Day Four

Things have started to blur a bit by this point. I'm pretty sure this is the day I posted the accounts of Days Two and Three, so that means we were in the Starbucks down on College Green, next to the Bank of Ireland and across the corner from the main entrance to Trinity University. I think we tried to spend some time apart that morning, exploring our own separate interests, but Bea, Kim and I all ended up at Trinity to look at the Book of Kells. Actually, they wanted to see the Book of Kells and I couldn't figure out what else to do, so I went with them. What was neat is it turned out to be graduation day! We got a bit of video of students in their robes and regalia out on the grounds after their graduation ceremonies. We then went to the area where you can see the Book and found out the line was incredibly long, so we did the university gift shop and then wandered back to the hotel to drop off our purchases.
We had arranged to meet Brian at Connolly Station around three that afternoon so we could all go up to Clontarf to see Bram Stoker Experience – some sort of combination museum/fright ride about Bram Stoker, Dublin's best selling author of all time, and his creation Dracula. We got there a little late and caught the train easily, hopping off one stop later in Clontarf on Clontarf road. All we knew about the location of the attraction was that it was on that road and in some sort of recreation club. We walked towards what looked like civilization – the other direction did not seem to hold any promise. After about 15 minutes, Kim wisely went into a shop and asked for directions and we ended up turning around and heading back the way we came. There are a couple of funny things about this – the reason the other direction had not looked promising is the railway bridge blocked any view of that direction. Had we crossed the road, we would have seen much more of the town that what we saw the other way! The other funny thing is we had noted from the train the day before an advertisement for “Ireland's First 50-meter Pool!” at this gym/swimming facility. Imagine our surprise to discover that this is the recreation club containing the Bram Stoker Experience! This huge facility had an exercise gym, the afore-mentioned pool, areas for little kids to play and swim, a huge bar and dance floor, a billiards room, an arcade, climbing walls, and I don't remember what else. On the top floor at the very end of the hall was the Bram Stoker Experience – and it was actually worth the price of admission. We all learned quite a bit about the man behind the book – he was in many respects a Renaissance man, driven to seek perfection and success in all aspects of his life because of a debilitating illness that kept him bed-ridden during the first several years of his life.
We returned to the city center to attend a session of the Writer's Festival called “Ireland of the Welcomes” - dealing with the immigration issues in Ireland. Ireland, for the first time in its history, is experiencing a wave of immigration of people who are not arriving as conquerors, but as a labor class and it is dramatically changing the dynamic of the city. I know that the majority of the people who served us in pubs, restaurants, and shoppes were not native born Irish, but were instead Polish, Asian, Czechoslovakian, and Russian. Brian had a wonderful comment at the end of the discussion, but I can't remember the majority of it.
After the event, the team as a whole went looking for some traditional Irish music but, through a tragicomedy of Abbott and Costello communication and misunderstandings, ended up heading in different directions in quite a funk. Reconciliation was achieved in the early morning hours, but strong personalities will and do clash.