Day 2 in Dublin's Fair City

This morning we woke up bright and early to catch the bus at St. Stephens Green at 9:30. We still had some time left on a 24 hour hop-on hop-off tour ticket that we bought yesterday, but we needed to get on the bus by 10AM. Ben had missed most of the second half of the tour last time around because he was catching some zzz's in the back of the bus. These things happen when you don't sleep on your overseas flight. Anyhow, we took the tour bus all over the city and hopped off near the end of the line. That put us up at the Dublin City Gallery, where we saw some 19th and 20th century paintings from Dublin, England, and France. From there, we wandered over to the garden of remembrance, a very nice little park with a fountain and a statue that was set up by Eamon de Valera, Ireland's first president. At the end of the park is a lovely statue of the Children of Lir, an old Irish story about the king's children who were turned into swans by their jealous stepmother.
After leaving the park, Ben and I continued down O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare. We saw quite a few of the important national monuments, most of which you can see in the pictures linked in the last couple posts. There were statues of Parnell and O'Connell, two national heros; a huge stainless steel spike called the Millennium Spire officially but also called the rod to God, the spike in the dike, the spire in the mire, and the pole in the hole; the general Post Office; etc.
From O'Connell, we wandered our way over to some lunch and then to Christ Church Cathedral. Right next to the cathedral is an amusement type museum called Dvblinia. It's a viking and middle ages exhibition about what life was like in Ireland during those times. Very cute and very interesting. We decided to go there first and luckily they offered a nice student discount and a discount to the Cathedral next door. Dvblinia was loads of fun with lots of maniquines and interactive activities.
After walking through the Middle Ages, we went over to Christ Church and poked around there. It's a beautiful cathedral with lots of stained glass and carvings and pitcures and stuff. More interestingly although slightly more morbid, CCC has the most extensive set of catecombs in the isles, which are open to the public. We wandered around there for a bit, but we don't have any pictures from that because I flatout refused to be photographed next to someone's grave. Ben always insists on having living subjects (i.e. me) in his photos and that just wasn't going to happen.
We were going to go to Dublin Castle after these last two excursions but the next tour was too long of a wait, so we called it a day.
One of the things that I like to do when I go to a foreign country is eat food foreign to the country I'm in. Last night, Ben and I went out for Japanese! It's was pretty good although nothing terribly special. After that we went to a pub and listened to some Irish music for a bit.
Overall, our second day in Dublin was lots of fun and very full.