Reading the Sky

In an earlier post I mentioned the Gravity Bar on top of the Guinness Museum and it is about time you guys see what I am talking about. It is basically a round room with a counter in the middle and glass all around. What makes it even more instructive is the fact that it has explanations on some of the windows that describe the famous tourist sites around Dublin in the direction you can find them. This makes it very easy for me because it is pretty self-explanatory.

The very famous St Patrick's Cathedral:

Make sure you remember all the facts about this Cathedral because I have a blog about it coming up as well.

This one I have not even visited but it's good to know...

All lies! Everyone knows Trinity College is in Cambridge!

As I mentioned before you got a free Guinness up there. I really like the way it looks with all the waves going up (you cannot tell very well from this picture but it is actually very pretty).

And last but not least the Guinness brewery itself, of course. 

PS: I think no one has been able to take pictures with a sky like this EVER. Also, don't you think you are getting a right impression here, because it looks really spacey and empty. No, good Sirs, it was packed and I probably made more than one enemy pushing everyone around to get decent pictures... You better appreciate them!

So this is what I should be doing...

Since we have run out of Shakespeare plays for the moment we had to look for another source of entertainment and I think we did a pretty good job. The Botanic Gardens in Cambridge hosts a concert every Wednesday (assuming the weather is nice (haha, right)) and this week we had....

Flamenco! 

Whoooo! I mean, Olé! Haha the musicians actually told us to shout it when we thought it was good and some of the Brits were doing a decent job doing so... 

The music was really good and the dancers very talented. For some miraculous reason the weather was fantastic as well (this is starting to be suspicious, there is probably a hurricane on its way...)

As usual we were just sitting on the grass having a picnic (I bought a blanket a couple of days ago, because this seems to be my new form of dinner...) and enjoying the atmosphere. Lovely!

Freeze!

I told you!

I was going to see Leprechauns in Ireland! 

How?

Welcome to the Wax Museum of Dublin! 

It is a very entertaining museum and I have to shamefully admit that I did not know most of the people in there (there were whole rooms dedicated to Irish sportsmen, politicians and writers, which I don't happen to be very familiar with (especially not with their looks...)).

Of course I knew my good friend Oscar Wilde so we had a little chat...

... and I was very excited to meet my idol and life-guide Spongebob!

Last but not least a picture of a guy that I picked up in the end. Apparently he had also come all the way from England to Dublin...

Behind bars

 A very impressive landmark of Dublin is the Kilmainham Gaol, a former jail that has now become a museum. This building was prison to many of the leaders of the Irish rebellions in the beginning of the 20th century and is an important part of Irish history. 

The East wing is very impressive and unexpectedly beautiful. Apparently it was the first prison to have this kind of interior patio that allowed the guards to watch numerous prisoners at once (many of the modern jails follow this style). This hall is so extraordinary that several films have been shot here and sometimes it even hosts theater plays (no famous video-clip worth mentioning here).

I feel like it has a lot of very cute details considering the fact that this is a prison we are talking about here...

The yards were very impressive as well, but the guide showed us corners where rebels were shot, so that kind of dimmed everyone's enthusiasm.

Although its history is quite depressing the prison itself is quite remarkable and the tour-guide was really good, so we enjoyed the stay. I guess it is easy to say this for someone who only spent an hour there and not a couple of years...

Sixth College: Jesus College

I know you guys probably think that I will never complete my challenge of visiting and blogging about all the 31 Colleges in Cambridge, and considering that this is the sixth one I am writing about your thoughts might have been justified to some extend. But not anymore, my friends! This weekend I went on College-tour with a very good friend of mine and we covered 13 of them! It may not sound as impressive as it actually was but you have to consider that a visit consists of the following steps:

1. Find the College (might sound trivial, but believe me, it is really not). Some of the colleges do not have actual signs in front of it (or not the ones you might be expecting) and some were just big doors you passed by everyday without noticing they were College entrances so you don't even acknowledge them. More than once, I kid you not, we went AROUND the building that we assumed was the college twice without finding the entrance (it really was the College, so I don't understand what we were doing wrong...)

2. Convince the porters, that we are allowed to go in, even though we are not College members (University card helps, but smiles sometimes did so even more...)

3. Cross the portal to Narnia and run around endless fields and buildings that cannot possibly fit into the area that is surrounded by the walls.

4.Make sure you covered everything, visited the College Chapel, avoided the Fellow-areas, only stepped on the allowed grass and got a sneak peak of the Dining hall.

5. Find the way out and cycle to the next College (or at least in its direction...)

Anyway, and without further ado, I give you:

Jesus College

Even though it is fairly close, I had never been to Jesus College and now it is one of my favorites. Why you ask? Because this is the first thing we ran into:

At first we were a little shocked, but then we figured that these were not real people. And this is when things started to get weird! We later found out that they were hosting some kind of modern exposition, but I have to say, that I really love this College with all this incredible randomness and if I were them I would keep the sculptures forever.

Jesus College is huge! And as we continued walking I lost my orientation which added up to the confusion of the sculptures before.

Some parts of the College are very modern and it does not look like you are in the college anymore. As we continued walking we ran into this:

Of course there is a huge, yellow (yellow!) firetruck in the middle of the College (we still did not know about any exposition, so imagine my state of mind at this point)! Next to all this randomness we still had a lot of beautiful Cambridge-typical scenery:

Then, we apparently passed some time tunnel, because the building we walked into was like a really old castle and not at all like the rest of the College:

Naturally this old path led to a patio with golden umbrellas lying around...

... and we then ended in a small garden that had pieces of huge clocks and other sculptures such as:

lying around.

To wrap it up this sign was standing in a corner under some bushes.

As we went out we took a last look at the rocks on the grass that had something fishy about them...

Whoever came up with ALL OF THIS is my Person of the Day (a highly prestigious award). Really good job, Jesus College, I did not see any of this coming!

PS: longest post ever, is anyone still reading at this point?...

It's all downhill from here...

One of the things I did not think I would see during this trip are the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs are really famous worldwide for their stunning beauty but unfortunately they are on the other coast of the country. Luckily enough for some reason we decided to join a day tour to this wonderful place last-minute and here is what we found:

Not only was the weather amazing, there was also no wind at all!! This made walking around much easier (There is a path with a fence and stuff, so you are not going to fall most of the time, but there are some regions where you can get closer to the edge without fence and that is where it gets dangerous if people do not take into account the strong winds blowing there)

I have to confess that we also took some pictures close to the edge..-

but this was still nothing compared to some people actually STANDING where my head is and taking selfies (an action during which one has the tendency to lean back per se...)

All I can say is that this place was BREATHTAKING. You can't really tell by the pictures how beautiful and impressive these cliffs are, it's just overwhelming! Once again, good job, Mother Nature!

For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night

This month we have this amazing event in Cambridge: the Shakespeare festival (this is as British as it will get for me). There are eight different plays shown in the beautiful gardens of various Colleges for a couple of weeks. You can go there with your friends, bring food and have a picnic while you watch the performance. And all of this under the open sky!

We are incredibly lucky with the weather at the moment, it is even comfortable to sit only in a t-shirt until the end of the play!

It is such a fantastic atmosphere!! The gardens are beautiful, the temperature is perfect, you have great food and drinks that you are sharing with your friends and the actors and their costumes are amazing! So far we have seen A Comedy of errors, Cymbeline and today Romeo and Juliet (see the cast in the picture above) and they have been really, really good (my favorite so far was Comedy of Errors). So to put it in today's words: 

Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow