My dear people who contacted me, Life has been much better--Thank you for your encouraging words. I think something inside of me changed so that I wasn't so concerned anymore. I hung out with people yesterday and found a guy I knew before was also feeling as lonely as I was. Today since everyone else went to Belfast, I went around Dublin all on my own--Very confidence building. I got asked for advice or directions several times today... I think it's because tourists aren't wondering around at 830 in the morning. I was able to see the things I wanted to see on my own pace. I went to the library because that was teh first thing open this morning of the things I wanted to see. Then I went back to the National Museum and I was the FIRST person not associated with the museum to have seen it. As a Classicist I became quite excited. There were textiles. Paddington, this next story is filled with ironies. I went to St. Michan's Church--Probably one of the creepiest churches I have ever been in but it was fun in sort of a morbid way. No one goes on tours there. NO one. So I go in, pay my entrance fee get my guidebook and then am told that the guide will collect the tour from in the Church to the VAULTS... What??? I signed up for this? There was a guy in the church when I went in so I just minded my own business. I enjoyed some of the things in the church like the Eagle lecturn or the Red alter cloth. Then the tour guy comes. He's an older fellow with a creepy laugh. He takes us down these steep steps and says mind your head. As I was the only female, the guide was sure to give me extra warnings. There are spiderwebs all over and covered in dust. We proceed down the vault hall and stop at one and there are four mummified bodies lying there in open coffins. The tour guide laughs about how "the coffins weren't made for you. You were made for the coffins." one of the guys was so large he was cut off at the knees and his legs put under him. I saw the bog people... I can handle this. I ask questions trying to keep my cool around this extreeemly morbid event. "You can touch his hand if you want" Uh... I'll stay out here. The other guy and the tour guide walked in the cramped vault and stood over the bodies and touched the hand. OHHHH... Then we go down another vault and one is guarded by four skulls. "they were there when we found it and none of us are touching them." Yum? Then two brothers who were killed for thier part in the 1798 Rebellion--Drawn and quartered--are down the "hall" So we visited them. Their coffins were intact and so it wasn't as creepy. They even have Wolf Tone's Death mask... Coolness. We climb out. Ask a couple more questions and then say goodbye. The other guy and I start talking as we are proceeding down the street. It turns out we are going to the same place. Collins Barracks. Coolness... I have company.
