Author: Jon and Amy Wedell

We started today with a trip to the National Museum (of Archeology), with vague plans of things to do afterwards. It turns out we didn't really need other plans, as we spent almost all day in the museum. It was awesome. They had extensive exhibits on Irish and Viking history (including the progress of Irish civilization through the paleolithic, mesolithic, and neolithic ages up through the Bronze, Iron and modern ages. It was really cool to see how the tools and metalworks improved as time went on and to see how burial practices changed. What really was the coolest part of the museum was the bog bodies. These are BCE era bodies that were preserved due to being disposed of in bogs. They reveal a wealth of information about ancient Celtic cultures. We saw Old Croghan man, Clonycavan man, and Galagh Man. Along with the bodies, there were large chunks of bog butter. Apparently people would bury large amounts of butter in the bogs where it would keep fresh for later use. Sometimes they forgot or lost it... We had dinner at an awesome Japanese restaurant we had discovered our first night in Dublin (with a great vegetarian bento box) and then went back to the Temple Bar district for some more live music.

We got up early and ate our free breakfast (toast and cereal). We planned out our route for the day, which was going to be a big circle around the city center, stopping at museums, monuments, and other points of interest. We headed first to The National Museum (of archeology). Unfortunately, the museum is closed on Mondays, so we moved on to our next destination. The National Gallery of Ireland was nice, but it didn't have nearly as large of a collection as London's National Gallery. The museum advertised having work by Van Gough, Goya, Cezanne, and Manet (of which they literally had one of each). Their collection of works by Yeats was pretty extensive and impressive. Next, we walked by Trinity College and down O'Connell street, where we saw the Spire of Dublin (the monument of light) and the statue of James Joyce. We walked to another museum called The National Museum (of Decorative Arts), which was also closed. We walked past the old Jameson distillery, across the Liffey river to Dublin Castle. We checked out the Castle briefly before returning to our hostel to dry off. Later that evening we went to the Temple bar district where we listened to some live Irish music.

Today we made our way to Dover Castle. The castle is rich in history from multiple generations, from a surviving lighthouse built in approximately ~30CE by the Romans to a church built in the 1000s by the Anglo-Saxons, to a castle keep built in the late 1100s by king Henry the Second, to a series of tunnels dug during the middle ages, another series of tunnels dug during the Napoleonic wars, a series of tunnels dug during the second world war, and finally, a series of tunnels dug during the cold war. The WW2 tunnels were particularly interesting, having housed a radio repeater, a military hospital, and a military bunker and planning chamber. It was in these tunnels that operation Dynamo was planned. Dynamo was the last minute operation to rescue the British expeditionary force as well as various other allied forces from Dunkirk, France, after the German advance had pushed them to the coast. Over 330,000 soldiers were successfully evacuated to fight again. We did our laundry, and are back at the cheery local pub where we're currently posting this from while drinking some cask ales. We had an excellent curry dinner here as well.

Today was our first full day in Dover. We woke up early in order to eat our full English breakfast included in our hostel fee. A full English breakfast includes: eggs, sunny side up (though apparently this is the only way the Brits take their eggs - they don't know what "over easy" is), baked beans, a fried tomato, fried mushrooms, sausage, bacon, and sometimes hash browns. (We passed on the bacon and sausage.) After breakfast we spent almost all day at the White cliffs of Dover hiking and exploring - it was incredibly beautiful. We've attached a picture of the cliffs.

We took a bus from London to Dover today. It was cheap, but it smelled like urine and we're pretty sure the people across the aisle from us were in the drug trade. It was pretty much a Greyhound and I hope we don't have to take a bus again. The train is much better... Luckily our hostel wasn't too far from the bus station, so we were able to walk. When we arrived we came upon a note saying that the doorbell was broken and that we needed to call in order to contact the staff. we didn't have the ability to call it so we were lucky that the owner happened to show up right around the same time. We dropped off our belongings at the hostel and set off to catch a glimpse of the cliffs of Dover before sunset. Unfortunately for us, the map of the cliffs gave a route for cars... not pedestrains. We wound up

More London! We slept in today but then had a pretty busy day. We took the underground to Westimster Abbey. The Abbey was beautiful but expensive so we only looked at the outside. The church next door, St. Margaret's was open to the public without a fee, and was fun to explore. Originally opened in the 800's, it was destroyed and rebuilt multiple times. (Most recently in the 1550s.) It has survived since then despite taking at least one bomb during the Blitz in WW2. There were many ancient plaques and graves in the church, dating as early as the 1600's. We proceeded to the Palace of Westminster (parliament) and Big Ben, then crossed the river Thames to see the London Eye. On the bank of the Thames we had a hummus and pita lunch as we viewed Big Ben and Parliament. We continued down the river and took a look at Tower Bridge and the London Tower. The London Tower looked awesome but we arrived to late to go inside. The picture in this post is us in front of the River Thames with the Palace of Westminster in the background.

*Changing of Guards * Picadilly * Trafalgar Sq. * Lunch at some irish place in chinatown * National Gallery - awesome * Groceries for dinner