Avainsana: fandom friends

This is my very late post of the Saturday (and Sunday morning) we spent in Dublin right after our week in Limerick in May.

After a great breakfast at our hipster hotel in the Docklands me and Sari walked to the Trinity College for our pre-booked tour on the campus and Mikko did something on his own. The tour was lovely and the student guiding us was a very nice young man. Our tickets included the Long Room and Book of Kells which was good since there was quite a lot of tourists that day.

The Long Room has been on my bucket list for ages and I was so happy to finally get to see it. For a library-lover it is a real treasure and I enjoyed immensely seeing the colorful slips in the shelves indicating borrowed books. The only thing that bothered me a bit was that it was so crowded.

I did some souvenir shopping and had a nice chat with the cashier guys about audio books 🙂 and then it was time for me to get moving in order to meet Guylty/Sonja in time. We had agreed to meet at the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) which was very interesting to see too. I left Sonja to enjoy herself in the newest exhibition while I walked through the museum and it was just lovely. The museum had a nice cafe where we enjoyed lunch and also a very nice small gift shop.

From there we walked to the Marsh’s library as Sonja was such awesome guide and thought I might like it. I absolutely adored the place! I’ll always be grateful for Sonja for showing it to me.

From the Marshs’ library Sonja walked a ways with me as I was going to visit the Yeats exhibition at the National library where we parted (the exhibition was a bit of a disappointment and the other parts of the library were closed due to renovations) and then I visited the National museum’s Ór exhibition as she had recommended which was beautiful. From there I walked back to our hotel via some bookshops (didn’t find anything to buy sadly) and rested my feet for a while before we went back to the center for dinner.

We had first thought to have a dinner in pub but they were all filled to the rafters due to it being the rugby and football finals that night so we ended up to a very good pizzeria. On our way there Sari stopped to admire Sweny’s windows just as they were closing and so we ended inside to have a chat with PJ Murphy about James Joyce and all kinds of things and it was just lovely. Also in the pizzeria we had lovely chat with the neighboring tables and I must say that all the Irish people were so wonderful. (Actually we came to the conclusion that Finns and Irish are quite alike, we felt like being at home with everyone, it was so easy.)

On Sunday morning we took a little walk to the city center but then decided to get back to hotel and leave for the airport since we’d heard it was going to be quite the struggle to get to the flight in time. We were lucky and made it to our flight but we queued to the security check for two hours and I didn’t have time to buy anything from the tax free, I only managed to bu some sandwiches for the plane for dinner.

Thank you Sonja and Ireland for lovely time, I’ll be back!