New Years in Dublin

Andy and I had a great time travelling last week, we spent a few days in Dublin (which might join Munich and Prague in filling out my favorite three cities in the world), including New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  We did the standard touristy type things, I've added the pictures to the slide show up top, but for anyone who wants to browse through them a bit more easily, the pictures in the slide show are all available here, sorted loosely by date.


One of the great highlights of the trip was getting to hear Handel's "Messiah" in Christ Church Cathedral, performed by the Georgia International Honours Chorus. I've attached video of the Hallelujah Chorus below. It was quite the experience, especially as the piece premièred in Dublin in 1742, as a joint performance by the choirs of Christ Church and St. Patrick's Cathedrals, which are both Church of Ireland.  Interestingly (at least to me), the Roman Catholic Church does not have a full cathedral in Dublin, but rather recognizes St. Mary's as a pro-cathedral, or acting cathedral, while still claiming Christ Church Cathedral as the proper seat of the Archbishop of Dublin.

After Dublin we had an adventurous trip to London, that began with going to the wrong port in the morning, a mistake we did not discover until it was too late to get to the correct port, but the next ferry left from the port we had come to.  It just meant waiting several hours, and repurchasing tickets (which we would have had to have done anyway, since our original tickets did not make it through the postal system in time, but at least Andy will get a refund on those).  After finally getting on the ferry we had an uneventful passage to Holyhead, Wales, we began the rail portion of our voyage.  It was an experience, characterized by barely fitting aboard because they sold FAR too many tickets, and, based on a conversation I overheard, decided to shorten the train from 3 cars to 2.  The train would still have been crowded with a third car, it might have even required a fourth car to let everyone have a seat.  We did at least meet some characters aboard the train, including the old man who decided he simply wouldn't be bothered and started drinking, refusing to move for anyone (we didn't really mind, since the only people he really inconvenienced were a group of very loud and rude teens), a very friendly guy around our age returning to his RAF base, and "Ferret Girl," who didn't have any ferrets with her, but who did reveal that she had that nickname during a conversation with Andy, RAF guy and myself.  Reading that back to myself, it sounds much more awkward and much less hilarious than it was at the time.  Seriously, it was wonderful.  London was good, but I would have liked a bit more time there, even though the hostel in London was no where near as nice as the one we used in Dublin (seriously, it was fantastic).