“In Ireland, we don’t break the law. We just bend it a little.”

Greetings from Ireland! I hope you all are doing well in the homeland; I wish you all could be here with me now. The weather is beautiful (even though you know how much I dislike cold weather), the people are warm-hearted and the country is breathtaking. Our journey here started off a little bumpy with a delay at RDU (remind me to upload the picture that Izzy, Katie, Lauren and I drew together!) and then we prayed our way through severe turbulence on the way to Newark. But once we boarded our plane there, we had a pretty smooth ride. The flight to Dublin lasted about 5 hours and 40 minutes. We have movies to watch and wonderful flight attendants, so it passed fairly quickly. We landed just as the sun was coming up. I have seen few things so beautiful as that sunrise. Regardless, we were all extremely happy to be done flying and start exploring.

After getting off the plane and grabbing our luggage and some Euros, we loaded up our gear on the bus and made our way toward Malahide. We’ll be heading back tomorrow to tour the castle, but we just passed through today. We had a chance to walk around by ourselves downtown and Kristen, Michael, Micah and I used the opportunity to take pictures (mostly by a local dock). Then, we headed over to breakfast at Diamond Burger Bar where we ordered scrambled eggs, toast, fruit scones, tea and coffee for breakfast. It was absolutely delicious! Tomorrow we try our first “Hearty Irish breakfast” which normally consists of different types of meats and breads. While we were eating, we recognized some familiar artists on the radio like Pink and Far East Movement; it was nice to be reminded of home.

Once we finished breakfast, we boarded the bus and went back to the airport to pick up Dr. Pittman and Dr. Whitley. Apparently, their flights were delayed. They still aren’t here… hopefully they’ll be here soon though. We then left the airport and drove around Dublin for a while. We visited the country and saw the presidents’ house and some gardens as well as a huge cross that was “planted” in a field. The year it was constructed, a mass of over 1 million gathered in the surrounding area! Impressive. Then, we drove back to town and saw some landmarks from the bus including the Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. They’re only a few blocks from each other. Our guide mentioned that the reason they were so close is because when Dublin had a wall surrounding it centuries earlier, Christ Church Cathedral was located in the city walls (and was therefore subjected to a tax). St. Patrick’s Cathedral was built in an effort to bring masses to those who couldn’t afford the tax; it was built outside the city walls— though only a few steps in the other direction.

Did you know that Dublin means “black pool?” Probably not, but I didn’t either. We rode past the river that earned its claim to fame, which was pretty neat. A little later, we visited Trinity College and got to see an exhibit on The Book of Kells. We read all about the calligraphy, scribes, illustrations and message throughout the exhibit and then had a chance to look at actual pages from the book itself. They were in pretty great shape for dating back to the ninth century… just saying. We also got to explore the Long Room at the college. It’s a library that houses over 200,000 books; they had to add onto it in 1860 because there wasn’t any room for the expanding university’s volumes! I almost cried when they told me I couldn’t take any pictures.

We then toured a little more around the school and then made our way to the National Gallery of Ireland. Though a lot of the paintings were currently undergoing preservation, there were still 10 or 12 rooms full of art for us to marvel at. I saw my first real Rembrandt (Witherspoon would be proud!) and paintings by Picasso and Van Gough as well. Once we left the gallery, we headed back to the hotel. No lie, we are all exhausted. But it has been an AMAZING day.

Dinner will be soon and I imagine you all haven’t even had a chance to eat lunch yet. But please know we all are thinking of you. I’ll try and update you on what goes on tomorrow; we have our first concert of the tour! Until tomorrow, happy trails!