Did we sleep better in the new room? Slightly. It was still warm and we still only slept with or without the sheet, but being able to open the window more and also being out of the direct sun helped.
A trip to the gas station next door for the cold yoghurt for breakfast, and this time we were able to relax in the comfy chairs and eat at the little table. Excellent.
It was warmish outside, and it is nice to have some blue sky for a change. My creative juices have been charged, after the trip to the Art Gallery. I just want to go home, clear out my 'space' and make stuff! Cool your heals girl! You have two days to go.
We got off the bus at Merrion Square again and headed back a few doors to FUDI cafe...again. They do nice coffee, after all. It was busy and there was nowhere to sit, so we took our coffee with us as we walked through the St Georges Park again. There were food trucks setting up for the World Food Affair, and some of the smells coming from them was divine. It was 11am by now, so that made sense. I had hands full so there are no photos. We hadn't seen Hari Krishna since the 70's in Auckland, so we were somewhat amused to see their caravan selling Vegan and vegetarian foods...with the orange clad persons inside. No disrespect.
We stopped off at the War Memorial opposite the Art Gallery 'old' entry.
The 'old' entry to the National Gallery of Ireland, opposite the park. It is an imposing building.
Back into the Gallery to see the Italian and French Painters from the 16th century. Some fabulous portraits, and instantly recognizable in the portrait section was a Vermeer...obviously there were many Dutch masters on display too. The details of the clothing in some of the Italian paintings was truly remarkable, and one in particular took my interest. The artist was a woman. Fancy that. You could have reached out and touched the cloth, it was so real and delicate and the lace was truly out of this world. Thanks to some wealthy Irish residents for their gifts of these stunners to the National Gallery.
Our quest today was to find the Science Gallery. We had seen it on the map and on street signs. Dublin is VERY well signposted, thankfully.
It was a bit of an issue and nobody seemed to know which direction to point us in once the signposts ran out. But we had some chuckles on the way, looking into shop windows.
We ventured into a 'nicer' tourist shop. By nicer, I mean higher priced, but also beautiful crafts/art/china/pottery and woolen goods. Waz doesnt have a decent winter scarf to wear, so we found him a beautiful soft woolen one of those, and a woolen cheese cutter hat to match. He looked very dashing in them. Blue of course. Again, no photos because, well...we would have looked a bit tacky...this was a NICE shop, after all!
The Pope is due to visit Ireland, and he is there this weekend (a week after we arrived home), and Popemania was everywhere.
LOVE this tea cosy.
It was also next door to the Gymnasium, so it was not obvious at first what it was. There was also a large café there. The Science Gallery didnt open until 11am, we were told. Really? So why was one of the students already in there with a group?
There is a book shop at the bottom of the stairs to the gallery and so we browsed. It was indeed fortunate, in may respects, that the book I chose was one of photography, a fabulous thought provoking view of real people and how we see them...sounds a bit trite to say that, but the artist had posed soldiers in uniform, both men and women, is poses that were not upright and at attention. They were soft and sensitive, and though the subjects wore their uniforms, you were forced to see the PERSON. There were portraits of women who had been sold into sex slavery, and these photos of them were several years after their release. You had to draw your own conclusions of course, but they were stark and raw and emotional.
There were photos of Auschwitz: Signs next to the camp advertising Hot Dogs and other fast foods. The question was posed...Are we making everything into a Movie Set? Where is the dignity? Why do people visit these reminders of horrors past? What do they hope to find there? What do they want to see? Why are we 'normalizing' atrocities both past and present?
The Gallery opened at 11am. We all traipsed up the stairs to the first level. It is not a large space. Each display was attended by a young student (college) who explained what the experiments are all about. One that took my attention was of polystyrene cups with holes all over them in a covered wooden and glass container. Quite large. The student explained that Meal Worms were eating and digesting the polystuff and therefore recycling it. I asked how long it had taken for the worms to do the damage to the cups...about 6 weeks, came the answer. Therefore, one can assume they would need a gazillion meal worms to eat all the polystuff we humans trash every day! He supposed so!
Another exihibit was a video of an artist on the active lava fields of Hawaii, making moulds of Babies bottles and other every day things with the HOT Lava. Eh? His wife was the videographer.
Not only was it extremely dangerous, what he was doing, it was also completely pointless IMO. The actual Lava sculptures were in the glass case in front of us. What were we suppose to do with this information? He wasnt actually contributing anything to the world dialogue, if that was his purpose, of what to do with our recycling, which the entire thing seemed to indicate.
We were a bit pissed off by all this. There were another couple of exhibits but we passed on them. That was it folks! You mean we spent an hour trying to find the Gallery for this?
Outside in the parking lot was this fantastic Mosaic...definitely wasted in this location.
We decided to return to the National Art Gallery for lunch. You knew I was going to say that, right? :) We wanted to make it our main meal of the day.
Aretha Franklin died today. Everywhere, on TV and newsfeed, was her music. A legend!
Walk, walk, walk. Not sure where we were, but our feet were getting sore. Inside places were too hot so we chose to stay outside and in the shade where possible. Not complaining about the glorious weather mind you. A couple of brief showers, which we were told was normal for this time of year and this place (being Dublin).
We needed a pit stop and found one...the only one we had to pay for, so far, in a huge glass mall. WOW!
A walk around both ground and first floors, and we were happy to get outside in the fresh air again. It was getting hot in there!
We needed to get back to Merrion Square to catch our bus home, but we were a long way from it. More walking and we chose to walk through a lovely park. Where were the ducks? Mostly seagulls.
Waz had to drag me away from the idiot people feeding all the wildlife bread...If you are going to feed the wildlife, do so NOT with human food, esp. food that isnt good for humans, like bread! ok...short rant over.
This man was stroking the swan which was happily in heaven or some other place that swans go when they are getting stroked by a human.
We finally found our bus stop and were most grateful to hop on the bus and go home. We did stop at the little park further up the road from the Hotel and have a feed of blackberries first though.
We enjoyed the red brick buildings, unusual architecture, had lots of surprises...and I almost for got...How could I???
We had been in search of a Butlers Café. Lots of small Butlers coffee and chocolate shops everywhere, but we wanted to sit and drink and eat. Wouldn't you know it, there was a Butlers directly opposite the Laduree shop (La dure aye). Well now, what a choice!!! Merde...to Butlers or Laduree?
We chose the latter. Laduree are the French brand known for their Macarons. If you have never been, shout yourself a trip to the Laduree store on the Champs Elysee. C'est superbe!
We wanted to sit somewhere civilized and have 'coffee and cake'. To do this, we were shown into the tea-room. There we ordered a long Black, or Allongee (al long zhay) to cut the sweet of whatever cake we chose. He chose his favorite, a hazelnut flavored Mille Feuille, and I chose a Saint Honoree.
We enjoyed the atmosphere and were joined by a single mother with 7 yr old son. Son ate three macarons in quick succession...blink and you would have missed it! lol. He was a sweetie, having time out with mother. He is obviously used to the high life. Mom is a Bridal wear designer and off to France for the new season's bridal wear photo shoot in Moissac, this weekend.
We sat in the atrium at the hotel for dinner, this evening. I ordered a small pizza and Waz had some more of those loaded fries with Bolognese sauce.
To walk off the meal, we went blackberry hunting again. It has become something of a habit now. Dessert never tastes better than when picked wild.
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