Last Saturday in Dublin

After a later night out on Friday, most of us opted to sleep in a few extra hours this morning before heading back to the Temple Bar markets. After visiting each of the different sections of the market last week, I had a good idea exactly what to eat. Two lamb skewers, a berry smoothie and a banana and nutella crepe later, I left the food area feeling pretty satisfied.

Although we took the bus with a smaller group of people, we ran into most of the others from our program. Great minds think alike!



The weather was a little chiller today than last week, but that didn't seem to stop any of the vendors. I was amazed at all of the beautiful flowers on sale throughout the city, and couldn't resist a picture of the gerbera daisies.
Colleen, Melissa and I split up from the bigger group when we saw a sign for Cadbury's Chocolate Emporium. We went inside and were asked to enter our names and guess how many chocolate bars it took to put together the gigantic Ireland sculpture on display. And of course, there were free samples!

Throughout the market and the streets today were tons of musicians. For the first time since I've been here, I saw a women playing a harp on a street corner.

We wandered down Grafton St. and passed St. Stephen's Green until Colleen spotted a line of horse drawn carriages. After one of the drivers did some convincing, we hopped in one for a 30 minute tour of the south side of the city. He took us around Marion Square, another smaller park, and passed several of the government buildings. And of course, we got the opportunity to finally spot some of Dublin's famous Georgian architecture.




The doorways are an example of the Georgian style architecture. Notice the side window panes and half-moon shaped window above the door. Most of the doors throughout the city are painted random colors, as you can see above.

We headed down to the Grand Canal, which we were told runs almost all the way across the country, to Limerick. There were tons of boats along the canal, many of which we occupied by people enjoying the nice, cool weather.

After departing from our carriage, we walked back down Grafton St. to do some shopping. Melissa spotted a man asking ash tray shaped containers on the street, and we stopped to check out how exactly he was making them. Turns out, he was using old recycled aluminum cans and a pair of scissors. I think we might even be able to make them ourselves!



After buying a few soveniors,we came back to campus to eat dinner and rest for a few hours before we head back into the city again later on tonight. What a great way to spend our last Saturday in Dublin.