuscripts on our topics, not just at the Archives, but at other repositories around Dublin. Then, she skimmed over all that info that you get told twenty bajillion times at archives (use pencil only! don't bring in any bags! don't mishandle the manuscripts or you will die! -- erm, so, that last one is just the gist of what they say, but I'm sure some of them think that). I'm also in possession of a reader's card for the Archives that will last three years. In case I ever need it. Free things that that are always good to have, after all.

So, after the Archives, we went to lunch. I'll spare you the details, but all of us were famished & dug into our meal gladly. I was ridiculously happy to see food since I hadn't eaten anything since 5:30.

After scarfing down our meal, Hiram (one of the UCC lecturers) thought it'd be fun to go visit an exhibition at the National Gallery. So we did. And it was really cool. All sorts of paintings on the culture of Ireland in a 200 year span (I forget the actual dates & am too lazy to walk over to my bag which has the pamphlet in it), I think 1700-something to 1940ish.
I am such a bad historian, disregarding dates like that.

Then it was off to the National Library, which I had high hopes for -- it, after all, is probably where I will end up doing quite a bit of research. & while our guide there did give us some good info, she also gave us way too much filler. Not a good idea when you have a tired group of postgrad students with you & the reading room you've taken them to is extremely warm. I'm quite honestly surprised half of us didn't fall asleep. But, I do feel badly, though, since we really weren't good at asking questions since most people seemed to be thinking "I want a pint/I want to sit down/I want to sleep."

It was raining slightly went we left the Library & headed back to the train station...& the wind got very gusty. But it was nothing compared to the weather we found in Cork when we got off the train around 8pm. Steady rain & an almost constant strong, strong wind. I tried to avoid walking too close to the river for very long, fearing that there might be a particularly super strong gust at some point & I would fly, Piglet style, in the the River Lee & then wash out to sea.

So, that was today's adventures -- in sleepy visioned details.

Sunday, I actually did stuff! One of my friends, Claudia, held an Advent party -- complete with hot chocolate, scones, & other goodness...I left there stuffed. Then, Nienke, her twin sister who was visiting & I went to the Advent celebration at St Fin Barre's Sunday night. It was quite beautiful -- the church stayed dark almost the entire time. I just wish they had printed the music to accompany the words to the hymns they gave us in the program...or that they had given us hymnals. I knew one hymn they sang off the top of my head & the rest I had to mumble quietly until the second and third verses, when I was finally able to catch the melody.

Well, off to sleep I go. Luckily, I have nothing to do until 3pm tomorrow, so I can recover. Yay for that!