Ireland, Day 6 | Dublin, Part III

Our final day in Ireland began early, as we had a very full itinerary to work through. Our list included touring Trinity College, visiting Dublin Castle, seeing the cathedrals, and stopping at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). Spoiler alert, however, we only made it through half of the items on our list. Yikes!

My mom picked out a fun doughnut shop for us to visit for breakfast (there are a lot of doughnut shops in Dublin!), and today, we’d have to finally figure out the public transportation in the city.

I used this really cool website called Rome2Rio to figure out exactly how to get from one place to another using public transportation. All you have to do is enter your current location and then tell the website where you want to go, and it gives you info on all the different ways you can get there – via bus, tram, taxi, etc. It tells you the prices for each mode of transportation as well as which bus to get on, where the bus stop is, and which bus stop to get off at. It was super helpful while we were in Ireland.

Anyway, getting to the right bus stop was a bit of a mess because the first time around, I went straight at an intersection instead of turning right so we had to retrace our steps. When we finally got to the right bus stop, we waited for nearly 30 minutes for the bus and when it finally arrived, the bus driver told us we were at the wrong stop. We needed to be at the one across the street. ARGH!

This is when my first meltdown of the day occurred because I was frustrated with all this waiting. I just wanted to get on with our day in Dublin! I spent a good five minutes stewing in my anger before recognizing that this was not a big deal and it would all be okay.

Eventually, the right bus came by. Hooray! Once we were in city centre, we made our first stop of the day: doughnuts! I went for the peanut butter chocolate flavor but, unfortunately, we didn’t really love the doughnuts since they were yeast doughnuts and too bread-y for us. Gimme cake doughnuts over yeast doughnuts ANY day.

After our disappointing breakfast, we stopped into Carrolls Irish Gifts to poke around for fun souvenirs to bring back home. This gift shop is huge and it was crazy busy when we were in there. I ended up purchasing an Ireland magnet and a t-shirt.

Then, it was time to take our tour of Trinity College! It was led by the cutest college senior who was hilarious and nerdy and I’m sure I would have had the biggest crush on him had I been 10 years younger. 😉 (And wow, I feel old saying something like that!) He was a great tour guide, full of so much information and funny tidbits about Trinity College.

We started with the outside courtyard of the college, where we learned about all the different buildings and their significance. Trinity College indeed has a deep history, as it was founded in 1592 and is the oldest college in Ireland. The buildings surrounding the courtyard were built in the 18th and 19th centuries, one of those buildings being the Library of Trinity College, which contains more than 6.2 million printed volumes and significant manuscripts, including the Book of Kells.

After touring the campus, we were invited into the library to view the Book of Kells and the Long Room. The Long Room, built between 1712 and 1732, houses more than 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books. It was a space of immense reverence, and it’s hard to take in how much literary history lives in this room. It honestly took my breath away.

We weren’t allowed to take picture of the Book of Kells for obvious reasons, but it was truly significant to just be in the room with this ancient manuscript. The Book of Kells is a Latin manuscript of the first four books of the New Testament in the Bible. First, we walked through a museum-like exhibit that delved further into the Book of Kells: how it was made, how it’s preserved, etc., which was fascinating. For example, it’s not as if the writers of this manuscript could just open up a new notebook and start writing. The parchment had to be made, the ink had to be carefully chosen.

I am really glad we made time to tour Trinity College and it was one of the highlights of my trip for sure.

After our tour, we decided to check out the Temple Bar area for lunch and this is when the second meltdown of the day happened for me. (I hope you’re keeping track!) First, I was starving by this point because eating a few bites of a doughnut is not very filling (who knew?) and second, I kept getting lost on our way to Temple Bar even though I was using my phone’s GPS. And then my mom got frustrated with me and it was just a total and complete mess for both of us.

Eventually, we found Temple Bar and the legendary bar this area is named for. Let’s talk about overstimulation station! Whew. It was loud, chaotic, and every seat in the bar except for one in this tiny corner was taken. I felt like I was having a mental breakdown being in a place like that. I was already in a pissy mood and being in an environment like that didn’t help matters in the least.

We decided to leave Temple Bar and find a quieter place for lunch, and we stumbled on this really adorable place called Old Mill Restaurant. It was the perfect spot for us, although I spent the first half of the lunch stewing in my anger because I felt so much righteous indignation. (Listen, it’s not fun to talk about this but I want to be honest here. Honesty and vulnerability are always my priority when I write.)

Once I got over myself, I really enjoyed my lunch. I had a delicious cider (of course) paired with cottage pie and soda bread. The whole meal was soooo good! I also really enjoyed the whole atmosphere of this restaurant. It was just a peaceful space where I felt my heart rate slowing down and my body re-centering.

Real talk: it’s hard to be a highly sensitive person in a world not designed for me. I kept having these moments on this trip of trying to deny my HSP-ness, of wanting to be a “normal” person who could enjoy being in a crowded pub. I wanted to be able to take in the loud music and chat with locals without my heart rate accelerating and my body shutting down. But I’m not – it’s simply not the way my body works. My nervous system reacts to these outside stimuli in a completely different way, and I’m still learning how to accept that.

To be continued – I’ll have part II of our last day in Ireland published on Wednesday. It involves another meltdown, getting lost on public transportation, and visiting a castle. Stay tuned!