Dublin, Ireland

Home only one day after my trip to Copenhagen, I headed to my third island of break- Ireland. I met up in Dublin with a friend from Penn State (Luke is studying in Germany this year, and had sent me a message saying "I'm free for this one weekend, what shall we do??").

"Dublin" in Irish. The entire city is dubbed in Irish. Luke and I got off the bus from the airport at about midnight, tired and travel weary, but not so much that we weren't excited about all the Christmas decorations that were still up.
General Post Office- home of the 1916 Easter Rising. Much of Dublin is reminiscent of the very recent independence from England.

The Custom House, Dublin's "grandest" building. We got a little bit of sun this day!

Trinity College is a famous school in Dublin. They are a main destination point within the city, because they have the Book of Kells. Renowned as the most beautiful book in the world, the Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript from around 800.
Unfortunately, Trinity's library was closed. No Book of Kells for us. :-( Luke was sad, too.

St. Stephen's Green is the largest garden in Dublin. It was full of people, with plenty of kids throwing bread at the ducks, gulls, and swans.
One of the swans tried to eat my boot. I wish I'd had bread, too!

Happy carriage driver. Right jolly looking fellow.

St. Patrick's Cathedral was constructed around 1100.
They had memorials and tombs within, many of famous people and interesting stories. My favorite was the Door of Reconciliation. It didn't look like much- just a few old boards and a hole in the middle, but the story was good. Two families were feuding in the late 1400s, and one of the leaders decided the fighting was going too far. He went to the other family in peace, but they refused him entrance. To prove his good faith, the visitor hacked a hole in the door and put his arm through it, showing his trust that they harm his defenseless limb.

The floors were absolutely beautiful.
And the ceilings.
And the little kneeling pads.

Molly Malone is one of Dublin's famous statues. She's well known because of her scandalously low cut bodice. Apparently, it was even lower when she was first constructed, and the flounce you see now is an additional piece affixed in response to complaints.

Kilmainham Goal = lots of Irish history. The prisons in Ireland filled up in the 1840s and 1850s, people would commit petty crimes to be imprisoned. Prison life wasn't great- overcrowding meant disease and filth- but meager rations saved the lives of thousands of people during the potato famine.
One famous Irish nationalist who was imprisoned here was Joseph Plunkett. He married his sweetheart, Grace Gifford (another activist), in the Kilmainham Goal chapel only a few hours before he was executed.

"Darling Grace,
You will marry me and nobody else. I have been a damned fool and a blind imbecile but thank God I see I love you and you only and will never love anyone else.
Your love, Joe."

She never remarried. Both were important figures in the quest for Irish independence last century.

And, finally: tacky Irish gift store number 23901231. If you want a €15 sheep keychain that will fall apart next week, or a €12 Guinness mug that is already chipping, you can be quick

God Jul (Merry Christmas!)

I celebrated Christmas with Alexander's close family. His mom is a translator and loves to read, so there were little nooks like this one half way up the steps all over the house, filled with books in both English and Danish.
Many of the Danish Christmas traditions seemed quaint and old fashioned to me. There were people on many busy street corners selling trees, and it was not uncommon to see people hiking home with their new bit of holiday spirit over their shoulder.
The day before Christmas eve, we went out and bought a tree. It was the last tree the seller on the corner had, so we settled, despite it's "enormous size." It seemed like a pretty normal sized tree to me, until we had to carry it home!

We were all the way back to the front door when we realized we'd forgotten to have the seller nail a wooden cross to the bottom of the tree. They take trees down within a few days in Denmark, so they don't usually bother to water them. Instead, we borrowed a stand from the neighbors that was much too narrow for our large tree. Alexander and I spent a couple hours sawing off the bottom 8 inches of the trunk and then using that as a mallet and an axe as a chisel to taper down the rest. We then went around it several times with clippers and thinned it out- there was no room for decorations!
The decorations Alexander's family uses are fairly similar to home. They use a mix of store bought glass ornaments, things people have made throughout the year, and a few ornaments from "here and there" over the years. We pulled out paper Santas from a couple generations, and a couple times Alexander's mom would say "ah! Those were my mothers."

There were a few differences, however. Danish ornaments are often red and white, for the national colors; they dress their trees like their flags. They used candles, not lights, on the tree. They also often put tiny baskets filled with cookies or nuts on the tree, and cut out magazines or red and white paper to make little heart baskets according to the instructions here.
Christmas eve is the biggest day of celebration in Denmark, at least in the family I stayed with. We had a big dinner, lit candles on our newly decorated tree, sang carols in Danish (the language completely escapes me, but I got the "hallelujah" part!) and exchanged presents.
This is the song book I could only follow along in. I had to count syllables and listen for line pauses quite a bit.
We spent the rest of the evening playing a trivia game that Alexander's mom translated into English for my benefit. Occasionally, we looked questions up in enormous atlases for curiosity's sake.

Copenhagen, Denmark

On December 19, I headed to Copenhagen for a little vacation time. My friend, Alexander, had offered to let me stay with his family for Christmas.

We spent the first couple of days touring the city. We went to an art museum, botanical garden, saw a castle, and had a general walking tour of the city- saw the little mermaid, their new theater and opera house, the queen's palace, walked around an island that used to be used for defense purposes and was shaped like a turtle, distracted a cute dog with a name I couldn't pronounce, and popped through a Christmas market. After I got all the sight seeing out of my system, we kicked back for the rest of the week. I got to see Denmark as the Danes live- we went to a friend's house for dinner, did a bunch of Christmas shopping, saw a movie, and did the Danish Christmas thing.


The Little Mermaid is "the national symbol of Denmark." She is a pretty little thing sitting just off a walking path in the harbor, and attracts tourists and vandals- over the years she's had her head stolen a couple times, her arm stolen, various occasions and colors of paint dumped on her, and dressed up. Carlsberg is the famous brewer of Denmark, and they have elephants on their building.
Mom and dad. They decorate cemeteries in Denmark almost as well as in Germany.
The wilderness! There were all sorts of ducks and geese and swans in this moat, surrounding the turtle-shaped defense island.
Everyone loves a windmill!
I love the colors of buildings, and all the boats in this canal. Off to the right are lights hung over a little Christmas market.
Botanical gardens! The building straight ahead is the green house, but there were a fair number of things to see and people walking about outside as well.
I don't think they could have squeezed more paintings into this room of the art museum. Note that the ceilings are VERY tall, many of those paintings are over 5 feet wide or tall.
A castle!! In the night time! Only, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon when I took this photo. Too far north.
In Europe, people walk around gardens even when it is cold. This was a particularly sunny day, though! :-)
We even found a peacock!!
And... a palace?
I love when little buildings like this spring up at you while on a quick walk somewhere. Little cute spots tucked away.
And, of course, we had to go to Tivoli!
They had fantastic Christmas lights up all over, a cute Christmas market, a building set up like the north pole with elves, have an Illuminations lights show, and we made it for the first night of their January fireworks displays (they started them Dec 26).
In Denmark, Christmas is also referred to as the Celebration of the Heart. I'm not sure exactly why, and I didn't quite understand the explanation, but it meant that the decorations in the city are half Christmas and half Valentine's Day.
Of course, we also rode some roller coasters! There was a GIANT swings that we went on as well- you could see almost all of Copenhagen!