Phoenix Park and the Dublin Zoo

Phoenix Park is the largest urban park in all of Europe and it can be found right here in Dublin Ireland. It is 1,760 acres...HUGE. I barely walked any of it before I got distracted by the Dublin Zoo, but I did manage to find the Wellington Monument.

There are scenes on each side of the monument. It is huge and pretty impressive when you get up close. Apparently there are a lot of these sorts of monuments in the park, but like I said the zoo distracted me.

Speaking of the Dublin Zoo...It is on over 30 acres of land and has huge enclosures for the animals. Here are a couple snippets.

This is for all my Mo'orea folk, JUNGLE FOWL

Asian elephants

The most active Red Panda I have ever seen, he was doing laps around the enclosure, which was quite large mind you.

White Rhinos

Angry white rhinos

Giraffes!

Adorable Maras

And that's all folks!

Howth

Howth is a sleepy little town just north of Dublin. It is nice for a quick jaunt and some peace and quiet for the city. It is a very, very small town and has an active port, so is mostly fishermen. This also means they have amazing fresh fish and beautiful scenery, but the history of the town and whatnot is not much to write home about (har har). As a result this entry will be mostly pictures of said prettiness. We will get to the scenery in a moment, but first I must share silliness:

Sarah and I both laughed out loud when we saw this

And now for the views:

And of course I made a creature friend...may I introduce the COMMON GREY SEAL!

Halichoerus grypus. Ain't he cute?

And that my friends, was Howth.

Galway, Home of the Galwegians

So after our trip to Sligo we hopped on a bus heading south toward Galway. We got into the the city and immediately found a hostel with open rooms. We dropped off our stuff and then headed out to explore the town. Galway has a big central square that is officially dedicated to JFK, but the locals call it Eyre Square. From the square you can go in different directions toward different ends be it, the rail station, the university, the ocean, or the port. Going toward the ocean there is an elaborate pedestrian walkway, similar to Grafton Street here, but less expensive. We headed down the walkway and to the ocean, but first we crossed the river.

The Corrib River is the shortest river in all of Europe

After we crossed the bridge we arrived at the Spanish Arch, a historical monument, but not an exciting one. The we headed into the museum on the water. It was a gorgeous building and had many interesting exhibits. My favorite was one where over the course of one month a photographer took pictures of everyone in her neighborhood. Now they all live in row houses so she had each of the go out and stand in front. Then, she spliced the photos together and they are hung around the gallery in order. I truly enjoyed it. Next, we went and hung out with our swan friends before walking the ocean path.

Ocean with cliffs in the background

The ocean side path is quite long, but Sarah and I love walking and love saltwater so it was a natural combination. We saw a lighthouse in the distance at the end of a very long pier and decided to walk out to see it.

so we walked from where the green roof is (abouts)

to see this


but found this

Signs not meaning that much to us and all we continued to walk the pier until we reached a bigger gate with more signs. We caught a glimpse of a Garda heading our way and turned right around and headed back to the safe zone.

Tired from our walk and travels we decided to head back to the hostel. I took a much needed shower while Sarah took a nap. Then we decided to go for dinner and both of us were craving Indian food. On our walk back to a place we had seen we saw this cool looking pub with a 2 Euro student special (yes yes I graduated college but my Berkeley ID does not have an expiration date...there are a lot of student discounts...yes, this might make me a bad person). The pub was called the Hole in the Wall and I made a mental note of it and we went and ate dinner. Afterward we came back to the pub and enjoyed the atmosphere. Then, some students came up to us and starting chatting. There were 4 guys and 1 girl and the girl begged us to come out with them, so we did. They took us to a local music place called Taffe's, which when they say it sounds like Taft's and that had me all kinds of confused for a bit there. The musicians played Folsom Prison Blues, but aside from that it was all Irish music.

...

Side note about Folsom Prison Blues though, Sarah's dad used to live across the lake from Johnny Cash and was friends with his kids. He had started a band and was playing at one of the Cash kid's birthdays and Johnny comes down and asks, 'Do you know Folsom Prison?" They did and Abrahm was Cash's band for that song. How cool is that?? Also Johnny Cash took him out to water ski. Can you say awesome?

...

End of side note, back to the story. We then headed to a dance club and got our groove on until the early morning. Our train out of Galway was not until 3pm so we decided to rebel against our inner old person and dance the night away.

The next day we walked around the city a bit more and I snapped some pictures of street art I enjoyed

Skeletons are awesome

As is Tofu.

Then off we were on our train to Dublin. I really enjoyed our jaunt, but truly like Dublin and was happy to be back.

Next Up Howth...

Sligo and Strandhill

As much as I love Dublin, Sarah and I decided it was EXPLORATION TIME. We left Dublin on a train headed north west for Sligo, the quiet little hometown of Yeats. We arrived and headed to the railway hostel, http://www.therailway.ie/, if you ever find yourself in Sligo STAY THERE. This place was awesome, good beds, good price, around the corner from the train/bus station, free breakfast, and a lot of charm. The owner has a really cute dog as well, which is always a plus for me.

After checking in and dropping off our stuff we headed into town. It is a really small town settled on the Garavogue River. When we hit the outskirts we stumbled upon Sligo Abbey, the only medieval building left in town. It is in great condition and was fascinating to wonder around. I have a ton of pictures but put some I particularly enjoyed below:

The view when you first walk in

In the central courtyard of the friary

fun angle of the tower

After Sligo we wandered a bit more and found the river walk and followed it for a bit. At the first corner I found this sweet bench!

Look at the fishies on the bottom!



I spy I swam trying to swim against the current, do you?

After the river walk we decided to check out the Yeats house. It's a big museum dedicated to the whole family with pictures, paintings, original writings, and plenty of history. Above the house is an art gallery and we of course checked that out. A lot of the stuff in there was not my cup of tea, but everyone liking defeats the purpose in my mind. I thought this one was kinda cool and I am putting it up here for my friend Andrew, because it reminded me of him (Don't be mean...buddy).

Now one art piece I LOVED was this statue of Yeats! The entire body is imprinted with words, be it quotes or just a simple idiom. If you click on the picture you can see the detail.

Sligo is quite a small town, and we covered it pretty quickly. The town of Strandhill is about 20 minutes outside Sligo and we heard it was an amazing beach town, off we went on a bus. It was gorgeous and a nice change of scenery. I love the ocean and was at home once again!

Oh hello Atlantic!

It is just asking you to come in!



There was a giant sand dune that decided to climb



Those little specs down there are people!

Gorgeous view.

Sarah atop the sand dune


Canon by the shoreline

Groovy statue on the shoreline as well

After we hiked up the dune and strolled on the beach we still had some time to kill before our bus. So what do we do? Drink in a pub of course! There is a lovely little pub with a fun surfing stained glass.

The atmosphere at these places is awesome. They are really old buildings with odd collections of random STUFF. While I was sitting down I noticed a book binding that seemed, well, odd. I asked the bar tender for the book, and what did I find? This book, plus an example of one of the cartoons! Seriously HILARIOUS book.

After that we headed back to Sligo for the evening and had dinner at a place named Shanagins, just because of the name. The food was mneh but the name, well worth the meal. We met out two roommates at the dinner place randomly and we headed back to the hostel with them and talked to them all night. One was from Dublin and one from Israel. It is really a neat and unique opportunity to be able to talk about the same basic life experience and hear different perspectives.

After our awesome nights sleep we headed to the bus station to head down to Galway. There was this awesome mural on a wall that I wanted a picture of so badly I almost missed my bus, so enjoy it damn it!

This is getting long, so I will do Galway in a separate post, so keep your eyes peeled!