Dublin Part 1/ Maybe the Only Dublin Post

So I'm currently in Dublin... have been for two days. I still have tomorrow and the following day to tour about before my 6:15 am flight back to Venice Wednesday morning! It was a bad decision I know. Anyway... the weather here is shit. Worse than Binghamton and Venice combined! If you can even imagine. Yesterday I went on a tour of Trinity College and the guide, who was a student, would say "in the winter.. and April" every time he explained the time of year that has bad weather. Nonetheless it is an interesting city!!! Pictures will have to wait I guess until i get back in Venice but I will at least describe what I have been up to so far. I arrived on Friday afternoon and spent the rest of the day walking around the city trying to get to know the layout a bit and find my way from the city center back to the hostel... First of all it took over an hour and a half to get from the airport to the hostel. The first city I have visited (other than cities in Italy because that country is... unique) where the public transportation sucks. I always write about it every time i go to a new city because it is important. Here, it is terrible. I think it is because they drive on the left side of the road. I know it's normal for them but I can't help but feel that it's really stupid. Also, the tourist office gives out this map that is almost worthless. I usually have decent map reading and navigational abilities but here the maps are terrible. Not just the free one but even the ones that cost 5 or 6 euros! They don't include all the streets!! I don't care how big a city is (which Dublin is not), or how complex the street layout is (which in Dublin it is not) a city should still be able to produce a decent map!!! I mean Venice is a city with a way more complex street system AND waterway system yet the maps are still readable, not to mention I have a pocket sized map of NYC that I can keep in my wallet that is more accurate than the maps here. They should just call some cartographer from the civilized world to come to the Isle and map it out!!!! Also food is way overpriced here. Other things like clothes and furniture and whatever are cheap but yesterday I payed almost 20 bucks for a bagel and a water. Okay, enough complaining... Trinity College was very interesting and took up most of my day on Saturday. I toured part of the campus and went to the library which is super impressive and houses the Book of Kells, and ancient copy of four gospels that is really cool because of the beautiful and precise artwork that adorns the pages. From there I did a little church hopping. I saw St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Christ Church. They were both shmeh. Nothing too impressive but pretty enough I guess. OH! I've also taken advantage of the fact that I am in an English speaking country and have seen two movies. Shine a Light, the Scorsese/ Stones collaboration, and Lars and the Real Girl, the Ryan Gosling indi. Both were great! The Rolling Stones documentary was visually stunning! See this movie! And they sounded pretty good too. Way better than they did at the Super Bowl x number of years ago. The other film was pretty good. The story was funny and uplifting yet really sad and sorta sappy. It was also poorly made with multiple goofs visible on screen. I recommend it anyway. Today I started out by visiting the Dublin Castle. It was interesting but not extraordinarily beautiful or even worthwhile. I may sound like I am bad talking the city but I'm not. In terms of architecture though, everything is boring and grey. From there, I went to the one cool church i have found, the church of St. Michan. It supposedly inspired Bran Stoker to write Dracula. He is one of the many famous authors from Dublin (also a graduate from Trinity College). I learned about him and the many others when I visited the Writers Museum. That was surprisingly interesting. I wanted to purchase every book mentioned that I haven't read yet but... I didn't. Interesting fact is that the museum is in the old home of George Jameson, of Jameson's Irish Whiskey. Especially interesting because just before I went to the museum, I visited the Old Jameson Distillery. That was a very fun and interesting attraction that I highly recommend. I learned a lot about the process as well as the qualities and differences of the world's many kinds of whiskey. I also have been visiting a few beautiful gardens in the city. Somehow there are many flowers in bloom despite the terrible weather. I'm also very pleased that there is a wide variety of ethnic food available in this city :). Another post soon about the rest of my time in Dublin.